The Music Videos of Kendrick Lamar

I'm going to make a (possibly) bold statement and say that the music videos that Kendrick Lamar has released to go along with his newest album are some of the greatest music videos ever made. Period. Not just some of the best rap videos, because that would be unnecessarily lumping them into a subcategory of music. The best ever, throughout all genres, all years, everything.

The videos in question - for the songs "i," "King Kunta," "Alright," "For Free?" and "These Walls" - have very little in common with each other, with the exception of an incredibly passionate Kendrick and the same themes that tie his (beautiful, sprawling, important) album "To Pimp a Butterfly" together. Unfortunately, all of the videos are on Vevo, so instead of posting those nice little Youtube boxes for this blog post, I'll just use some screenshots and throw the links down at the bottom of the page.

To Pimp a Butterfly is a dense album, and I'd be lying if I said I knew exactly what it was about. Some of it's about being sick of fame to the point where you're alone, screaming, in a hotel room. Some of it - as Billboard points out - is about self-actualization, appreciation, and what it takes to stay sane. A lot of it is about blackness, and social injustices, and race. But through it all, there's this bit of positivity that seeps through the cracks, this sometimes overwhelming sense that that, yeah, okay, maybe everything is going to be alright after all.

His videos, more so than any other music videos I've ever seen, are an extension of his album. They're more than just Kendrick mouthing the words to a rap, trying to make a couple extra bucks and maybe nab a VMA. A few of them have verses that never made it onto the album. And they're all incredibly beautiful.

His newest video for "These Walls" is an 8-minute long extravaganza that includes (what at least appears to be) a 2 minute tracking shot through a house full of people. Guys fight, someone falls down the stairs, and Kendrick gets twerked through a wall. But then all of a sudden, something changes, and Kendrick does something that you'll find seems to be another theme throughout his album/videos; he plays with our expectations. The camera is put in the backseat of a car with three guys talking about what could only be interpreted to be a breaking and entering. 30 seconds later, however, and we find out that they've been talking about a talent show, where they proceed to dance to a song - that isn't Kendrick's, by the way - for a good portion of the video.

Kendrick's crowning achievement, though, is his video for "Alright." Shot in black and white and featuring a floating, otherworldly Lamar throughout, the video opens with the poem that Kendrick refers to throughout the length of his album over some various B-roll shots: a skyline, smashing glass, police brutality. It transitions into a rap that, again, isn't even part of the actual song, featuring Kendrick and the rest of Black Hippy in a car carried on the shoulders of police officers, like they're carrying a throne. Kendrick throws money from cars, raps from on top of a lamppost, and dances with his friends, ending with one of the more powerful visuals I've seen in a long, long time; Kendrick, still on top of the lamppost, getting "shot down" by a white officer. Blood spurts out from his coat as he falls, re-reciting the poem from the beginning. And when he hits the ground? He smiles.

Maybe they're not the most beautifully shot, or maybe some people won't be able to get past the general goofiness or rap video tropes that Kendrick tends to play around with, but I think in light of current events, they're incredibly important. I honestly think that this is an example of art in it's purest form; imitating life, but also trying to transform it. Anyways, they've got some great messages, and you should check them out.

 - Alright
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRK7PVJFbS8 - King Kunta
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aShfolR6w8 - i
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZTYgq4EoRo - For Free?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drV0QatqbRU - These Walls

