Video production notes for Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech
Early morning over a Brooklyn flea market. Brief, subtle, lens flare as ethnically diverse, but homogeneously attractive, stallholders set out their wares and greet early customers.
Camera moves across the square, lingering briefly on smiling faces as they lovingly shake out colourful pashminas, set outsized naïve art canvases on stands, place hand-painted Kashmiri bracelets on bare arms. Evocative dustcloud rises as a stallholder heaves stall shelving into place.
Re: faces – median age 24.75, but at least one outlier at each extreme (no older than 65 and no younger than 6 months). Piercings and tattoos within acceptable bounds – “exotic/alluring but not frightening/alienating” for affluent, mostly white, Gen-Y/Millenial demographic. Multicultural Affinity targeting should definitely be considered to be in play, but not at expense of thematic unity.
Thematic unity to be built around the presence of BeverageTBC™ – a force for positivity, unity, and living the life you have always wanted™. BeverageTBC™ should be visible among the effects of the stallholders. One stallholder who wipes sweat from his brow is thirstily downing a can after constructing his stall. A customer sips at a can while her hand is being painted with ornate, henna patterns.
??Where are we at with negotiations with BeverageCompanyX™ and BeverageCompanyY™??
Obviously discreetly playing them off against each other should work in our favour but primary emphasis of pitch should be the cultural moment represented by MLK dream speech. The personal characteristics of all the great civil rights leaders should shine through this commercial spot:
i) positivity,
ii) leaning and leaping into the moment to seize great opportunities, and
iii) living the life they have always wanted.™
I say to you today, my friends, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.
Cut to struggling artist (let’s say, Korean-Russian-Scottish?) in studio apartment standing before an easel. Half the canvas is blank but something appropriately expressionistic is struggling to emerge from what he has already painted. (Avoid Munchesque references at all costs; think Franz Marc or Ken Done instead.) Artist flings paintbrush into the air in frustration; drops of paint fly in slow motion off the brush and into the air.
Cut to writer (could be Italo-Sino-Cherokee) in booth of dimly-lit, boho café tapping out words on archaic Lettera 10. She tears the unfinished sheet from the typewriter, crumples it and throws it to the floor.
Cut to graphic designer (African-American-Middle-Eastern-Latino) wearing an inoffensively ironic t-shirt in open-plan design studio with solid rustic bench and shelf options who clicks and drags a bold, colourful stripe* across a brochure layout which is visible on laptop screen.°
*colour TBC based on corporate branding and colour palette of approved client.
°laptop brand & make TBC depending on Subsidiary/Additional Product Placement and Visual Field Monetisation agreements being entered into.
These three central characters are not yet living the lives they have always wanted™ and are struggling to find their authentic selves without the positivity and leaning into opportunity that BeverageTBC™ brings.
It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream… I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia sons of former slaves and sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
??Have we secured a Kardashian/Jenner yet??
Obviously Kim if we can get her, and we could stretch to a Kendall or Kourtney. But don’t interrupt a meeting if all you have in hand is a Khloe, Kylie or a Brody.
She stands in a rooftop garden, sipping a BeverageTBC-lite™, dappled sunlight falling on her flawless skin. Her reverie is interrupted by the sound of laughter and cheering from the square and streets below. She looks over (birds-eye POV) to see crowds of people leaving their homes and filing into the market, waving colourful flags and banners. They are ecstatic (protest-positive) about the opportunities they have to lean or jump into to live the lives they have always wanted.™
Close up on Kim/Kendall/Kourtney as her eyes widen in recognition that this is her moment, the cause for which she has been waiting, and that she is the leader the cause has been craving.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice...
??Check actual mechanism by which BeverageTBC™ will end racism?? Not sure it can all be depicted in 60 sec evening-shoulder time-slot, but worth developing further footage for extended cut of this advertisement and for future campaigns.
E.g. #1: cans of BeverageTBC™ being passed from hand to hand in emergency-distribution-logistical style.
E.g. #2: a line of police dogs on leashes are drinking BeverageTBC™ out of bowls into which protesters empty their cans.
E.g. #3: riot-suited police threaten use of water-cannons/pepper-spray on protestors but, to their delight, change their minds and – shaking up cans – spray protestors with BeverageTBC™
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low.
Streams of protestors entering marketplace from all directions, radiating unity and positivity. Cans of BeverageTBC™ should be organically placed within the scene – being taken from backpacks, shared with small children, stacked as barricades to hold the line against police “kettling”, held in clenched fists to be hurled as potent messages of positivity and the life you have have always wanted™ against any who would stand against this powerful moment of unity.
Camera draws back from close-up of henna-ed hands as young woman moves to join stream of protesters even before henna pattern is finished.
Camera draws back from close-up of pashmina as stallholder wraps cloth around her arm, waving it as a banner, as she rushes to join the protesters.
Cut to writer, who overturns typewriter, picks up notebook and pen and exits the cafe to join the protestors and document this historic moment of unity and positivity.
Cut to artist, who overturns easel and canvas, picks up sketch-pad and pencil and exits the studio to join the protestors and create the first artistic responses to this historic revolution of unity and positivity.
Cut to graphic designer, who overturns laptop, picks up tablet and exits the design studio to join the protestors, already designing the first revolutionary posters and the iconography of unity and positivity which will prominently feature BeverageTBC™.
Cut to Kim/Kendall/Kourtney who takes an express elevator from the rooftop garden to join the protestors, shrugging off her appealingly camel-coloured trenchcoat and pushing through the throngs which part to allow her through. Recognising the authenticity of the way she lives the life she has always wanted™, the writer, artist and graphic designer all step back, preparing to record and respond to her positivity and actions for unity. Henna hand girl passes a can of BeverageTBC™ to Kim/Kendall/Kourtney.
This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.
At the head of the protest now, Kim/Kendall/Kourtney faces the massed array of NYPD and National Guard who have ringed the market-place and radiate (if this is possible) the opposite of unity and positivity. She pauses for a moment, while those around her exchange worried glances.
Stepping forward, Kim/Kendall/Kourtney confidently presses her can of BeverageTBC™ into the hands of a stony-faced police sergeant, who cannot help breaking into a grin in the face of her overwhelming positivity and the unity which BeverageTBC has wrought.
So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring…
Kim/Kendall/Kourtney now steps backwards, into the ecstatically-welcoming arms of the artist, writer and graphic designer, who stand in front of the widely cheering throng. The new brand slogan for BeverageTBC™, “LET FREEDOM RING” appears over the screen as these four figures embrace. In the background, cans of BeverageTBC™ are being passed along the line to our newly positive first responders and armed service people who have been raised to a new level of consciousness about how, by living the lives they have always wanted™, they can help everyone live the lives they have always wanted.™
File under: Let Freedom Ring™ | the end of history
(Image Source: tvline.com)
