Wednesday, February 18, 2015

The Pentatonix and Todrick Halls' "Wizard of Ahhhs"

The Pentatonix are an amazing a cappella group that became famous by winning the third season of The Sing-Off. They combined in 2013 with Todrick Hall, a semi-finalist on American Idol and a YouTube star to create a music video based off the classic movie, The Wizard of Oz. In a sensational way they managed to use modern songs to tell a six minute version of this movie. They of course included the films most renowned song, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, at the end of the video. The lighting was a mixture of flat and natural elements that brought out different feelings throughout the length of the video. For example, it was very bright during the Munchkin City sequence since it was supposed to be happier, and used a lot of darker and green lighting when they met the Wizard of Oz since it was supposed to appear more sinister. One thing that definitely stood out was the coloring. In the beginning, the colors were very desaturated and a sepia tone to go along with the theme of being on a farm during that specific time period. It very closely followed the coloring of the original movie. When it transforms from the drab farm to the land of Oz, the colors become very bright and saturated and make it seem more mystical and dreamlike. The editing of this video consisted of a lot of dissolves into the dreamlike state and cuts when the actions were supposed to be portrayed as more chaotic. They used a lot of closeups of the different characters which really enhanced their presence. Obviously, the main part of this video is sound, and a lot of it is diegetic. It is seen on screen because everything that you hear is coming out of the mouths of the singers and beat boxer. The sound that is created is the motivator for all of the actions on screen and the music describes what they are doing in a creative and different way.

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