Ledinsky "High Society" treatment

In short: We follow Ledinsky's journey from his revelation that he's stuck in the hamster wheel that is modern society, how he frees himself from it's shackles, goes on a soul searching road trip, moves into a cabin in the woods where he befriends the animals and become best friends and weed buddies with a bear.

Script

The video opens with a shot of early morning LA. We are outside Daniel's house, we hear birds singing in the background. One of Daniel's dogs walks into frame as the opening chords start playing. We follow the dog walking from outside in through the open garage door, through Daniel's rehearsal space/studio, walking over music gear and instruments, up the stairs through a dark doorway into darkness. We fade up from black into a dream sequence. We see Daniel from above, sleeping on a mattress on the floor. White pillow, white sheets. He's having nightmares. The nightmares are projected onto and around him on the bed and the room, very Michel Gondry style - this is all done with practical effects and in camera. We see animations of cog wheels, a hamster stuck in its wheel, workers lining up, punching in the clock, money in piles, executives laughing. The images projected are cut at a high and stressful pace, but the shot itself of the bed and the room is still, only zooming slightly. The tonality and feel of the scene is reminiscent of The Science of Sleep.

As the song passes the line "I've been working since age 13" the dog walks into frame aiming for Daniel's face. The dog licks his face and wakes him up. Simultaneously we cut away from the dream sequence seen from above, to a shot from the side, the projections are gone, the room is back to normal, sunlight coming in through the windows hits his face. Daniel sits up, squinting, pets the dog with a hand to his forehead, face grimacing, burdened by the insight that yet another day in the hamster wheel awaits. Think Ron from Office Space, before quitting his job. 

Then, In front of him on his window sill, sits a bird. Their eyes meet and the bird starts talking to him. "Daniel, we've all been fooled, nothing is what it seems". Daniel is speechless, not knowing if he's still dreaming or this is real. As the backwards cymbal cues up the chorus, the bird then blows smoke in Daniel’s face in slow motion. We cut to a reversed first person perspective, as Daniel enters a rush and a high like never before. Extreme close up of Daniel’s eye as the pupils dilate wide open. We cut to wider shots in slow motion, covered in a clouds of smoke, the world is spinning around him. This sequence is shot with special warping lenses that distort the world around Daniel, but leaves what's in focus/his face) relatively intact. See picture of dog below for reference. We won't use the overly used, digital looking post production plug-ins to warp the image, everything is analog and done in camera. Still image references below. Also see the video for Queens of the Stone Age's "Smooth Sailing" for references for what we are going for with the reversed first person shots of the buzz/high/tripping far out.

We see a close up shot of Daniel's face against a dark void, hair slightly waving in the breeze. We cut out and he we see him floating in space. He is deep into the trip now.

We are approaching the end of the chorus. We exit Daniel's high with a shot of him from above, laying on the ground. The scene is shot in reverse. First the frame is filled with smoke, but it quickly pulls away and disappears back out to the sides (smoke blown into frame but reversed), Daniel opens his eyes and "wakes up" from the trip, filled with the insight of a thousand mushroom & DMT trips combined. He knows what needs to be done now.
Verse 2 hits. Cut to Daniel and his dogs leaving his home. They hop into an old van, and as they are driving away, we see large flames burst out of his open garage door. Cut to them driving out of the city, up into the mountains and the wilderness. Epic wide shots of mountains, valleys and ridges.

They arrive at a small cabin deep in the woods where it seems as time has stood still for a couple of decades.

Daniel walks up to the cabin. He sits down, lights a joint and look around. It's peaceful. He lays down on the ground, looking up into the trees, listening to the birds. We're now at 1.40, where the song calms down slightly and starts building again. We cut to a wide shot of Daniel laying there, blowing smoke up into the air. We see animals watching him from behind tree stumps and up in trees. They are calm but curious.
 

Cut back to Daniel. A large shadow slowly falls on him. He slowly opens his eyes and lifts his head. We cut to a shot from Daniel's perspective, looking up against the sun, blocked by a large silhouette. A Grizzly Bear stands before him on its hind legs, looking at him, only an arms length away. They're still, frozen, just watching each other. The animals around them are still too, standing in a large circle around them in the forest, like spectators in an arena, everyone's holding their breath. You could hear a pin drop. Cut between close ups of Daniel's and the Bear's eyes as the song builds. Calm movements in the Bear's face, ears are slightly moving, eyes calmly blink. Daniel finally has to exhale the breath he's been holding in. The smoke he has in his lungs flow over the bear’s face in slow motion. We cut to a close up of the bears’ eyes and the pupils dilate. 

Cut to a wide shot of Daniel and the Bear lying down on the ground with a joint each, both high as kites, blowing smoke into the air. 
The chorus then continues with a montage of them hanging out. They're best friends and total weed buddies. Their chemistry is a lot like that of the Joaquin Phoenix's character and the software in the movie "Her".

They're like the stoner slacker version of Kevin Costner and the wolf from "Dances with wolves", an on paper impossible friendship between wild animal and man. They're Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise in Rain Man. They're Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider - it's them against the rest of the world, giving zero fucks. They're best friends. What they are NOT is the chemistry Dumb & Dumber - the Bear isn't goofy or doing anything exaggerated. It's more the animal version of Silent Bob from the Kevin Smith movies, or Baymax from Big Hero 6. It doesn't speak, it's performance is bear-like, besides the fact that it's smoking tons of weed and is hanging out with Daniel.
The comedic undertones isn't those of slipping on banana skids and goofy gags, it's in the heartfelt but absurd situations we see them in.

We see them take long walks in the forest, we see them sit in the swing on the porch outside the cabin, we see them dangle their feet off a cliff and skip stones in a lake. They go fishing together, they're hanging out. We see them having an axe throwing contest, the bear hits the bullseye and Daniel yells like his favourite team just scored, arms raised, with a massive joint in his mouth. We see them blow smoke rings together,  we see them getting baked on the porch with an owl. More scenes like this is added to the montage.
All of these scenes are shot in dreamy, filmic slow motion, shot with a mixture of vintage lenses and the "high/warped" lenses from earlier.

In the final scene we see Daniel and the Bear from the front, as they're sitting watching the sunset together. Cut to a super wide shot from behind, them and Daniel's dogs are just silhouettes in the magical red sunlight hitting the lens. We see Daniel lifting his hand to his face, he takes another drag on the joint, slowly leans to the side towards the Bear and lays his head on the Bear's shoulder. He exhales the smoke.

Cut to black.

Locations & days needed

Video will be shot in Los Angeles and in Big Bear, California.

Approx. shoot time:
1 day in LA, CA
1 day road trip shots, CA
1 day cabin in the woods, Big Bear, CA
= 3 days total

Deadline & delivery

Possible and preferred shoot days Oct 3rd-7th. Edit, grade & post production will be done during the shoot and the following week Oct 10th-14th.
Preferred video delivery between Oct 17th-21st. Delivery can be rushed and made possible as early as Oct 14th if needed.

Animal suits, animatronics & puppets

All animal movement and animation is done in-camera, for real, on location. Please watch animation reel for video and images of the puppets and suits!

Thank you!

/Peder