Music Video Director Study - Michel Gondry

Michel Gondry born in 1963 in france is an academy award winning film, commercial and music video director, famous for his inventive visual styles and ideas. His use of careful attention to detail and camera trickery make him a director that makes the most of his time in the shooting of his projects, with many, of his projects appearing as one shot videos a constant duration with the action perfectly executed and the camera tricks lending the inventiveness that is usually attributed to special effects added in post production. But if Michel Gondy's work is something it is something that refuses to be pigeon holed or repetitive, every video created by Gondry maintains his professionalism but plays with so many conventions, and there truly is no other director who can produce the visuals in front of a camera so well.

Music Video Narrative

The videos of the Foo Fighters are always inventive and range from contemporary videos to surreal narratives. 'Everlong' is directed by michel Gondry, and is one of the most recognisable songs and videos of The Foo Fighters, the video uses different narratives with different colour schemes, time zones and aesthetics with the same characters trapped in a cycling dream world paying homage to many different films including 'Sid and nancy' and 'The Evil Dead', the surrealist and homage style makes Everlong a sensationalist piece, a music video that uses and abuses the conventions of Music Video to create an interesting and well shot video.

Music Video and Film

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn_YodiJO6k&feature=fvst - RHC - OTHERSIDE VIDEO

Music Videos upon many influences to make themselves interesting and attract a wide audience, a good music video can come down to its influences and how it tells a story already told, again and differently, paying homage to great cinematic visions. In the Red Hot Chilli Peppers video for 'Otherside' the direction and style is based on German Expressionism one of the grounding movements of cinema. It draws on the styles ability to create surrealism with minimalism and psychological nuances in the black and white backgrounds to create an effective music video, with a distinct Expressionist feel, a throwback to the founding directors of the darker elements of film and film itself.

The music video for The Smashing Pumpkins, 'Tonight Tonight' is a homage to the silent film 'Trip to the Moon', shot in 3 days the film was created to show the surrealist nature of the first science fiction film (as Trip to the Moon was seen) and recreate it awash with psychedelic colour, to draw a parallel to the norm of early cinema and its surrealism in acting and composition as it seems today, the music fits the song perfectly and the music, direction and band are so devoted tot he aesthetic the video comes off stylishly.

Music Video Director Study - Spike Jonze

Born in the USA in 1969, Spike Jonze made honed his creative talent known  by doing the photography (and producing) for various extreme sports magazines, his career really began in advertising, creating various award winning adverts for Adidas and Ikea before moving onto music video, television (co creator of 'Jackass' and executive producer) and feature film directing (has academy award nominations for directing and producing and is a common collaborator with regarded screenwriter Charlie Kauffman . He has created videos for R.E.M, beastie Boys, Bjork, Fatboy Slim and many others, his work focusing on the surreal and counter culture, one of his most highly regarded works, and arguably one that out him on the map was his video for Fatboy Slims "Praise You", the use of improvisation and handheld camera work was a stroke of genius that encapsulated the coming voyeuristic media that is shown on youtube and all over the web today. The dance inspired a documentary about Jonze's alter ego, the leader of the improvisional dance group and the troupe performed the dance live at the MTV Music Awards. Spike Jonze is most definitely seen as an icon for todays media creating interesting and innovative products. Today he continues to work at exactly what he is good at, producing the Jackass films and continuing to add heralded music videos to his repertoire, most recently for the rebirth of the Beastie Boys and for Kanye West and Jay Z's new single Otis.

Music Video Technique - Special Effects

Special effects are a great way to make a music video interesting, by creating something that can only be imagined is more possible than ever with modern technology and was always in the thoughts of the most classic filmmakers, as Stanley Kubrick once said "If it can be thought, it can be filmed". With this philosophy Music Video directors constantly strive to create the impossible and surreal, in this video Bjork is superimposed onto 2 different robotic humans, looking at the making of video above we can see how painstaking and stressful relying on special effects can be, but persevere results in a great and highly regarded video regardless of how hard the initial production is.

Vandal - Mad As Hell

The video is a simple mime of a kid in school, who listening to the song, decides to get up stick his head out of the window and leave the boring establishment, leading the entire class and school with him onto the field, in a mass of people.

Music Video Technique - Atmosphere

Music Video is all about the feeling of the music in relation to the visuals, they can contrast for effect but personally a music video should express visually exactly what the song does. This can make it feel like a short film rather than a performance and hopefully come out better for it. For example loosely establishing characters and motifs, for example a sample from the video above the protagonist walks past a group of loitering young men, the atmospheric menace is strongest here in contrast to the visuals where a monster is seen and that is clever use of atmosphere.

Music Video Director Study -Jonathan Glazer

Jonathan Glazer is a music video and film director, named MTV DIrector of the year 1997 his videos are heralded for their originality and creativity playing with atmosphere and usually shelving the music in a video for a more intense visual experience. His views on people, desperate, lonely men struggling in a dark world are presented in many of his films in different ways. His use of camera tricks and ability to make believable characters is a testament to how music video can be used, he seems to create dramatic and interesting narratives simply out of a character based on the music and the mise en scene, as shown in the video above.

Ideas for Music Video

I've opted for a more delicate approach to the film, using high contrast and vague cut together shots to try and piece together a narrative. Using a mismatch bunch of visuals including a One SHot take that will play throughout to the song The First Day Of My Life by Bright Eyes. The original video for the song is a testament to the mood I wish to create but does not have the narrative elements I feel need to be expressed. The storyboarding and concept art will be published shortly...

This music video is an interesting experiment in costume and special effects, and really makes me think about how Green Screen can be used when forming my final idea for music video. The video showcases how costume and backdrop can be used, the seamless transitions between each stage of the video, just out of sight, is a good way to remove complicated shots from your video (cutting costs and post production) I will bear this in mind when I make my video, and think about the possibility of using costume and CGI backdrops.

