Oh Well, That’s What You Get For Falling In Love With A Cowboy by Lanie Lane
A quick one for you guys today!
While this is not one of my fave clips, or even fave songs, I do like the direction it’s going. And I want to support some local Sydney music (and local Sydney bars, as this was filmed at Shady Pines in Sydney’s Darlinghurst - definitely a favourite for tequila and peanuts).
And honestly, that’s the main thing this clip has going for it. The setting.
The rave lighting is a bit much but it is a very dark underground little watering hole so I understand the need to brighten the place without losing the density and complexity or the venue. On the other hand, the smoke really dampens the depth of the image.
All up, it’s probably a bit much to ask an audience to watch almost 3 minutes of one girl, one dude and little but of mehcanical bull. But for a first video with (I’m assuming) a small budget it’s done fairly well - and suits the song perfectly.
Happy New Year Vidz-ites!!! Hope you all had a splendid holiday season filled with fun, food and those amazingly-crappy jokes that come in bon-bons.
Something quick and cheery to brighten your day. And before you ask; no, I don’t know what you just watched either.
This gem comes to us from the mythical beast that is Japan-land. I’m not even sure if “Babymetal” is the band or the song title - but boy do I like it! Only the Japanese could produce something this awesome, a hardcore metal song that somwhere transforms seemlesly into a J-Pop hit. And don’t tell me you didn’t want to hit repeat once it ended.
As always, translations are welcome (real or made up).
Two recent examples of artists using stop motion photographery to create something visually appealling for their music video.
Is it pretty much the worst thing ever that this doesnt impress me? It should, I know. I can only imagine the painstaking hours it took to create something like this but… it just doesnt impress me. It’s been done. And maybe not overly so but enough for me to think “that’s nice, what else have you got?”
They’re both fun and interesting to watch for the most part but it can all be summed up as a bit “meh” once it’s over. What is there really to talk about?
“Hey dude, did you see that jelly bean clip?”
“Yeah man, I saw it.”
“They must have used a lot of jelly beans”
“Yeah…”
Both songs are a bit lackluster and while I obviously adore the medium of music video making, I do think that you should have a good song to back it up with. While I am not opposed to using catchy gimmicks to make your song more noticeable (particularly in today’s youtube world), any lasting fame that comes with it will be fleeting if your music is not good. I can only hope lasting fame comes to the filmmakers and jellybean artists rather than the musicians themselves.
Gah! How adorable are fun.? (Side note, how fed up am I with stupid punctuation in band names?) But I’ll forgive them because they are adorable. And not in a typical way. I know this geek-chic hipster thing is in now but these boys just look like they are being themselves and it’s super endearing.
There’s nothing spectacular about this video (the song on the other hand, I CANNOT get out of my head) but I just want to use it to point something out: RUNNING.
What is up with all the running in music videos these days? Maybe this is cynical but I can’t help but feel that it’s a fairly cheap and uncreative way to give a video some excitement. It’s a very simple way to build movement and pacing regardless of the tone or tempo of the song.
The downfall is that it’s all the same pace from start to finish and then where does that leave you? Sure you can intersperse (as above) cut aways to other scenes but that’s detracting from the story. But does it really matter if the story is running. And only running?
The self pinata things are a but creepy but I like the idea. And I adore the box/border effect so - not that I rate the videos I post here - but I’d give it 5 out of 10.
This is a film clip me and my friends made for this competition - Aussie band Eskimo Joe. Would so appreciate you voting for it. Just click “like”!
(ps. this is also the reason I havent posted in a while. I have a few more film projects coming in which I’ll be sure to share but I just haven’t had time to find new videos to post here - if you have any in mind that you’d like reviewed - please let me know!)
There’s a very obvious reason I put these two together but let’s talk about MJ first. What can one say about the best music video ever made? Where do I even start? Is there anyone out there who doesn’t like this video?
I miss the days when 14 minute clips actually had an awesome storyline and - better yet - an amazing, historic dance sequence. These days, when a video is over 6 minutes long, it’s used mostly to indulge the artist/s and their sense of bullshit creativity. Not everyone is a director, producer and actor as well as musician. But these days, any artist with a slightly edgy feel assumes that they are.
So what has made this video so incredibly memorable, historic and enthralling? In short, everything. Just pick one aspect, whatever is your favourite, and focus on it. Fake horror movie. Amazing 80’s styling. The compelling storyline. The wonderous costuming and make-up. MJ’s red leather jacket. The dancing. That’s the brilliance of it all, any aspect you can settle on becomes the focus and can be the sole reason for loving this video.
For me, yep, it’s the dancing. No on dances anymore in their music videos. Not like this, not like a big musical number. I can’t even count the amount of films, tv shows and other music videos this dance has been featured in. And for the best reasons. This choreography was cutting edge and yet, anyone is able to pull it off.
Back in 1997, the everyone’s favourite generic boy band made the clip to Everybody (Backstreet’s Back) in a similar vein to MJ’s Thriller and brought the idea of a choreographed group dance set in a kitch-y horror film genre to a new audience. Kids who had yet to hear of Michael Jackson were treated to the great spectacle of the plotted music video - beginning and ending not with music, but with terrible acting and hilariously stupid story lines.
