For the one day lip-sync project, the group I was part of (myself, Andrew, Lauren and Dave) were given the track "Can't Smile Without You" by Barry Manilow. We had problems getting the song onto our phones, which resulted in us being the last group out to begin recording. However we had brain stormed ideas of the storyline and type of shots we were wanting to include into the video, which caused the shooting process to be pretty straight-forward.
We chose to approach this task with humour, and have the romantic theme of the song represented by a sequence suggesting a relationship between Dave and Andrew. This went very well, except from Dave sometimes messing up the lip-syncing due to him not knowing the song. So obviously, the video would have overall been better if we, the stars of the video, knew the song well prior to shooting.
Except from typical minor problems whilst editing (such as during batch capturing footage), we managed to get the whole sequence finished quickly, to the best that we could make it. And despite being the last group to begin recording, were the first to be finished.
Pop Promos (or music videos, as commonly known) are visual representations of a piece of music. Each video follows a certain style; either a narrative, performance, concept, or a combination of two/all three of them, as well as being relevant to the target audience of the artist as to who's video it is. For instance if they were someone who fit into the genre of Rap/Hip-Hop, conventionally the video would consist of dancing women, clubs/bars, designer clothes and jewelery. This theme usually relates to the lyrics of the song, and quite possibly even the listeners. Whereas in a rock video, you would expect to see lots of shots of the band performing (as most rock acts play their own instruments) with a narrative story sequence behind it, which can either correspond with the lyrics, or not.
Music videos were first introduced in the mid 1960s, with bands such as The Beatles & The Rolling Stones creating short films promoting their records. This enabled people to hear their music, and in a sense see the band all around the world without them physically having to be there playing live, which further increased the appeal/demand for them. At first these short films were produced in black in white, but then in 1965, The Beatles second short film feature for "Help!" was produced in colour, and was a great success.
In the 1970s, more bands began to join in with this new method of 'pop promos', and in Britain, Top Of The Pops began to feature them in each weekly programme. However, the BBC placed strict limits as to how many could be shown, which encouraged artists to produce ones at a high standard so that the song's sales would increase due to viewers wanting to see it again the following week. Queen ordered for a video for their track 'Bohemian Rhapsody' to be made for it to be aired on Top Of The Pops, and today the video is notable for being recorded and edited purely on video tape. Furthermore, thanks to the eye-catching 'Ashes to Ashes' promo made by David Mallet, David Bowie reached his first number 1 single in the UK charts in almost a decade.
The 80s saw the beginning of music videos becoming mainstream. When MTV launched in 1981 airing them 24-hours a day, there was a real demand for them to be produced to ensure that artist's music was heard globally. Adam and the Ants and Madonna partially owe their success to the seductive appeal of thier music videos. Initially however, it was mainly British acts that were creating the videos for broadcast, which caused a 'Brit Invasion' into the US charts during this period.
The biggest success story regarding music videos appears to be Michael Jackson's "Thriller". Frequently dubbed as the greatest music video ever made, the 1983 14-minute long video directed by John Landis with a $500,000 budget, turned over a $1,050,000 profit from selling rights alone. The video also boosted sales of the "Thriller" album itself, resulting in 110 million copies being sold world-wide.
Ultimately, a video is made to promote a band's single, in hope of increasing sales of that particular record and/or the artist's album. Most artists will release 3/4 videos of tracks from the same album, which helps to keep them in the public eye, or alternatively, introduces themselves to new listeners. If successful, they can be played for months or even years after the release of the relevant album, especially thanks to modern technology whereby people can download them to devices such as iPods and mobile phones; keep watching them on the Internet (i.e YouTube) or just simply on television music channels such as MTV, VH1 and Kerrang!
When a song is added to a film's soundtrack, usually the video then includes clips from the film alongside the narrative. This usually ends up with the song being attached to the film, or the film being attached to the song. Examples of this include:
'My Heart Will Go On' by Celine Dion (Titanic)
'Decode' by Paramore (Twilight)
'(Everything I Do) I Do It For You' by Bryan Adams (Robin Hood; Prince of Thieves)
'New Perspective' by Panic! At The Disco (Jennifer's Body)
'(Everything I Do) I Do It For You' by Bryan Adams in particular was extremely successful, and spent 16 weeks at Number 1 in the UK charts. The film it was attached to also recieved commercial success as a box office hit, earning $18.3 million in it's opening weekend alone.