Music Video Technique - Movement 2

This video (directed by Jonathan Glazer who will be explained in a later post) is a great experiment in moving the environment, using minimal special effects and a lot of effort from the crew, the room seems to move around the artist seamlessly and gracefully, the audience unsure what is coming or going just enjoys the film. The use of movement makes the video, in contrast to Only You video blogged previously these prove that with movement the effect can always be different and interesting, and movement is a serious aspect of music video I may use in my film.

Music Video Technique - Movement 1

Movement is an important part of music video, the human form can be shown in different ways, without abiding by normal film conventions, the same can be said for the environment. For example in the video for Portishead - Only You (directed by Chris Cunningham) the actors are filmed under water, rewound in different movements then using special effects placed in a street. The video, almost devoid of real narrative relies on the strange movements and placing of the actors to purvey a meaning, the strange lighting and "street underwater" is a triumph of movement in music video, a picture of how interesting camera work can lend to special effects, and use the human form to great effect.

Artist Study #1 Gorillaz

Gorillaz, the virtual super group created by musical genius and Blur frontman Damon Albarn and animator Jamie Hewlett is the definition of post modern and future music. Created in 1998 the "music project" has been a phenomenal success, breaking a huge intertnational audience (namely America, United Kingdom and Japan)  the "band" has released 4 albums spanning a wide virtual narrative about the band memebers with animation and additions to the narrative with every subsequent album, including a tour (once featuring completely virtual band on stage), since the internet Gorillaz has sky rocketed using marketing and technology to their advantage, the internet giving fans a chance to hear, see and interview the virtual characters, their most recent album, "The Fall" was recordered and mixed whilst on tour in America on the iPad and interestingly was a complete move from the guest heavy and hyped album Plastic Beach, The Fall having little to no marketing or guests. The visual style of Gorillaz is a key concept to their success, the anime esque drawings made them ripe for an asian audience. This is shown quite clearly in their videos which (almost always) portray an ongoing narrative, a story to follow to the bands own musicm, the video being an integral part of the virtual bands world filled with special guests and spectacular situations featuring cameos from guest artists. The visual style and music infused narratives in their videos create a likeable thoroughly modern artistic movement, one where the artists don't need to exist.

The 2 posted videos feature the birth of the futuristic band, the video and single "tomorrow comes today" is a haunting song and video on modern society, Gorillaz appear to be an existential and strange musical force, ready to break into a new millennium, whereas the video for later single from their 3rd album "Stylo" features complicated CGI characters and Bruce Willis, the video seamlessly blends cinematic reality with Gorillaz already strange narrative, they both show how the band has evolved, their sound and their general appearance/narrative.

One Shot Music Video

"No Surprises" the single by mega alternative band Radiohead features a disturbing single shot of Thom Yorke, in a container slowly filling up with water, holding his breath until it pours out again. The video is as saddening as it is unclear what is happening, the vague, anti-government lyrics are reflected in Yorke's expression and entrapment, the one shot video is a concept that can be boring or confusing, but with crisp quality, an interesting artist and a genuinely unclear video and song the video works at a different level, the song suiting the video. The science fiction edge gives the video an interesting futuristic visual element, unseen lights dance from behind the camera, all reflected in the container. This use of light and water, anti government lyrics and the artist makes for an interesting minimalist video.

Kid Cudi - Day 'N' Nite

This music video for hip hop artist Kid Cudi is a personal favourite. The combination of the standard (though oddly humorous) real world photography and the complicated, surreal and subverting animation makes for a visual treat. It abides by the rules of Music Video, creating apt visual metaphors for the lyrics (however vague) and paints a picture of a hip hop artist confused by his own success, portrayed as living in a strange world of surreal success and crushing banality. The animation is clearly the most groundbreaking aspect of the video, despite the bright colours and characters the animation still feels adult, most probably because the animation is stripped on and off giving the viewer a distorted vision of reality.

Music Video DIrector Study - Chris Cunningham

Chris Cunningham is a music video director, digital artist and short film director. Born in 1970 and brought up in Suffolk he defines the modern digital filmmaker using surreal effects, set ups, costume, CGI and prosthetics to create startling and interesting work. He has done groundbreaking work on abusing "The Uncanny Valley" his works pushing to give the viewer a sense of dread, surrealism and dark humour.

His music videos for British music artist Aphex Twin gave Cunningham large media coverage that continues to grow with the videos popularity on the internet, they are no doubt his best known works "Windowlicker" and "Come to Daddy", and the two continued to collaborate on Cunningham's short film "Rubber Johnny". All 3 films are distinctly surreal and counter a lot of popular conventions without breaking them. For example in Come to Daddy (posted above) the artist is shown in the forefront of the film, one of the conventions of music video, but instead of being sensationalised or sexualised he is portrayed as a dark, dystopian force the artists face grafted onto a hideous monster and "yobbish" children.

Chris Cunningham's focus on the deranged and visually interesting has led to many small but impressive film projects, having never jumped over to feature film directing, Cunningham has continued to experiment and interest the media savvy community and hone his own craft, his videos, art instalments and short films branching from the mainstream

My favourite music video of the 80s

This is the music video for 80s alternative pop band Talking Heads, single "Once In a Lifetime". Its visual effects and focus on David Byrne are a reflection on the conventions of music video, it is a sensationalist and colourful video and allowed Talking Heads frontman (and former art and design student) David Byrne to fuse his vision of Talking Heads and freedom of art together, creating a striking and artisitic visual style. David Byrne to this day pushes the boundarys of music and art and this inventive video represents Talking Heads Art/Music style.