I had been wanting to start a thread on music videos for some time but I was kind of afraid to since sometimes I find people view videos as something quite superfluous.
One day I saw a video that I felt was a bit disturbing. The song is You’re Beautiful by this singer called James Blunt. I was quite surprised at the end when he jumps off a cliff. I then talked on IM to Mossy about since I was in a ‘mood’ about it. Particularly since I couldn’t find anything that acknowledged in some way that this video is about suicide to a degree. *rant rant rant to Mossy*. Since I was studying for exams late at night sometimes I watch music videos since it seems they are the only thing on that late. I kept running into that one. Such a lovely song with such a ‘different’ music video to accompany it (not to mention for a debut artist). Sometimes I find that if something is bothering me I need to research it. So that is what did. I then ended up finding this site. It’s a site which profiles directors for a particular media company. I didn’t even know sites like this existed!!! I never really thought about the thought process behind directors and music videos before. I then ended up checking out Sam Brown's (The director of the cliff jumping video ) other video work. Hearing some of his thoughts and concepts on videos I was like cool!! I never would have thought of that. I also heard his explanation of the concept of the You’re beautiful video and it made me feel a little bit better about it. I also checked out this Sam Brown’s other work for the song called High since I knew there was a European version of that video for that particular song and it had alcohol induced visions (I remember the singer being buried in sand, some vodka , a desert and some other really messed up things.) It was an OK video but I find sometimes being literal or obvious may not be the best route to go with these sort of things .(Sometimes obvious can be really boring, although it does take me a while to figure out symbolism. You would not believe how long it took me to figure out that the TV show Buffy The Vampire Slayer was about a teenage girl growing up and fighting her demons
). Anyway Sam Brown had said he wanted 2 different videos for High running concurrently, one for the verses and one for the choruses. I thought it was a fascinating reinterpretation of the same song. I never would have thought of that. I found myself really liking Sam Brown’s style of doing things, simple and understated. I looked at a video of his that featured the actress Mischa Barton and she’s a pretty girl. He made her look even prettier. * Above was a long boring introduction on how I go to the subject of movies and music videos*
So anyway I am talking to Mossy about how I never knew about websites that profiled directors and their music videos. I ended up commenting on how Michel Gondry (director of the movie of Eternal Sunshine if the Spotless mind.) had done music videos. I had heard about it from an interview with Elijah Wood, but I had never thought about the videos Gondry actually had done. If anyone has seen Eternal Sunshine you can see Gondry uses quite a bit of experimental and in house techniques in the movie.
Also, I had recently seen a band basically imitate the poster shot from the movie as a concept for their music video (the couple lying down on the ice) It was like video to movie to video. ( I really love Eternal Sunshine)I then thought how do directors first get directing oppourtunities? I mean they don’t just instantly get a movie deal from nothing. Music videos would be a perfect way to try creative and experimental stuff in a 5 minute format with music. I decided to look up some of Gondry’s videos, I then find out he did some really cool and fabulous stuff!!
So anyway Mossy and I checked out some videos by Michel Gondry.
Kylie Minogue come in to my World. (I watched carefully and noticed even the extras have the same ‘effect’ that Kylie has). Just like with Eternal Sunshine I want to know how Gondry did it!!! No one bumps into each other!
'Come Into My World'
The White Stripes –Fell In love with a girl. A music video made with Legos. I have only seen this video a couple of times and I always thought why the heck would anyone use lego for a music video? Where does that outside of the box idea come from? (Not to mention I felt sorry for the lego person who had to build all those pieces).
Linky"The White Stripes music is so basic - drum, guitars and voice - so I thought using three primary colors worked. I thought the crudeness of Lego would represent them well," says Gondry.
I never would have thought of that, but now with that explanation it makes total sense! He found the perfect way to visually represent the band's music. Like Mossy had said (in our chat), it’s like magic!!!!!
The third video is with the White stripes again with the song, The hardest button to button
I feel sorry for whoever had to carry all of that stuff. But it's really cool!!
For some reason knowing that Gondry did all these cool and creative videos make me appreciate his movie work even more. I now really appreciate music videos as a way for new directors to get started and open more avenues of creativity for visual entertainment. I really like the idea of collaboration and different ideas for the same song coming into play. Now I kind of think of music videos as companions to the music just like Soundtracks are companions to movies, rather then thinking of them just as advertisements.
Also, when I was reading up on this subject I came across a DVD series called the Directors Label series. Which features work of music video directors. (They have now reached volume 7, I already know what I want for Christmas next year
).So I wanted to ask what do my fellow board members think of music videos? Does anyone think they influence movie making? Even making movies better? What do you think of music videos as a genre on it’s own? I have used more pop music and current examples in my post, but I do know classical music videos exist (although I never catch them). So basically what my post is about is I would like to open a discussion on music videos and how they influence other forms of visual entertainment.
To finish off this post, one of my favourite videos.
Edit to update some links
). I can at least see videos on MuchMusic (the more youth oritented channel ) but for MuchMoreMusic I have heard soemtimes one has to launch email campaigns to get the channel to play something. Sadly it comes with our basic cable subscription so there is no way we can drop the channel although it isn't worth the subscription. They even play movies. I can understand having musicals but they play movies that have absolutely nothing to do with music!!!
Rio is one of my fave videos of all time. (My fave song, though.) I think Duran2 has the best videos in the 80's it has a theme, a story and it actually relates to their songs/albums. Like the video Rio it can be an extension of the song Girls on Film. 
That's some creepy stuff. I need to watch it some more. 
