Hey, look at that: three months off and suddenly I’m back on the blog. What can I say, the summer breezes and a renewed positivity brought on by a fresh year rekindled my writing spark. That, or I’ve started a summer semester that has compulsory blog posts. I don’t know, you decide.
Despite having to admit that I’m doing the class to make up credit points for an early finish to my degree, I am genuinely excited about this course. Led by sometime tutor but most-time director/filmmaker/documentarian Rohan Spong (can’t wait to check out some of his docos), the subject is named The Great Belgian Egg Hunt in honour of Anton Corbijn and is all about music video. Music video production is a really interesting part of film-making (especially for those of us with short attention spans!) and I feel that it’s a really viable career pathway for those of us looking to get started in the Australian media industry.
In honour of my new course, I thought I’d start by reviewing a few of my favourite and not-so-favourite video clips out at the moment. Anyone who knows me well will know from my constant complaining that at my gym we’re subjected to channel V-Hits, so I feel relatively well-versed in the current music video zeitgeist. Here are my thoughts:
The Girl is Mine by 99 Souls.
While I’m not a huge fan of this song, I really love this video clip. In our reading this week, Vernallis looked at the importance of narrative in music video, and suggested that the majority of video clips actually don’t conform to conventional narratives. This video must be the exception, because what I love about it is the quirky and considered story with engaging protagonists at the heart. Pretty unrelated to the song from what I can tell, it follows a young man living in a reverse-world where he seeks treatment for his crushing disability: walking forwards.
The Trouble With Us by Chet Faker and Marcus Marr.
This video is much less plot-based than The Girl is Mine, but I would argue that you can still glean some narrative by reading into it. That’s not why I like it though; I simply really like the aesthetic created by the costumes and choice of cast against the minimal props and background, and the engaging visual effect of the domino-like repetitive sequences.
On the naughty list: Hello by Adele.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not bagging Adele. Are you even allowed to? Along with the rest of the world, I love this song, but I’m not so enamoured with the video clip. While it’s not so linear as The Girl is Mine, it does clearly tell a story; that of a break-up. The problem I have with it is that while the song tells that story with gut-wrenching emotion, to me the video seems overwrought and clichéd. The reaching hands, POV shots of an argument and falling leaves all strike me as melodramatic and detracts from the song’s emotional power.