Music video directors give us as consumers a visual aid to accompany the songs we listen to.
With MTV, 4Music, YouTube, Vevo and various other media platforms thriving, we have easy access to these music videos.
Music videos usually stick to general codes and conventions of that particular genre of music, I will be researching some of my favourite directors and also some I'm not very familiar with to get more of an idea of the work that's out there and to see how it's done professionally so that my finished article is done to a professional standard.
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(Overview of music video // Codes and conventions // Lighting // Sound // Narrative )
Mark Romanek
Directors Study -
Romanek mostly works with mainstream established artists, this works well as he focuses on the star(s) making them the focal point of the music video as this is demanded by a lot of the record companies. He doesn't work with a specific music genre, "I kind of pride myself on being able to tailor a bespoke style for just about any artist or genre - whatever's called for, really"
Romanek mostly works with mainstream established artists, this works well as he focuses on the star(s) making them the focal point of the music video as this is demanded by a lot of the record companies. He doesn't work with a specific music genre, "I kind of pride myself on being able to tailor a bespoke style for just about any artist or genre - whatever's called for, really"
He has also worked with Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson with Scream, which won an MTV Music Video Award for Best Dance Video and was nominated for 8 other awards, Red Hot Chili Peppers with Can't Stop, Jay-Z with 99 Problems in which he won MTV Music Video Award for Best Direction, amongst many others. In total he has won 20 MTV Music Video Awards, and has also won 3 Grammy Awards for Best Short Form Music Video.
Romanek directed one of my favourite music videos - Hurt by Johnny Cash.
This video is a performance narrative piece and is so thought provoking, something I'd love to be able to achieve in my music video.
At first Romanek had a completely different idea for this music video, but as Johnny Cash was getting weaker and weaker, he was unable to film in the original location so Romanek had a couple of days to completely rethink his idea and flew over to Nashville, Tennessee to scout locations for the new music video idea.
Romanek has managed to capture the essence of Johnny Cash's life whilst reminding everyone watching how temporary life is through the use of imagery and symbolism. The 'House of Cash Museum - closed to public' sign represents Cash's deteriorating health. The museum is all about Johnny Cash and just as his health was deteriorating, so was the museum, so much so that they've closed it. The closed piano lid represents that his music career was almost over and so was his life, and the old footage of him performing shows just how much he's achieved and how much of a star he was.
This video is a performance narrative piece and is so thought provoking, something I'd love to be able to achieve in my music video.
At first Romanek had a completely different idea for this music video, but as Johnny Cash was getting weaker and weaker, he was unable to film in the original location so Romanek had a couple of days to completely rethink his idea and flew over to Nashville, Tennessee to scout locations for the new music video idea.
Romanek has managed to capture the essence of Johnny Cash's life whilst reminding everyone watching how temporary life is through the use of imagery and symbolism. The 'House of Cash Museum - closed to public' sign represents Cash's deteriorating health. The museum is all about Johnny Cash and just as his health was deteriorating, so was the museum, so much so that they've closed it. The closed piano lid represents that his music career was almost over and so was his life, and the old footage of him performing shows just how much he's achieved and how much of a star he was.
This medium close up shot focuses on the sign and also the American flag. These two images together symbolise Johnny Cash's life.
Mark Romanek is incredibly talented for managing to create so much emotion in such a short video.
This research influences my work because I want to create a touching and emotive music video and address quite a tricky subject. After looking at such a great director, I now have an insight on how I can direct my music video to a high standard, addressing the tricky subject matter (like Mark Romanek has so beautifully with death) and to also know that if anything goes wrong in the process of making the music video, I'll be able to find another way around it, and it might turn out better than the original idea.
References:
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/the-story-behind-johnny-cash-s-hurt-still-the-saddest-music-video-of-all-time-a6683371.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Romanek
http://gb.imdb.com/name/nm0738796/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt1Pwfnh5pc&list=RDvt1Pwfnh5pc#t=25
http://www.vulture.com/2014/08/mark-romanek-on-making-taylor-swifts-new-video.html
https://themeaningofthename.com/mark-romanek/
Spike Jonze
Jonze is an American director well known for working with the likes of Weezer, Kanye West, Bjork and many other household names.
Jonze started off making music videos for fairly well known musicians and then later on started working with very well known musicians which meant his work was being shown on top of the pops and other tv shows.
Drop - Pharcyde
This music video by Spike Jonze is absolutely incredible, and the idea has been copied by many artists and directors. Filmed in Los Angeles, the music video shows footage of The Pharcyde performing the song backwards. The group worked with linguistic experts to learn the song and be able to recite it all backwards. In post-production this was reversed and the video turned out great.
This video has 18,164,167 views to date, with 104k thumbs up, it gave Spike Jonze a boost in his career and a lot of other artists wanted to work with him.
Because of this recognition and publicity he was getting, Spike had the ability to work with even larger artists, and therefore larger budgets to get incredibly flashy music videos.
Within the first minute of Jay Z and Kanye West's 'Otis' music video, we see expensive cars, designer clothes, expensive jewellery etc which just shouts "large budget" which sticks to the codes and conventions of the generic Hip-Hop music video.
References:
http://gb.imdb.com/name/nm0738796/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt1Pwfnh5pc&list=RDvt1Pwfnh5pc#t=25
http://www.vulture.com/2014/08/mark-romanek-on-making-taylor-swifts-new-video.html
https://themeaningofthename.com/mark-romanek/
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Spike Jonze
Jonze is an American director well known for working with the likes of Weezer, Kanye West, Bjork and many other household names.
Jonze started off making music videos for fairly well known musicians and then later on started working with very well known musicians which meant his work was being shown on top of the pops and other tv shows.
Drop - Pharcyde
This music video by Spike Jonze is absolutely incredible, and the idea has been copied by many artists and directors. Filmed in Los Angeles, the music video shows footage of The Pharcyde performing the song backwards. The group worked with linguistic experts to learn the song and be able to recite it all backwards. In post-production this was reversed and the video turned out great.
This video has 18,164,167 views to date, with 104k thumbs up, it gave Spike Jonze a boost in his career and a lot of other artists wanted to work with him.
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Because of this recognition and publicity he was getting, Spike had the ability to work with even larger artists, and therefore larger budgets to get incredibly flashy music videos.
Within the first minute of Jay Z and Kanye West's 'Otis' music video, we see expensive cars, designer clothes, expensive jewellery etc which just shouts "large budget" which sticks to the codes and conventions of the generic Hip-Hop music video.
There's a clear colour scheme of red, white and blue here, shown in the flag, the white tops, the blue buildings and the red flames. Jonze has been really clever here sticking to a clear theme of being in America.
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One of my other favourite music videos directed by Spike Jonze is a completely different genre of music to the Jay Z and Kanye West music video but the use of intertextuality and other media elements has been done so cleverly. Buddy Holly by Weezer is a music video from the 1990's, set in a 1970's show called Happy Days, which takes place in the 1950's
The band are seen playing a show at 'Arnold's' for the characters in Happy Days. The use of intertextuality here is amazing, there are scenes from the original show seamlessly integrated in with stunt doubles included (shown in the photo directly above) during a dance scene towards the end.
The fake ad break during the middle of the song ("To Be Continued") uses pastiche and humour to joke about the ad breaks in Happy Days.
http://entertainment.time.com/2011/07/28/the-30-all-time-best-music-videos/slide/weezer-buddy-holly-1994/
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