So Tell Me When it Kicks In

Early last week, popular singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran released his music video for the song "Bloodstream." Bloodstream is a song off his album 'X' and features the English band, Rudimental. The music video was far from the last love-struck video Sheeran released, and in fact takes on a more serious tone. The video stars Ray Liotta, who is portrayed as an older musician who seems to have had much too long in the spotlight, and is starting to become exhausted by it.
The musician seems to have a Gatsby complex; a big home, with lots of money and things he doesn't need, who spends his days perplexed over what he's had and spends his nights drinking and doing drugs to a point of no return. He even falls into some water...
...Okay that may be where I draw the Gatsby conclusion from, but still, it's pretty similar. (Also may a little funny).
Anyway, the music video seems to fit well with the song itself. I think the lyric "this is how it ends, I feel the chemicals burn in my blood stream," pairs well with the aging musician, who is seeing where his life has ended up, and can feel the wear and tear getting to him. It does seem a little comical sometimes, while the musician is stumbling over some women and appearing to be singing karaoke, but the video does kind of hit a serious note. Not many people think about the spotlight and what it does to people, especially when they're worn out and can keep up with the masses and the tastes of the new generations. Maybe it's time that this guy goes on a vacation where nobody knows his name...
I think that the music video was pretty good, and showed a very similar quality to Sheeran's other music videos. They are always a little bit ambiguous, with room open for a few different interpretations, but the main message is always clear. And, they are most definitely always unique. To be honest, I was pretty surprised that this was the song he chose to release as a single next, because there were a lot of other songs off the album that stood out more for me, but I think I understand now. With Rudimental collabing with him and the idea for the music video, I suppose it's starting to make sense now.

The video is also presented by the YouTube Music Awards.

The 50's are calling, they want "Dear Future Husband" back.

On March 16th, singer Meghan Trainor released yet another romanticized 50's-era music video titled "Dear Future Husband". Trainor has a number of other well-known songs such as "All About That Bass" and "Lips are Movin". While many of her songs are very catchy to most listeners, I believe that the video representations of her songs are wildly ineffective and go against all progress that women have made in the past 60 years. It was not only her choice of lyrics, but the artistic choices in the video made that were a bit off.

I can see why some people might like the video; there are a lot of fast cuts and a billion costume changes, but I think all those elements were just a distraction from the fact that the song is really really terrible. There are a lot of pop-y colors that don't look good together at all, and overall the video is just one big clusterf*ck of old-school romantic gestures and Trainor bopping around from side to side. I just want to ask the director why they think Trainor going out with all these guys who do something the teensiest bit wrong calls for her to dump them? The storyline of the music video just doesn't make sense at all.

The lyrics are also very confusing. Just an example of some of the lines from the song are, "take me on a date, I deserve it babe, and don't forget the flowers every anniversary / Cause if you treat me right I'll be the perfect wife, buying groceries, buy-buying what you need". These lyrics are just bringing back themes women were forced to follow mid-century, because that was the "norm".
According to an October Rolling Stone interview that her newest album is all about how she wants to be treated with respect by her future partners. While this is a very relevant theme for women all over, her latest video regresses to 50's-era ideals of everything being about the man first.

Throughout the video, Trainor is shown doing various "housewife" activities, such as washing the floor, cooking, and waiting in the bedroom; all for her "future husband". A number of things are wrong with this picture. First off, this girl is only 21 years old and singing about her future husband. You're young, successful, and well-known! Go and write some songs about women deserving equal pay and not needing a husband, instead of this bullcrap about everything your future husband needs to do. You are a popular celebrity in the 21st century and you have the power to make a difference through your creations.

If you so desire, watch the music video yourself and see what I mean.

Thinking Out Loud

Ed Sheeran's music video for his song "Thinking Out Loud," probably killed millions of fangirls back in October when he released it. It was one of his only music videos that he was actually in the entire time - something that many dedicated fans weren't used to, and better yet he was ballroom dancing. In my opinion, as a loyal fan, this was such a good move and better than any romance music video that would try to have something meaningful behind it and become cliche.

 The dancing wasn't some intricate interpretive dance that would take a while to interpret. It was just a "couple" dancing to a romantic ballad, and it was honestly one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. I've never seen Ed dance like this or act like this.


The song since has quickly become one of the greatest romance songs of the year, becoming the next wedding song, Ed even performed it at a few weddings himself. His music seems to inspire, and his videos follow straight through with that. His videos have always been interesting and entertaining; they have included things such as carrying a strong message, talking cats, Rupert Grint pretending to be Ed, dancing puppets, dancing incorporated ASL, and many other things.

