Your inspirations: embed at least 3 videos on your blog that you find interesting/inspiring. Discuss why you find these inspiring.. are they aspirational/creative/promotional/moral/a mix? What is it about these videos that connects with you? Is there a sense of identity pr belonging to their "brand"? Are they typical examples of the genre... if so how, or how not
Take On Me by A-ha- I find Take On Me to be an interesting music video mainly due to the immense creativity involved in its making as it was one of the first music videos to include both life action footage and rotoscoping animation. This rotoscoping technique of tracing over life action film to create the animation let it appear to be more realistic and allowed the video to flow better, unlike most music videos which were animated in other ways with often no attempt to create realistic movement. I also admire the way in which they use the animations as a key part of the music video's storyline- another part of the music video which I found vey interesting as I enjoy it when there is some sort of storyline, as there is in take on me. This large amount of creativity was deliberately used with the intent that the interest sparked by the content of the music video would promote A-ha to the public, Take On Me had previously been released a few times but each time it had flopped, this approached worked and for the first time the song was a success. The animation style which led them to fame in the UK became part of their brand and was a feature of many of their future music videos, their costume of a black leather jacket is worn by at least one person in the band in most of their music videos. Most other bands in the same new wave, synth pop genre, although their story lines were also often fantasy based, did not include such animation, the costume in most of the other music videos also matched the elaborate fantasy them, unlike the of the time costume of take on me.
Happy Hour by the Housemartins- I find this music video to be inspiring due to he underlying moral message against the "hypocrisy and sexism of young British business types". I also enjoyed the creative use of claymation within the music video which had a similar promotional effect as having the rotoscoping in the Take On Me video had for A-ha, the band to 'broke out" and become popular in the UK, although in Happy Hour's case it was by using the very much in vogue claymation, as well as having a famous comedian cameo, instead of using a style fairly new and unusual for music videos. The members of the band often wore short-sleeved cardigans and jumpers along with shirts as they do in some parts of this video, this became the most common costume they wore and the comical dancing style present throughout the video is also another part of their brand. Other music videos in the same pop rock genre often took themselves more seriously than this one does, they often had less comical tones and wore more dramatic costumes, and most included at least one of the artists playing some kind of instrument, none of which was included in this video. However having a message behind the video and the lyrics as there is in Happy Hour was a prevalent feature of many pop rock music videos of this time.
Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen- This music video is so inspiring as it was the first full-length music video to be created- it inspired all music companies to make music videos to most of the hit songs which artist produced. They came up with the idea of making the video when they were supposed to perform on Top of the Pops but it conflicted with their tour and they feared that miming such a complex song would not work- so they sent the full-length music video of them performing to be played on the show instead. As seen in the music video Queen often wore the black leather jackets and had the long hair associated with rock bands, their use of eccentric costumes is also shown in the video, although Freddie's signature moustache is not present in the video. Many of the earliest music videos consisted mainly of shots of the band performing the song, including close-ups of the frontman singing, which can be seen in this music video, which makes sense as many of the earliest music videos would have copied the first. Throughout the videos you can see examples of the band all playing their instruments and singing along to the record as many rock videos do, the mostly black and darkened sets also reflect many rock music videos.
No comments:
Post a Comment