I Miss the Days When Music Videos Never Even Tried to Make Sense

Because I haven't posted in awhile

Here are some videos.





Big announcement coming soon.

Another Music Video

This one comes from Bully the Little Stuffed Bull. Check out Gail Ann Dorsey singing with David Bowie.



Wow.

It makes me wonder if Gail Ann Dorsey inspired Mim Bracca in the novel A Fistful of Rain. Good book, but better video.

That "Handlebars" Song

That "Handlebars" song has been stuck in my head ever since I first heard it on Randy's blog.

As much as I love the song and the general art design of the video (included at the bottom of this entry), I think the ideas behind the video are pretty wrong-headed.

Two points.

One - There is not usually a point in your life where you make a choice and then stay on that path forever. Even seemingly permanent decisions (like marriage and kids) can be temporary (like divorce and child abandonment). And you aren't ever given choices to make like "Corporation" or "Peace." People can and do choose both, and they can switch paths whenever they want. People drop out of Corporate America all the time just like people are constantly entering Corporate America from other avenues of life.

Two - Dividing the world into two groups of people and presenting one as ALL GOOD and the other as ALL EVIL is the sort of fanatic behavior that starts conflict. I know the makers of the video are trying to make a point, but they are feeding the beast.

Having said that, I really like the look and feel of the video, and the song is a real knockout. PLUS, it is really easy to write your own lyrics to the tune.

I can clean my teeth with no dental floss... no dental floss... no dental floss...

Another Missed Opportunity

It looks like the Stockstock Film Festival came and went this year without me knowing about it. Which is a little sad because some of the stock footage they offer for editing was really good this year.

In case you didn't know the Stockstock Film Festival is a festival based around stock footage. They give potential film editors the same amount of stock footage and a certain amount of time. During this time, all the editors have to make a new film using only the existing footage.

The great thing about the website is that now it is all electronic - you download the stock footage instead of having it mailed to you and people can post their submissions on YouTube when all is said and done. They even have a film page dedicated to all entries.

My contribution to last year's contest was a short ditty called Hey Loser! One of the frustrating things about it was that I never got a chance to see the competition, so I didn't really know the criteria/judge's tastes. This year, I do. And I'm psyched about next year.

Here's this year's winner (it really takes off at the 30 second point - you can see some of the truly incredible footage from this year's contest):



Here's my Hey Loser! video from last year:



Now you can see who is the better editor. But I'm already getting ideas for next year. Just you wait.

Two things aspiring filmmakers can do to hone up on their skills

I casually follow the entertainment industry, trying to find out how people can eek out a living in an industry that is grossly unprofitable. (Seriously, both George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola have started side businesses to support their film production companies. And if these guys can't make money by only making films, there is no way some visionary with two camcorders and a microphone can lead the good life.)

And if you follow the industry news, you find very quickly that the day-to-day bread-and-butter work is commercial or industrial work. There is very little room for creativity or experimentation. If a filmmaker wants to branch out and do something experiemental or non-mainstream, they have to either do it on their own dime or find someone who will pay for something eye-catching and memorable.

Hence, the music video. I've really become obsessed with some music videos over the years for their no-holds-barred approach to filmmaking. Even if I don't like the song all that much, I can watch the music video repeatedly.

Like this one:



Because of their disposability, the filmmakers can get downright abstract and experimental with the process. Sometimes when I see music videos, I ask myself, "How in the world was this pitched to the financiers?"

Can you imagine a meeting where a filmmaker goes, "Yeah. When I hear your song, I see a single, slow-motion shot of a running man burning," and the music company goes, "Sure, here is $50,000 - make it alive for us!"

Improbable, but, still somehow we wind up with one of my favorite videos:



And there are even stranger ones out there. Can you imagine how this film was pitched?



So that is what I recommend people do to hone their filmmaking skills - make music videos. Because the field is so wide open, and because there are not any real set standards as to what constitutes a "good" one vs. a "bad" one, you can't really go wrong.

If you don't want to do something experimental and strange, you can always draw from the rich visual language of the Hollywood musical. Despite everyone saying the musical genre is dead and gone, I find it turning up in music videos all the time. Like in this one where we get to see one singer play three different vocalists - you can tell them apart because they have different hair color.



And if sensory overload and editing that causes autism in children, epileptic siezures in the sensitive, and ADD in the rest of us, there is always the musical narrative music video. Like this one:



Once again we have a single singer as three different characters - a blonde, a brunette, and a red head. Unlike the previous one, all three apparently fight over some blandly attractive lunkhead. Does anyone else get confused at the bait-and-switch at the end of the video where the brunette is clearly the one who wins the guy, but somehow he winds up with the blonde in a bathroom stall? And who associates romantic conquest with bathrooms these days? As with the rich musical tradition, a willful suspension of disbelief is necessary for enjoyment to begin.

The most fun I've been seeing with music videos recently have been the strange little assemblages of film that people cobble together in their homes. Like this one:



This not only shows the power of good editing, it also offers an insightful commentary on the way media affects people in front of the camera. Frankly, I forgot that Ms. Spears was ever a child star until I saw this footage. Seeing a little girl spout lyrics like this simply reinforce the dangers of exposing children to pop culture.

At this point, I should probably wring my hands and wonder what our culture has come to, with popular pop songs directed towards young teenage girls bastardize a 1940s swing style to include lyrics like "He makes my panties drop," and "He makes my cherry pop." (Of all the ladies I have met who were alive in the 40s, none of them struck me as someone who would talk like this.) Or I should wonder about the affect of videos that show that the best way to have a healthy, caring relationship with a boy is to push his current girlfriend into a Port-a-potty.

Instead, I will offer up the other short film genre that fascinates me: the documentary.

In the couple of documentaries I have attempted to film, the main problem I have found is that no one likes to be on camera. Whip out a camera, and people run away from it.

But if you can establish a good rapport and an air of trust, some great things can happen. Recently, a local paper featured a vintage 70s documentary on Dallas-area carhops. In some ways, it is just as fun and abstract as the music videos. It has intriguing visuals and an interesting narrative.

Here's Part 1:



What I really like about this is how the subjects are so open and honest... and how strange and fun that time was - when people dressed up as marching band members serving people in cars. I'm not really nostalgic for that time and fashion as much as I am notalgic about how comfortable and unguarded about how people are in their thoughts. Like in Part 2, where the one fella talked about a place that specialized in having "fat girls, 10 or 12 of the heaviest girls they could find" carhops - and then they showed it. There was a lot of implicit trust and honesty going on in that film. I don't see that happening very much nowadays.



So there you go. Music videos and documentaries are the key to making yourself a better filmmaker. Go forth and do some strangeness.