island def jam - music video Pitch/Treatment

LOGLINE:

What begins as a classic ’50s-style drag race pitting one female driver against another builds into something else—a meditation on youth, life and desperation—resulting in an unexpected, tragic ending.

TREATMENT:

Late afternoon. We open in a remote clearing somewhere in small-town America. From the ’50s clothing and hairstyles, we know what time period we’re in as we circle around preps and jock types in letterman jackets, along with their girlfriends—all in period clothing. A few classic cars are parked haphazardly around them. One of them is a striking red muscle car. The teens are having a good time, drinking beers, cracking jokes.

A beautiful black muscle car approaches, as eye-catching as the red one. Two guys exit from the backseat. Cut from a different cloth, these are boys from the other side of the tracks (in a ’50s movie sense), with leather jackets and rockabilly haircuts. From the driver’s seat a quintessential James Dean GREASER steps out, and from the passenger seat, his GREASER GIRLFRIEND. She has a leather biker jacket and jet-black hair, her eyes dripping with venom. Think: a young Joan Jett.

First verse. Tension fills the space between these two groups. Outnumbering them, the preps circle the greasers, one pushing another into the dirt. But the PREP LEADER holds them back. He takes a swig of his beer, and spits a mouthful toward the greaser. The greaser plays it cool, taking a last drag of his cigarette and then grounding out the stub with his heel. He combs his hair back. All the while, their girlfriends stand by them.

It’s time for the race to begin. But instead of the guys preparing to get into the cars, it’s the girlfriends who walk over to the driver’s-side doors. Segueing into the first chorus, the girls kiss their boyfriends. We see the PREP’S GIRLFRIEND (blonde, beautiful with quiet determination), slip something into her boyfriend’s pocket as she does so—a note? it’s subtle, and he doesn’t notice. Stone-faced, the greaser girl is cooler than cool as she ducks into the black car. She stares daggers at the prep girl, who doesn’t notice, looking only at the dirt road ahead as she climbs into the red car, lost in thought. A rag is tossed high up. We stay on this rag in slow-mo as it sails through the air and falls to the ground. In that instant, the cars tear off, leaving a cloud of dust in their wake.

Second verse. Now, it’s just the two girls in their respective cars. We cut between their faces, fierce determination plastered across each. The greaser girl’s expression is tough and mean, while something about the prep girl’s face hints at a kind of desperation. We continue to move back and forth between the two, as they shift up through the gears. Out the windows, it’s magic hour—a dark gray-blue—the cars racing against the dying light. As we stay on the greaser girl, she appears to have second thoughts. During the musical breakdown, we see these thoughts: her future life flashing in her mind. a greaser wedding, her family with her boyfriend, growing old. At the end of this series of quick flashes, she bails, opening her car door and tumbling out, rolling a dozen times through the dirt. The black car pulls to the side, crashes into a tree. Back at the starting line, the preps erupt in a cheer.

Last verse. Although she’s already won, the prep girl keeps going faster than ever, her foot pressed hard against the accelerator. Struggling to see what’s happening in the distance, the prep leader shoves his hands in his pockets only to find that slip of paper. We don’t know what it says, but from his eyes widening with horror, we know it’s not good. He drops the note and sprints ahead, the evening wind whipping at his face and hair.

We’re in the final chorus now. Back to the red car, the prep girl guns it as fast as it’ll go as she edges closer and closer to what we now see is a cliff’s edge on the horizon. She keeps going, the precipice hurtling toward her. Back at the starting line, the crowd is watching, jaws open. The prep leader is running as fast as he can. Then... the red car throttles over the cliff, sailing majestically à la Thelma and Louise—only here, we witness the resulting crash, a fiery explosion against the rocks below. Still running, the boyfriend screams out. Meanwhile, the greaser girl, bloodied, bruised and covered in dirt, rises to her feet in a daze. We move close on her scratched and dirty face. She’s stunned.