The Backstreet Boys didn’t contain their dance moves to just this one clip - choreography was staple of 90’s boy band, and perhaps why I still chose to listen to 90’s tunes - but this video and it’s track were the defining moment of that band, and that decade.
It all comes back around in the end, right? History repeats etc etc. I think we’re about ready for another camp monster dance video voiced by Vincent Price. Or maybe Alan Rickman?
You know those people who tell you they like “all kinds of music except county and classical”? A) Run away from those kinds of people. B) I am not one of those kinds of people because I actually love country music (no joke, Kenny Chesney is one of my faves). So I am amazed it took me this long to start listening to Taylor Swift. It’s something about her face. All cute and innocent like that. Almost smugly innocent… if that makes any sense at all. And let’s face it, who doesn’t love a break-up revenge song?
The settings in this clip are just gorgeous. The costuming and make-up of that 1920s-40s glamor suits Taylor perfectly and there’s a colour palette that runs through every scene change that keeps the whole clip coherent. Keeping the one theme (though different characters and scenes) throughout the clip plus the standard use of colour really helps keep the video all together. While it is jumping around between different characters and each verse has a new location of the band and the singer, it all feels very smooth to the viewer which is a nice change from a lot of music videos that - used as an effect or not - seem horribly jumpy and incohesive.
Sure the story lines are hilariously and obnoxiously, over the top obvious - I don’t know about you but my college degree does not have the word ‘College’ written in giant bold letters on it. And why is the fashionable kid hanging out in the football teams locker rooms anyway? - but they’re also very truthful and relatable. When my sister was in year 5, the other girls wouldn’t be friends with her if she didn’t have a pair of Nike Air Max - true story. So the clip works in the same way Katy Perry’s ‘Firework’ clip did in that as the audience, you should be able to see yourself in one of those situations. Or Taylor’s situation (at least the break-up part. You may not have gotten around to the being famous part yet).
And I have to love that Taylor Swift is totally smug in this. Perhaps a tiny bit of overacting but mostly that cheeky grin of someone who’s thinking “sucker, this song I wrote about you totally came true” and sticking it to someone who hurt them is kind of endearing.
Top that all off with a subtle message about how you don’t have to mean everything to everyone and that it’s still worth it if only one person admires you, and you have a fairly decent music video on your hands that appeals to all ages, stages and I would wager even those people that don’t like country music.
A super cute, completely inoffensive new(ish) music video from the Panic! boys after having split from half the band. When I say inoffensive, I don’t mean that there’s no violence or nudity or disturbing images. I mean it’s inoffensive in that there is nothing about this clip that could be in any way threatening… or different or creative. In fact, I simply feel like I don’t have anything to to say about this clip. Well, not much anyway.
The skipping through different era’s and movie scenes is a cute little gimmick and in a way, I like that each scene has a modern twist on it - though on the other hand, it may have been more interesting to watch the band play out the exact scene of the movie. Though if that requires any kind of digital CG -and if the looks of that flame that’s used to light the human cannon are anything to go by - there definitely wasn’t budget for it.
I feel as though the multiple scene changes needed to happen though as the song itself has no build up. It’s all on right from the beginning. And with a song like that, if they’d gone the route of a video with one or two scenes cutting back and forth, the video would have turned out (if possible) more plain than it already is. Those scene changes - and wonderful costuming - is what has really saved this clip from the barrels or boredom and just got me through to the end.
My only other real thought is that maybe it’s time to introduce the other members of the band (there are replacements, right? Because it seems weird to just have a lead singer and a drummer). They already did the two man, post split video so maybe it’s time to introduce some new faces which would hopefully pick up the audience’s interest levels a little more.
Drew Barrymore is really not a bad director. I quite enjoyed Whip It and this video, while a little cliche, looks gorgeous and is directed well. Plus, Chloe Moretz whom I just adore. So really, there isn’t anything too bad about this clip at all.
If you’ve been reading this blog for any extended period of time, you’ll tend to notice I bang on about the same things a lot. Mainly editing, story lines, colours, and other basic things they teach you first day of film school. And obviously, this is a clip where the story is the main focus.
The thing about it is, contrary to other videos we’ve discussed where either there is no story line, or the story can’t hold the viewers attention for the full length of the video, this clip demonstrates something that doesn’t come up too often, and that is it feels like too much story is trying to be packed into 4 minutes. Nowadays we don’t get that as artists are indulgent and if it takes 15 minutes to tell a story then by gum, they’re going to make a 15 minute video. But not this time. This time it’s all crammed in. And while we’re still able to relate to the protagonists and empathise with them, it all happens at such a fast pace that it’s difficult to keep up.
Ok, so the story is Romeo and Juliet and it’s not like we need to go into any in depth details as I’m fairly certain, everyone knows what happens in Romeo and Juliet (spoiler alert: everyone dies) but the video still moves too fast for me to be able to appreciate everything in it.
The costuming and colouring is just beautiful. And the perfectly choreographed fight/dance sequence has so much going on that I would have liked more time to enjoy the experience and really feel involved with this beautiful world that has been created. I know long music videos can be frustrating but this is one where I think if they’d taken 15 minutes to bring the audience into the world, I may have shed a tear at the final reveal rather then just sighing and moving on.