Originally, producers tended to make music videos more performance based that fans could see the bands playing their instruments and singing on screen, instead of them having to continually tour around the globe. However, this begun to change in the late 1970's and early 80's as artist such as Madonna became popular; giving music videos a more seductive tone and thus, causing an artists' success being based more on sex appeal than performance. Then in the 90s, promos started to have a stronger narrative depicted within them, as producers experimented with storylines relating to the song lyrics. Directors also started appearing on the credits on MTV; suggesting that music videos were now seen as more of an art form rathan than just simply being a pop promo.
Directed and Animated by Matt Stawski, All Time Low's music video for their single 'Damned If I Do Ya (Damned If I Don't)' was recorded in July 2009; only a few weeks after recording another video, 'Weightless', which was also directed by Stawski. This was because the band tour very heavily, and thus do not have a lot of free time to shoot videos. Furthermore, due to how much they enjoyed working with him on the previous video, and being extremely pleased with the outcome, the band were adamant that he would create this one. Shots involving the band and other actors used took around 13 hours to complete, then further time was used to comprise the animation sequences (and the full editing process) before the final video premiered on the 11th September 2009, almost 2 months after the album of which the track is from (Nothing Personal) was released.
The video was shot predominantly in front of a green screen, both the performance sequences and the narrative story of the lead singer, Alex, being brought to a chat-show for having a "secret" relationship with his school teacher. The rest of the background/set was animated by the director himself, however the artwork of the band members, host, and various other illustrations were created by Joshua Clay.
The cinematography of the video consists of fast paced shots, which fits along-side the fast paced beat and rhythm to the song. Lots of close-ups appear throughout also, especially on the lead vocalist. This appears a lot in artist's videos who are considered to be (only word that I can think of) 'eye-candy'. Comments left on this video's YouTube reinforce this idea; "alex is so hottt!! aghhi'mmeltingg". Enough said. A lot of light is used throughout the video, keeping the atmosphere up-beat, and generally bright. During the performance shots, lighting is used to create a more show-biz style effect to fit with the chat-show theme.
The lyrics hold a certain level of relevance to the action in the video, for instance the song in itself is regarding the singer being in love with someone who he shouldn't be. So in the video's case, it is him being with his school teacher, which is evidently wrong and causing him to choose between his band and friends, or her.
With inspirations such as Blink-182, the band notorious for running around the streets of America naked, aspects in this video show the pop-punk style/genre. The tongue-in-cheek, intertextuality of a controversial talk-show similar to the likes of Jerry Springer adds to this, as well as the flamboyancy of the colour palette used and the added animation sequences. Many performance shots are included, and the whole video in itself holds a comedic tone. This is very common amongst other videos in this genre, which holds the intention to make the target audience laugh, and therefore remember it. On top of all else, it shows the band members personalities, so if someone who had never seen or heard of them before watched the video, they would be able to see that they are laid-back people who like to have a laugh, and don't take themselves too seriously to the extent whereby they don't mind pointing fun at each other.
At present, the video has over 600,000 views on YouTube and has generally positive comments such as "Hilarious video!", "I love this video." and "Stawski's videos are always amazing." The song itself at it's highest position reached #21 in the iTunes charts.
The song 'Do You Feel' by The Rocket Summer depicts the position of an individual person wishing that they could help with the many issues within the world, but due to their own needs/wants they cannot physically do it alone, as well as basically questioning why should they have to if the majority of others are not. The video represents this concept by displaying different types of people from different cultures who each have their own problems, ranging from homelessness to disease with clear messages written onto their hands (alongside performance shots of the band). At the beginning of the video, the messages are lyrics of the song, a similar method to that seen in the classic Bob Dylan video "Subterranean Homesick Blues". Then as the video progresses, the messages then turn into the people's various revelations. Amongst the people with their real stories, there are a few well known artists within the rock music scene, such as Andrew McMahon of Jack's Mannequin, Matt Thiessen of Relient K, Josh Farro and Jeremy Davis of Paramore, Forrest Kline of Hellogoodbye, Mike Herrera of MxPx, Alex Gaskarth of All Time Low and Jonathan Cook of Forever The Sickest Kids. All of which are friends of The Rocket Summer's Bryce Avary, and who have toured with him in the past. Having these people star in the video helped to gain more viewers, as fans of the certain artists would be more intrigued to see them in it.
