Powerful Performers: Zack De La Rocha

The recent return of Rage Against the machine has brought back to life the powerful personality of the bands front man Zack De Le Roach. When thinking of Rage Against the Machine there is no doubt that their unique front man Zack De La Rocha pops in to mind. The singer’s political outbursts received so much attention because of his powerful on stage performances; Rocha seems to attack the government with his powerful style of what can only called shouting. However his deliverance of lyrics has its own unique sound which emphasizes the meaning of the song. Rage the machine has songs attacking racist policemen, the government and corporate America which seem to be above the law. If Rocha was a softly spoken front man there is no doubt that Rage Against the Machine would have not made the impact they have on the music indistry. Rage Against the Machine are of one the lucky few to be inducted in to Kerrang's hall of fame; which includes Slipknot, Metalica, ACDC, Motley Crue and Ozzy Osbourne.

Magnetic Man-I Need Air

The reasonably new video I Need Air by Magnetic Man has received some good publicity recently and is rated highly by NME as it has been shown recently in NME's most requested. The video it's self is a fairly simple club scene, however the blue lighting vastly improves the music video's basic mise en scene. What i like about the video is how the semi-slow motion camera shots make the people in the crowd stand out, and also the way the club scene rewinds slightly to emphasise the movments of the people in the scene (1 min 24 sec). The blue tinted lighting in the video is accompanied by dark shadows of the dancers which i think is a nice contrast and what i think is great about this video is that for a simple widley used style of video it does not become boring to watch or padded out.

Below is a link to the music video I Need Air by Magnetic Man:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2vWQFHP3D0

Copyright ©

Copyright will most deffinatly be the biggest problem with the music video project this year.Obtaining permission for a decent music track from an artist will be a big time consuming task. I have been browsing websites such as Myspace, Freeplaymusic and Unsignedacts.com for artists offering copyright free music. However I have not yet decided on what genre the song for the music video will be. I would like to gain permission from a good up and coming artist by mid september. I believe an up and coming artist will be most willing to grant me permission because if the music video gets a hint of Youtube success it could put them in the spotlight, and if the video is failure there reputation will not suffer.

The History of the Music Video

The first ever music video to be aired on MTV was ironically called Video Killed the Radio Star by the Buggels. It was shown for the first time on the 1st of August 1981 at 12:01 am. The Buggels had created a new trend in the music industry, music videos were at first used to promote artists songs and as music videos were being shown regularly on television it became a battle to create the best music video.

Music videos have grown in the same ways films have; as technology evolved new innovative techniques and effects became popular and each new development inspired a creative mind to push the current technology further. A good example is Money For Nothing by the Dire Straits; this revolutionary music video was the first to use computer generated animation. In modern times the video looks like a humorous Lego like animation, however in 1985 it was ground breaking technology.

Noah and the Whale: 5 Years Time

I have always been a fan of this song but recently while researching I came across its video. I was surprised by the quality of its video; it is defiantly one of the best original videos I have seen in a long time. What I like best about this video is the Costumes and the Performance of all the actors taking part. The ridiculous retro costumes accompanied by big aviator sunglasses make the actors look odd; however the performance and attitude of the actors make the video great to watch.



The simple dance routines also stood out to me, they gave the video the simple but “summer-ish” feel. I think the producer of this video has made a great video for what seems to be a reasonably small budget; the small pub it was filmed in gave the video its calm old Mise En Scene which matches the costumes perfectly.

This video has many small details which when put together create an impressive originality, and because of those small details such as costume, setting, handheld camera angle, dance routines and the great miming/instrumental matching the video makes it unique. There is a good match of the characters playing the instruments to the other events which occur such as the dance routines which makes the video run smoothly and doesn’t seem “padded out”.





Below is the link to the video 5 Years Time by Noah and the Whale:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8YCSJpF4g4

Lips To The Floor

Lips to the Floor is an interesting music video by UK grime artist Dubbledge, the video and song its self was an attack on “Waste” Grime MC’s (according to Dubbledge himself.)The video is made up by a collage of well known YouTube accidents and fights. The video may be a huge breach of Copyright however I believe it is a great video. The music video it's self is hard to analyse in terms of camera angles and mies en scene, from people falling of stages to a man being chased by a lion this video has it all.

It’s not just the humorous clips that make this video enjoyable to watch I think the animated words that appear on the screen as dramatic subtitles emphasizing the lyrics in the video make it more than just a collage of simple humor. The video which was first uploaded to YouTube on the 26th of December 2006 I believe may have inspired some other collage videos.

In most cases collage videos go horribly wrong, it is easy to create a “padded out” idea of what someone believes is funny which in most cases the extreme opposite of the general public is. On the other hand a good example of a collage video that received public and online praise was Weezer’s Pork and Beans. Pork and Beans was realized on the 24th of April 2008, that’s more than 2 years after Lips to the floor. Also considering some of the clips used in Pork and Beans featured in Lips to the Floor two years earlier, the American rock band Weezer must have enjoyed Lips to the Floor enough to make their own version.

Below is the link for: Lips to the Floor:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXxLbLvCRrk

Slipknot Vermillion

The music video Vermillion by Slipknot is rather unusual however it is extremely appealing and makes the audience want to watch on. The "slow movement" effect is created by the main character (Janna Bossier) walking extremely slow and every movement she makes is practically made in milliseconds, by doing this the camera is simply left to film on a tripod for most probably over an hour in a reasonably crowded public place, and when filming is finished they simply increase the speed of the film to create the effect. The effect produces a great feel to the video and you can sense the actress frustration of the world passing her by.

The reason why I thought of this video is that I believe that we could possibly use this style of editing. Although we have not started planning or storyboarding the music video I think that this effect can be very impressive when done correctly.

Also we could use this style of editing but in reverse, by reverse I mean our character walking normally but everyone else in the background moving very slowly to make our character seem very hyper. If all the people in the scene ignore the main character as he tries to speak to them it would be a great way to show our characters desperateness and how unsociable he seems to other people.

The music video shows a confused character walking though New York following a butterfly, her frustration is clear to see due to the Mise en scene and her heavily duty eye make up. I am a big fan of this video and believe we can use some of its ideas for our own music video.

The Brief

My name is Jack Rush and I have just completed AS level Media and am waiting for my final grade. I wish to continue with Media for A Level and our task for A2 is to create a Blog portraying and reflecting our ever increasing knowledge of the Media and specifically Pop videos. Our main task is to produce a music video. The Music video has to be within 3 to 5 minutes long, so the challenge of producing enough film for the video without using the same material multiple times (padding out) may be difficult. Considering our Thriller introduction had to be only two minutes long we may struggle, with this in mind I am looking forward to the challenge and am starting planning already