 

 


I have never once felt disappointed by his music videos, and he has always surprised me with the angle they've taken. I guess, what I mostly have to say about this is that Ed Sheeran, to me, is one of the greatest entertainers alive right now. He's willing to do what it takes to please fans, and he's got some serious guitar and vocal skills up his sleeve.  Now that he can ballroom dance, isn't he the whole packaged deal?  I think he has amassed many more fans since the release of the music video.

I will never get over this beautiful ballad and dance. Well done to Ed Sheeran and his team.

 He's even announced a North American headlining tour in the past week. He's heading to places he's never been on his own, (since he accompanied Taylor Swift on her Red tour).

More info on that here.
Watch his YouTube videos on his YouTube channel here.

Elastic Heart Raising Controversy

Recently, Sia came out with a music video for her song "Elastic Heart." The music video features actor Shia LaBeouf and young dancer Maddie Ziegler interpretive dancing within the confines of a cage. As soon as the video went viral, the controversy over whether or not it was pedophilia stirred up conversation around the world.

 In the video, both Shia and Maddie are in little clothing, and dancing together. There are moments in the video where they are laying beside one another, she is on his back, or he is reaching out to touch her. Due to this, many people quickly wrote off the idea of the video being anything more than some old guy wanting to be with a young girl.
To me, the dance itself wasn't as suggestive as people had made it out to be. The touching between the two is very minimal, and for most of the video it seems that the two of them are in some sort of battle. Honestly, I thought it was a bit strange the first time I watched it, but it deserved to be watched again.
Upon watching it a second time, I listened to the music behind it more carefully and tried to tie the two together.
The lyrics contained phrases such as "You did not break me, I'm still fighting for peace," "I've got thick skin and an elastic heart," and "I want it, I want my life so bad. I'm doing everything I can." Hearing this, I knew for sure that this wasn't a two person relationship struggle, but a struggle that was occurring within oneself.

I think the concept was a lot harder to grasp for most people because it wasn't two people of the same gender playing the part. But, Sia tweeted recently after the controversy began that Shia and Maddie were the only two that fit the role to her, so this was how it was supposed to be. The video could have been completely different if just one of the two were switched out for someone else.

The two Sia's. 

The character that Maddie portrays in this music video would be better known as a younger, care free Sia, while Shia would be what Sia has become, how she is now. I would think that the cage works as her mind, where the two of them are confined. As Maddie dances around and acts carefree and naive, Shia watches her in fascination, as if wondering how this could have been his former self and what has happened. Maddie dances away from him, and you can tell she isn't happy with what she's become. I imagine it'd be terrifying looking into a mirror and seeing that you've become an old, worn down member of society. 

Through Shia's facial expressions and the way he looks at her, you can tell that he is having a hard time letting go of who he used to be.

Does he really want to?

Does he have to?

And Maddie doesn't really want him to be this person either. She hits him and his facial expressions become more childish, almost proving to him that she's still somewhere in there. That maybe they shouldn't let go just yet.

Ultimately, it's just a matter of time before it's too late and she has to go. But neither one of them want her to go without him. She can easily slip through the bars of the cage, but he is too big to fit. They fight to try to get him out until the very end of the video, where he seems to become much more hopeless about what is to be, while she seems to want to fight indefinitely.

I would ask people to look further into the video before writing it off. The concept of fighting and letting go of your inner self is pretty big. My advice is to sit back and enjoy the wonderful performance put on by Shia LaBeouf and Maddie Ziegler with the musical styling of the talented Sia and just relax, not everything in the world has to be something so terrible. If you haven't seen the amazing music video you can watch it here.

Emotional Simplicity As Shown in the Brilliant Disguise Music Video

            It’s a simple music video. One shot. No camera movements, just a steady zoom. A man plays his guitar in a kitchen. This restraint may seem to some bland and uninteresting, but it is in fact a testament to the power of developing a narrative and visual style to accompany the core emotions of your project instead of building upon it.