The video was shot in the summer of 2008 in California, Texas, Washington and Africa. Nate Weaver directed the video alongside the singer Bryce Avary who co-directed. Avary also funded the project entirely, meaning that the budget was extremely low which in a sense, helped to keep the focus on the message of the video/song, which was his main intention.
Fitting with the tempo of the song, the camera shots are very fast paced and have reasonably quick cuts. Also, especially in the hand message sequences, the shots are very jerky and change the focus between the person, and their message. Enabling the viewer to see the person themselves, as well as the text on their hand, which I personally find a very interesting use of cinematography. Furthermore, as seen in most rock videos, there are many performance shots, both long shots of the musicians and then close ups/mid-shots of the lead vocalist.
The general mis-en-scene, like the overall tone of the video appears to be simplistic. The scene for the performance shots is in an abandoned alley in a city, which can be gathered by in the background relatively large buildings can be seen, as well as graffiti appearing on the walls. The various people are in all different surroundings, such as the man who appears at 01:15 is at a beach, whereas the man at 01:33 is standing infront of some sort of van, emphasising the fact that everyone is different and therefore have different issues to face. The writing written on the hands is clear and bold, making it easy to read.
Matthew Stawski is an American film-maker, who from a very young age has been involved in creating short films and music videos. Music played an influential part of his childhood, especially that of Motown, and in the present day, one of his passions is the Punk Rock genre.
Born in 1984, Stawski spent his teen years making short films and music videos with his friends, until at only 18 years old, directed several videos for the political band Anti-Flag, which premiered on TV stations (Fuse, MTVu) around the world. He then went on to achieve a Bachelor's degree of Film and Video with a directing concentration at Columbia College in Chicago, before finally moving to Los Angeles whereby he signed with Refused TV. During his free time, he has been developing a few musicals in which he plans on bringing to life in between the music videos that he directs.
To date, he has directed videos for a range of artists, including: Fall Out Boy, Paramore, Kanye West, All Time Low, Snoop Dogg, Tram, and Alkaline Trio.
His videos hold a distinctive, recognisable style. He tends to combine live action performances of the artist with animated illustration sequences which can either be a narrative (100 Little Curses by Street Sweeper Social Club) or a concept (Gimme Chemicals by The Pink Spiders) either way, creating a hyper-real environment. Of course, the tone of each individual video represents that of the band's genre, which mainly appear to Stawski's interest; punk rock. However depending on the song, the target audience is met by having a relevant themed video. Such as with both of the All Time Low videos he directed, they had a comedic style with lots of close ups of the band to appeal to their vastly teenage, female populated fan base. Whereas if you look at Shadetree Mechanics by The Bled, a post-hardcore band that include 'screamo' into their songs, the colour palette is rather dark, as is the general tone of the video.
With bands such as Fall Out Boy, Paramore and All Time Low who have a relatively younger target audience, responses left on their music videos on the website YouTube mostly consist of comments regarding the looks of the band members or just simply stating that the video is "awesome". However, on the video 'America's Suiteheart's' (FOB) one viewer went as far as to say: "cool video, the song... not so much" which shows that in some cases, Stawski's work prevails over that of the music produced by the artist. Another response left on this particular video is "The director was definitely tripping on some potent stuff when he thought this video up. Great song, fairly creepy video." These comments alone give a mixed response regarding the videos that Stawski creates, some more positive than others and for some viewers, the atmosphere conveyed in the video appears to unnerve them. 'Another Hero Lost' by Shadows Fall seems to be an anomaly within Stawski's work. With this video, it suits the seriousness of the song itself, and to most would create an emotional tone - thus no animation is used. Instead, there is footage showing families, and people, who you assume had family members who have died in various wars. This comment left by a viewer on YouTube, for me, sums up the overall audience response to this video; "I cry a little bit every time I watch this, RIP to all the soldiers who lost their lives".
