Music video directors research #1: Spike Jonze

Spike Jonze (born Adam Spiegel) is one of the most creative music video directors in recent history. Since the early 1990s Jonze has been creating strange music videos for a wide range of artists in a range of musical genres including hip hop, funk, and rock. Here are some of his best.



Fatboy Slim- Weapon Of Choice
Christopher Walken sits in an empty shopping centre. The song starts and he dances round to it in a strange fashion. He then jumps over the balocony and begins to fly. When the song ends, he goes back to his chair and sits down again as if nothing happened. To this day we don't know why. The dance and flying around follows the surreal nature of videos that both Jonze and Fatboy slim are known for.




The Pharcyde - Drop

Jonze directed this video to look like one big long shot. In order to give the video the bizzare look that the band wanted, they rehearsed with Jonze and the crew at doing the whole video in one take. The band perform the video backwards, meaning they had to learn the lyrics backwards too. The video was then played backwards (or forwards) in the finished product, leaving the bizzare visual that could connote the kind of stoner hip hop the band is known for and disorientates the audience.



Weezer - Buddy Holly

Weezer's old school song about an old school rock n roll star desevers an old school rock n roll video, complete with an old american TV style, fashion sense and dancing. The video draws influence from the rock and roll feueled TV show Happy Days, and features charcters dressed in the same style as some of the characters.

Music video analysis 2: Genre

My song is an alternative rock/industrial rock style song so I will analyse videos from those genres. Alternative rock is a good genre to study anyway because of it's diversity. It refers to any form of rock that is not considered traditional rock. So you get a wide range of sounds, lyrcal themes and video styles.

 

30 Seconds to Mars-Kings and Queens

 



This video is very big and grand and stylish. Along with clips of the band (alot of the time in sillouhette form) on a rooftop in front of the setting sun, whilst we also see clips of many eccentric looking individuals riding thier bikes through the streets, perhaps to show different people coming together. This, along with the lyrics, connotes all the good things about youth. The frequent shots of the sun in the sky could connote the fact that the skys the limit when you are young.

Nine Inch Nails-Head Like a Hole


This video is the exact opposite. Whilst the first video is expencive looking and beautiful. This video is grimy looking and cheap, using cheap special effects and stock footage editied together with strangley coloured/filtered footage of the band performing. The works with the strange sounds of Trent Reznor's rock project Nine Inch Nails, as he creates grimy sounding music with lots of rare and costly syntesysers and recording equipment. The seemingly random footage matches NIN's use of surrealism in thier lyrics and music.


Muse- Uprising


This band often have a futuristic sound. So this video is set in a dystopian future to match the futuristic inspired music and morose lyrics. It is very well shot and edited and also sells the artists as we see the band throughout. To give it the experimental and surreal nature of the song, all the action is potrayed with toy figures and teddy bears whilst the band perform around the chaos. There are also lots of high and low angle shots to show which characters are vunerable and which are powerful. The video also sells the band as all three member are shown performing frequently.

Nirvana- Silver


Nirvana had a homemade, lo-fi grunge sound during thier time in the music world. In the brief moments that made up the video for Silver, the trio certainly maintain that homemade feel as the video looks grimy, the camera simple moving around the band members most of the time. This connotes the band's choice to strip away expensive equipment and sounds and stick to simple instruments and equipment to give them that real raw, homemade grunge sound. So the video is the same, seeming to use basic editing and one, low quality camera.

Green Day- Brain Stew/Jaded


This is two videos in one to go with the double single that Green Day released. Part one (Brain Stew) is a slow, stoner song. The slow camera movements and long takes show the band in a junk yard (connoting thier minds on drugs) and is shot in sepia tone to make it easy to watch. The chill out look of the band goes well with the junk yard setting connote the wrekage of the band's minds as they describe their brains on drugs in the song. The video then shifts to the song Jaded. This song is fast paced and shows the other effects of drugs, We see a room with an unusual colour filter and the camera always moving very quickly around the band but never focusing on any of them. Add some quick editing and you have a joint video that is shot in two extreame ways. Again, the speed of the editing and the bright colour sceme connote the complete mess of thier drugged up minds by disorientating the audience and the band.



Weezer - Buddy Holly

This song is about a rock n roll legend. So the intertextuality of the video stylises the band's performance as a scene from the TV show Happy Days, which often featured rock n roll culture. The band even perform in the actual diner from the show and use computer trickary at the end to make it look like the character Fonzie is dancing with the band.
 The director also weaves in genuine footage from the show and edits it in order to make it relevent to the narrative of the video and even the to be continued card that featured in alot of episodes. several cast members from the show make cameos in the video. The show matches the old school, nostaligic quality of the song, and changes conventions by using footage from an older TV show in a video for a band that appeals to younger people.

THE WHITE STRIPES
The White Stripes videos are all different and all go with thier strange, genre blending music style.

They've used creative editing and pixilation:

This Video uses pixleation to match the songs beat, as the band change position every time the bass drum is played. This helps the video to flow and shows the simple, yet surreal style of the band.

Weird, carnival style black and white videos:


Lego animation:


They also incoorperate Mulvrey's male gaze theroy with the video for I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself. The video is made up entirley of a 3 minuite clip of the model Kate Moss dancing. This follows the male gaze theroy, however because it is nothing but the dancing, it could also be satarising the theroy by overusing it.

music video analysis 1

Video/song: Psychosocial
Artist: Slipknot
Director: P.R Brown
Genre: Nu Metal/Death Metal



Genre Characteristics:
Death metal and nu metal are sub genres of Heavy Metal music that contain loud/fast/distorted instrumentation and often growled/screamed vocals in contrast to the traditional style of vocals. Many songs of the nu metal genre have both harsh vocals (screams/growls) and clean vocals (singing).  To go with this the videos often feature quick cuts and blurred imagry to show the same sense of distortion and chaos that is within the genre and style of music. The screams/growls also connote the horror film style in the music, which the band supply with thier masks. The masks also take away the identity of each member so that the audience think of the whole group as a unit.

Relationship between music and visuals:
The short quick cuts connote the distortion of the instrumentation and the dark focus on the video goes with the harsh vocals.
Relationship between lyrics and visuals:
The often random lyrics are parralleled by the fast editing and camera movements to show the chaotic and random shots of the video.
Close ups of star/motifs:
Slipknot are known for thier shocking and theatrical stage costumes. They often wear matching uniforms to connote their unity as a band, they are not individuals but a whole unit, with no member being more or less important than any others. However, to show thier individualality within the band, all members wear a different horror inspired face masks in order to show thier identity. Slipknot love hiding thier identities. Every member is appointed a number from #0 to #8. They also hide theier faces behind masks. To connote thier anonymous nature, the camera never stays on any member for a long time. hen certain members are shown, other members are often showed in a blurred shot behind them. Quickly alternating which band member the audience see also shows the unity of the band as the video does not fall into the usual band ideal of showing the lead vocalist more than any one else in the band.
Intertextuality:
Sots of creepy figures in woodlands, low key lighting and shots of an abandoned wearhouse connote the horror influenced style of the band.


Another Slipknot video that shows thier anonymity in a more creative way is thier video for the song Before I forget. n this video the band appear unmasked so the camera is carfully positioned to only show parts of each member in close up (the drummers arms, the singers mouth). The result is a very well planned video.