Two Music Videos.

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!! aghh i'm meltingg". 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.