We must also take into consideration that if Stawski's videos gained generally negative responses from audiences, he would not be continually comissioned by clients to create their videos. To date he has produced over 20, which is an always increasing number. One artist said about him; "He really pays attention to detail, which was really cool, and it was just very nice to see that amount of attention to detail that he takes. He just kinda set it apart to anything that we've ever done."
Some of his videos have even been noticed enough to be given awards. For instance, in 2009, Matt's video for 'Weightless' by All Time Low picked up the award for Alternative Press' video of the year. And he was also nominated in 2007 for an MVPA award in the computer effects category for his work on Common's music video 'A Dream' from the soundtrack of the motion picture 'Freedom Writers', starring Academy Award winning actress Hilary Swank. On top of this, several of his videos have been top sellers in the iTunes store, meaning that a lot of people wish to view them over and over again.
Below is a compilation of some of his work;
Due to thinking I wouldn't be able to write much about him as he is still reletively unknown compared to the likes of Chris Cunningham and Michel Gondry, I sent him an email asking him questions concerning his directing style/work. Thinking that I wouldn't get a response until after the deadline, I decided to finish this task regardless. After finishing the task, I then recieved a reply back, which I am very grateful for and still want to include. Below is my initial email and Matt's response;
On Mar 3, 2010, at 1:41 AM, GemmaGrayston (stu-262***) wrote:
Hello, I am currently a student at Suffolk New College studying Media Production, and at present, our assignment is looking into Music Videos. One of the criteria for this assignment is to research a contemporary music director, and being a fan of your videos for quite some time, it would be ideal for me to write this report about you and your work. Therefore, if you have a spare moment, any information/quotes you can give to me will be a massive help! In particular these questions:
- During the very early stages of pre-production of a video, how do you go about dealing with each individual client to ensure their specific target audience is met? - Are there occurring elements you aim to include in each individual video? - What are your future ambitions? Would you want to continue in specialising in directing Music Videos?
Thank you very much in advance.
Yours sincerely, GemmaGrayston.
Hey Gemma how goes it!
Thanks for the kind words...I'd be happy to help out for sure!
1.) Basically to deal with target audiences and expectations from bands/labels and clients, there's a sort of give and take process. Obviously with any treatment (proposal for the video idea) I write, it would be ideal to have complete creative control and come up with an off the wall idea, but a lot of times the label has a brief and a guideline of expectations on what to expect in the video, so you sort of have to conform the big picture to satisfy their marketing goals...but at the same time adding your special touch to it. Obviously there's ways to persuade client to go with your idea...sometimes if I'm very passionate about a crazier, more abstract idea, I'll submit loads of visual references and even test footage of an effect I'd like to pull off, to really convince the label to trust me with the idea. I'd say about 50% of my videos I had complete creative control and 50% we had to work with the labels idea and direction because they needed to satisfy this target audience and not confuse or shock anyone.
2.) Yeah I believe there's definitely elements I like to include in all of my videos. I'm still young and still learning, so there's always a personal "one-up" challenge I give myself. For example, if I did a bunch of animated videos recently, I'd strive to shoot some more live action ones. Or if I used a style of animation a couple times, I'll try to add elements or different techniques to this animation. I'd say some of the specifics I like to include are symmetry (not the entire video but there always has to be a balance in a couple shots), swish pan transitions (these really move the video along and sometimes work better than a straight cut because they are pre-planned and can almost be used to go from a character, into their point of view), animations with a puppet like movement, color (is suuuuuper important to me!, although I'm actually color blind which is weird haha!), and a climax as well. Most songs are written in a sort of cinematic manner, where it builds to a stronger final chorus, or climax, so I believe in most of my videos, there has to be something introduced in the end, that justifies the power and emotion in a given song.
-I'd say my future ambitions are feature films, musicals to be specific. I'm enthralled my musicals, they blow me away, and I'd love to be able to have a career making feature length musicals. But for now, I'll continues with music videos! I also have a TV show in the works, a scientific one...so we'll see how that works out!
Thanks so much for reaching out to me Gemma! If you have any other questions I'd be glad to help answer them! Like I said, I'm still young and don't know all of the answers to the world of film...but I can for sure give you my experience and my take on things so far!
Matthew