The song Brilliant Disguise, from the Bruce Springsteen album Tunnel of Love, was released as a single 1987. The song’s about the nature of identity in marriage, it is a contemplative piece about the doubts one feels about their significant other in a relationship, and the fears and pains that accompany them. The narrator and his significant other are clearly past the point of blissful love, that period of time where you are blinded by the pure overwhelming emotions of being attached to someone. He is still in love it seems, but now he is looking at who she really is and who he really is. And he can’t help but doubt.  

So tell me what I see

When I look in your eyes

Is that you baby, or just a brilliant disguise?

Is the person he fell in love with the person she really is? I mean, can you ever really know, understand a person’s pains? Fears? Hell, can you ever really understand your own? The song never addresses these questions, which ends up making it that much more powerful. It doesn’t give the answers for the dark underbelly of identity in a relationship, but simply brings them up and ponders the ramifications of them.  It’s a powerful testament to one of the many discrepancies in love, and a powerful one at that.

This is a complicated, unnerving emotion to render into a music video. The video was released around the beginning of the peak of MTV. Videos were starting to get really flashy; they’d have big narrative arcs that the songs would accompany and detail instead of having the images give flavor to the songs. That is not necessarily bad. Sometimes fancy editing and extravagant camera movements empower the creators and help them deliver their message. Sometimes it is simply a show of skill and prowess, unnecessarily clogging up their visual palette and distracting from the core emotions of their piece. So going into the music video, in that era, one would expect some sort of narrative showcase of Bruce with a wife in a variety of situations looking forlornly off into the distance. There’d probably be some real nice dissolves here and there, maybe the woman even stares at the moon from a balcony at some point, her dress waving beautifully in the night time winds.

Instead, in the hands of director Meiert Avis, we have a black and white video of single shot zoom in on Bruce as he plays the guitar. It’s uncomplicated. He just plays his guitar and sings while staring into the camera. At the beginning, we’re something like ten feet away from him visually. The kitchen he’s sitting in looks like a set.  It comes across as surprisingly gimmicky and cheap.

Well I've tried to hard baby

But I just can't see

What a woman like you

Is doing with me

But the song delves into the deeper and more emotionally stirring parts of the song. The camera keeps steadily zooming in on Bruce. His face is browbeaten and weary. Bruce’s singing, which was recorded live on set that day, which is an unusual practice, strains in parts. The polish is gone. Instead, these words are pouring straight from his soul. The kitchen keeps looking like a set, but it takes one a whole other sense of identity. This is where the romantic, idealized marriage should happen. Loved ones gather at the dinner table to bond. These meals should serve as an affirmation of love. It should be perfect. It should be the moment you look forward to at the end of the day. But sometimes our lives don’t live up to the ideals we hope to be true. And so the kitchen becomes foreboding. It is a dead hope; an ideal ransacked by the true nature of life, and this man can’t help but live with it. Love was never going to be this simple, but he can’t help but hope for it.

           The song ends on a final lyrical coda before an instrumental outro:

Tonight our bed is cold

I'm lost in the darkness of our love

God have mercy on the man

Who doubts what he's sure of

The video, in turn ends on a tight shot of Bruce’s face. His very human, soulful stare is almost pleading to the camera as the song and video fade out. The moment haunt, and it fills the viewer with an impression of dread and fear. For the man, for themselves, who knows.

            This is not the convoluted narrative conclusion or a special effects laden spectacle of visual noise and aural bombast. No, this is just a man and his doubts. 

Music Video Editor's Nightmare

In one of my earlier posts, I wrote about musical adaptations from stage to film, and then further explained my love for the combination of music and film. Well, here goes again! How better can you combine music and motion pictures? the answer: music videos. This is where I hope to see my career going at some point. I love music videos, because there's only 3-4 minutes of time to make a masterpiece, so you better be on your A-game. Every single shot and every pixel of the frame needs to be perfect. My dream is to edit music videos for rock bands. Unfortunately my favorite bands have stopped recording new music and thus stopped making music videos; for example, google "80's hair bands," and any name that pops up. Anyways, back to the topic at hand: music video perfection. I have a few examples of great music videos, however I have them split into two categories - ones that inspire me, and ones that could theoretically put me out of business. We'll start off with the latter.

