Image via Wikipedia
The setting is a ballroom, dark and perhaps sort of dingy — think the rave in Zion from the second Matrix movie, but the difference is that instead of the audience finding it unpleasant, the ravers are the ones having a bad time. They are dancing, but their facial expressions are pained and tortured. Some are crying, some are just grimacing. A few of them have facial bruises. We pan up and find burly men holding guns in the balconies, looking serious and harshly militaristic. The band is on stage, and they are performing the song neither happily or scared — they’ve got a job to do and they’re doing it, nothing more, nothing less. The song itself should be a happy, upbeat, electropoppish type number — ideally nothing lyrically to betray the unpleasant scene.
The video should be shot and edited like most of the other Band-Performing-For-Lots-Of-Sexy-Fans type of cliché music videos, but aside from the terrified and abused dancers, there should be other things in the background. Occasionally the guards drag someone out (in the background — nothing of this type should be foregrounded), or strike a blow against someone not dancing to their liking. Perhaps there are even muzzle flashes (NOT on the soundtrack, again, background stuff). The dancers, too, should all be of the type that you typically see in the non-nightmare versions of this video, vaguely modellish, at least on the upper end of looks. The idea should be a Standard Video Gone Horribly Wrong But Not In A Funny Way. It should just generally be unpleasant. No one is saved at the end.
The potential ending: The band starts playing the same song again and we fade to black. Again, the band should basically be emotionless.
