Music video research

A certain music video that inspires me is Aphex Twin's Come To Daddy, directed by Chris Cunningham. What I'm really hoping to replicate in this video is something that's slightly abstract and avant-garde, but still with a followable storyline and plot and still achievable on a small budget. What I like about this music video is how it almost seems like a movie, the cinematography has a clear cinematic quality, and the colour palette is gloomy and dark. The sinister fantasy tones of evil spirits blends in well with the grimy urban industrial setting, and I like how the destruction and havoc is caused by a gang of small children, usually faces of innocence but now of chaos and sadism. I want to make a music video which affects the audience and that will leave a lasting impression, the video was voted number 35 on a Channel 4 show entitled 100 Greatest Scary Moments, which included entries from Film, Television, Music and Radio. What I also found interesting was the use of a television in the music video, it made me think of a “video within a video” concept.Also, the use of slow motion makes some of the details have more of a disturbing quality, such as the dog barking

This music video references the Goodwin topic of references to voyeurism, this is shown by the screen with screen, there is a relationship between the music and the visuals, shown by the faces singing. However, the artists do not appear.

Another inspirational video is M.I.A’s Born Free, it attracted attention for its usage of political metaphor, and its banning from YouTube for explicit language, full-frontal nudity and gratuitous violence. What I find inspiring on it is it’s controversy, the video itself I believe is a satire on a media that condemns racism, sexism and homophobia, yet sees no problem in poking fun and marginalising people with ginger hair. As well as this, I like the cinematic qualities, the sharp camera focus, pans and wide angled shots remind me of cinema, and blur the lines between artistic statement, film and music video. I also like the break in the video for dialogue and its storytelling, which is so impressive that you feel sympathy for characters that havent spoken a single word and have only been on the screen for less than ten minutes, from personal experience, someone I know said that they felt sad for the confrontational rebellious character who attempts to escape from the mindfield. This video also has some autbiographical tendencies, M.I.A was born during massacres in war-torn-Sri Lanka, and the mise en scene in the video, the mural of troops in particular has connotations with the IRA. Again, slow motion is used to show the graphic detail, such as explosions, billowing smoke clouds and gunshots.

Inspired by Salvador Dali’s Un Chien Andalou, which was a sixteen minute silent movie with no conventional plot, the music video for “Harmony Korine” by Steven Wilson I find inspiring for its sharp image quality, its homage to European surrealism and how the blacks and white can both blend in together and also be starkly contrasted, the shades and tones of this video the lighting, and its slightly disturbing nature are definitely something I’d like to consider when making my own music video.