This is a fantastic video, and extremely entertaining in a very quirky way. It was a viral video that is one of the main reasons the band got the amount of popularity that they have today. But what is my fear of this video? The fact that its all one shot. No editing. A lot of choreography, but no editing. This saddens my heart.

Similar thing. Great music video; its about as simplistic as it gets. Blank background, black and white picture, three dancers, pretty much one shot. But, this time more camera motion, more choreography, and a few cuts here and there, but still, my heart is sad.

Now we're getting somewhere! This throwback jam from the 80's has probably one of the coolest effects I've seen, and its pulled off fairly well. The blending of sketches and live-action footage arises so many questions in my mind. How did they do it? How long did it take? Why is that guy's voice extremely feminine? And most of all, this inspires me to edit and make effects that can blend fantasy with reality and become a timeless work of art such as this. This makes my heart say "mmmmmm fairies," which is good, I think.

Finally, this video is like crack to me. Delicious. This must have taken an eternity to edit. And at least three to set up and film it. And seeing that many drumsets makes me drool. This is beautiful, and my heart might just explode with excitement and inspiration to film and edit a combination stop-motion, with live-action footage.

I could take up this whole blog with links to all my favorite music videos, but i think you get my point now. In sum, I love editing, I love music, I love drums, and finally, I love my parents... in that order. Just kidding Mom! Happy Birthday.

Sincerely,
Scott Walle

Interactive Filmmaking on the Internet

The Internet is revolutionary. We all know that. Look at YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter and imagine your daily life without them.

It's a new medium that opens up huge possibilities for filmmakers. However, the web is often an afterthought for many filmmakers and especially student filmmakers.

Pretty much every feature length film has a website. Some of them are standalone works of interactive art. ParaNorman, a recent animated film, has an amazing interactive website built in HTML5 that allows audiences to get a feel for its characters and animation.

ParaNorman's site lets audiences take a virtual tour of the movie even before it was released last month. It's built on HTML5, which is the new internet standard for replacing Adobe's Flash.

HTML5 is completely run inside of the browser and is therefore more stable than Flash, making it possible for better and faster interactive animations.

Flash still has its uses of course. It's also been used in the past by many websites that haven't updated.

Released in 2008, CrimeFace is an interactive movie built on Flash. It adds a new depth to the film using a controllable interface around the actual film to provide more information about characters, props, and other elements of the fim.

A new genre of interactive films has entered the market: interactive music videos. Bands and musicians like Arcade Fire, ABBY, Bobby Womback,  Chairlift, Ellie Goulding and Miranda Lambert have all released impressive interactive HTML5 songs. 

Old Spice teamed up with Vimeo to make an interactive short video where you can make music by moving Terry Crews's muscles in different ways.

If you're interested in creating an interactive film, a handy web script called Popcorn.js works wonders and is worth a checkout.

Gaga for Gaga

I bet a lot of you aren't fans of Lady Gaga's music (Arturo I'm looking at you!!!), but you have to admit she doesn't lack creativity (or crazy), and her production team is certainly chock full of talent. For example... her most recent music video for her single, You and I.

From the opening shot to the final... this is clearly no amateur production. The visuals range from disturbing to beautiful and every shot is clearly premeditated as seen with all the different camera angles, movement, focusing, lighting, special effects, etc.. (talk about story-boarding each shot for this thing... it was probably almost a novel!)

The different scenes are so aesthetically strong... most videos would only try to tackle one of these scene changes but Gaga has to have it all. The make up, costumes, sets, dance routines... I'm not sure if it all really works for the song but it's certainly something to watch!