Birthdays and Holidays / Music Video Treatment
Sc 01 / Open 0:00 / 2:40
A man in silhouette holds a single lit birthday candle close to his chest, warm light against a cold blue window behind him.
Music Video Treatment

Birthdays
& Holidays

Vulture · Directed & Written by Marquis Barnes

Every year he showed up. She kept the tally anyway.

Runtime 2:40 Shoot scope TBD
The Aurap. 01

Not a love song.A running tally.

He never missed one. Every birthday, every holiday, every occasion that counts as proof — he was there, and he never let her hurt for it. That's the whole defense he's got, and the record backs him up.

But a perfect record doesn't buy trust once suspicion sets in. The video isn't about the breakup. It's about the exact moment a man realizes his receipts don't matter anymore — that "I showed up every year" stopped being an answer to what she's actually asking.

A man at a candlelit kitchen table, hands folded, holiday lights blurred behind him.
Ref — the tally, kept at a kitchen table

“Birthdays and holidays / I never had you hurtin'.”Birthdays and Holidays — Vulture

The Storyp. 02

What actuallyhappens.

No performance-to-camera, no lip-sync. Pure narrative, no dialogue. One apartment, one couple, four occasions across a single year, told in order.

  1. The Birthday. Candlelight, string lights, the two of them at the table. He's present, attentive, engaged. This is the version of himself he can prove happened.
  2. The Suspicion. Same apartment, months later. Nothing has happened between them on screen — that's the point. He's just started watching the door, checking his phone, uneasy for a reason he can't name and won't say out loud.
  3. The Holiday. The unease becomes a scene. Cold string lights and a warm tree fighting for the same room. A fight neither of them planned. She turns for the door.
  4. New Year. Whatever happened at the holiday, he's alone now — phone-lit, fireworks outside he isn't watching.
  5. The Return. Closing image: the exact gesture that opened the video — one hand, one candle — except there's no one across the table anymore. The tally he kept was real. It still wasn't enough.
A man in silhouette holds a single lit birthday candle close to his chest.

One candle. Two temperatures of light.

He's never lit by one light source alone. The candle he keeps lighting — for her — is always fighting a colder light bleeding in from somewhere off-frame. The warmth is real. So is what's closing in on it.

Four Occasionsp. 03

One year. Same room, same candle, less trust.

Four occasions, same practical light sources — candles and string lights — redressed and re-graded as the year turns and the warmth loses ground.

A man at a candlelit kitchen table, hands folded, holiday lights blurred behind him.

The Birthday

A kitchen table, candlelight only, string lights soft-focus behind him. The warmest occasion in the film — and the one the chorus keeps returning to.

A man silhouetted against hard daylight through window blinds, checking his phone.

The Suspicion

Harsh daylight, no warmth anywhere in the frame. Blinds stripe the wall like a countdown. The first occasion he starts watching the door.

Two silhouetted figures in a living room, cold blue string lights on one wall and a warm tungsten Christmas tree on the other.

The Holiday

Cold string lights and a warm tree fighting for the same room. One figure already turning for the door. The confrontation the whole song has been circling.

A man alone at a high window at night, distant fireworks blurred behind him, lit only by his phone.

New Year

No candle this time. Just a phone glow and fireworks he's not watching. The one occasion he spends completely alone.

The Ledgerp. 04

His sideof the record.

A recurring insert throughout the edit — his tally, kept in voiceover text on screen, undercut by what the visual is actually showing.

Nextp. 05

The song islocked.

  1. Write the shot beats off this treatment — one setup per occasion, four total.
  2. Lock location and cast for the two-person Holiday scene.
  3. Production agreement — pending budget, day rate, and usage terms from the artist side before this gets built and made signable.
Birthdays and Holidays

Directed & Written by Marquis Barnes

Vulture — Birthdays and Holidays
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