Music video director

Music Director - Jonas Åkerlund

John akerland is a great music video director working with many bands and artist like Lady Ga Ga, Christina alguelera and even Duran Duran. He is a well known music video director working for many artists. He first started with a Swedish band called roxette.

Why I picked john is because the music video for prodigy was the most shocking video I had seen. The song Jonas directed into a music video was “smack my bitch up” The music video is about a person going out night clubbing, getting in trouble. The way Jonas perpetrated this stranger as acting like a man by the actions shown in first person. The camera shows the person being rude to women and general people out clubbing. The great twist on the video is at the end when we think it is a man, the camera faces the mirror revealing it to be a women. Jonas used a lot of slow motion effects to show she is drunk throughout the video. He first person view camera movement is very jolty at times. I like his work on this because it was showing a wild night from a male’s point of view however turning out to be a woman at the end.

Another video that is very weird done by Jonas is “telephone” by Lady gaga. The style of the whole music video is like a story of two criminals (lady gaga and beyonce) The establishing shot is of the prison showing lady gaga in a weird uniform. The style is crazy which does suit lady gaga. The costumes of the prisoners, jail cells and lady ga gas style is very weird which does go with Jonas style. Jonas uses varios mis – en – scene to create a crazy environment and switches settings from prison to café to keep the story going. Jonas likes to create music videos as a story just like “smack my bitch up”.

Jonas mainly directs music videos for mainstream artists in different genres. He is mainly suited towards the pop genre in music video making. His editing stlye is different to “smack my bitch up” compared to “telephone”. Because “smack my bitch up” uses blurry motion and slow motion to create the sense of being drunk however “telephone” uses straight cuts that help tell the storty.

MGMT - time to pretend music video analysis

The song I am analysing is time to pretend by MGMT. The genre of this song is psychedelic rock, looking at some effects of drugs. The crazy colour embedded in the video show mainly the effects of mushroom or another drug with psychedelic effects. The title ‘Time to pretend’ signifies that you become like a child when on these drugs, pretending to be someone you are not.

“Its our choice to live fast and die young” this means the band want to try all these crazy drugs, and don’t care what anyone think The crazy colours represents the drugs having an effect, showing that they don’t about dying due to the effects.  The motif is to do live life to the full at a young age.  “We have the vision now lets have some fun” This lyric is illustrated by flying birds, colours and weird stuff happening.

Some parts of the songs have solos, showing both of the singers singing. There is a close up shot of both of them. They lip sync to parts of the lyrics, with animation in the background. The visual shows what they feel and see when on drugs.  There is a clear image of how the artists want to be portrayed. The band want to be portrayed as young careless teenagers, using drugs to show that and the effects they experience. “ Well what else can we do, get jobs in offices ad wake up to the morning noon” this line from the song shows that they don’t want to grow up. Their previous videos also portrays them as careless teenagers enjoying life with influence of drugs and sex.

The video is mainly is partly concept and performed based. The whole concept is to show what fun teenagers have on drugs and use animation to show the effects. The artists act as children hence why the song is called ‘time to pretend’. The costumes and face paintings make the video look much more weird but fun.

We can tell that this video is showing what teenagers act like on the influence of drugs. The line ‘ Its choice to live fast and die young’ meaning they don’t care about the dangers of the drugs. This gives us a sense that MGMT want to be portrayed as careless teens.

I got 5 on it - Luniz music video analysis

The video I am analysing is “I got 5 on it” by Luniz. The genre that this song belongs in is hip-hop. We can tell by the clothes and the way the group moves with an attitude is common in most hip hop videos, however this song is old compared to modern hip-hop. The song came out in 1995, so the style of hip-hop has changed since.

The lyrics illustrate the guys as being rich and ladies men; hence hot ladies, money and cars that appear. The lyrics go with the attitude they express. The attitude they show is power with money having all the owned cars and stylish clothes. The movement also applies with the lyrics. The chorus “ I got 5 on it” is all about money, which the video illustrates what the group have with the money. The king chair one of the rappers sit on shows he has power because of being rich.

The lights in the background cut to the beat, especially the snare drum. There are solo between each member’s, singing about women, money and drugs which is the main themes in the song. The beat stays the same tempo throughout the song with the lights synced to the beat.  Each rapper has a solo part to rap about their lifestyle.

The clothes, jewellery, hot women and cars help promote this band, which the company aims for. Companies give these rappers a cool attitude to appeal to teenagers/ young adults. There style represents them being rich.  The main motif’s is about money and how it can get you all hot women, cars etc.

The member’s are dressed in that style to appeal to women, which does go with their image of being rich. The women are dressed up in sexual way, to show what the men get. The member’s dace with an attitude to go with their image and the women dance in a sexualised way to appeal to men. 

The music video “I got 5 on it “is about representing a cool attitude for audiences. The music video includes the hot women and nice cars to show how rich they are and how much power they have.

Her morning elegance- video analysis

Video analysis – Her morning elegance/Orien Lavie

Directed by – Orien Lavie, Yuyal and Merav Nathan

Genre – acoustic, indie

In this video the lyrics illustrate what the girl is dreaming using stop motion. The woman is laid sideways to make it look like she is standing up. Cloth, pillows, etc. are used to illustrate the lyrics. The stop motion make it visually stunning, making it look like she is awake however not. The small movements of pillows and cloth help create the effect in the stop motion video. 

This example shows the pillows as clouds and a scarf to make it look windy. The props make it look like she is dreaming.

“a cloud of steam, she pours her daydream” these lyrics go with this part because the clouds appear in her dreams.

The video is in time when each verse is sung. The background changes when Orien Lave sings a new line. The background illustrates, using stop motion, her dreams which are sung in the lyrics.  “ And she fights for her life on the train” This shows her on the train with the use of black and white sheets.

The artist is shown later throughout the music video, portrayed as the women’s crush in her dreams. The image of the artist is maybe that he is romantic in the video and shows that he loves her. It could be the man in her dreams. So the video shows them having a good time.  This example shows both the artist and girl dancing together. The stop motion makes it look like they are dancing. A violin solo enters when both the women and the man dance together.

The video is both narrative and performance based, using stop motion to be creative, creating scenery to illustrate the lyrics. It does use narrative because it tells a story in her dreams in each verse. The scenery changes to the narration of the lyrics sung.  There is an element in parts of the song were the mood changes which make the instruments also change. For example, violin solo expresses happiness in the girls dream.

In conclusion this music video is a performance based narrative video showing the girls dreams using stop motion effects and props. It is brilliantly illustrated to the lyrics telling a story inside the girl’s dreams. The artist is portrayed as the girls crush in her dreams, due to them dancing, bike riding, together.

Music Video Artist

Artsit – Lewis wolstanholme

Song – Rainy day in june

Genre – Acoustic, indie rock, electronic

Lewis Wolstanhalme is a songwriter creating an array of different music from electronic remixes or indie music type songs.  He mainly plays indie songs that have a story behind them. His own songs show emotion and meaning. I want to work with Lewis because his style of music is great to listen to. He has played live at many gigs wherever he can get them. He has done performances either at schools, pubs and even a festival. He rehearses in a recording studio at Hewett, experimenting with new sounds. He even home produces on his laptop, with the help of microphones. Lewis does have Facebook however doesn’t have a group for his band. He also uses sound cloud to post his music online. He is very reliable with weeks notice.

Royalty free track – mindset – stardust

Or

John woodward – gravity