Task 3 - Music Video Director Research

The music video director I will be researching is Spike Jonze. Aswell as directing many music videos for bands such as Daft Punk, Weezer, REM and the Beastie Boys, he directed his own films such as 'Being John Malkovich' and the upcoming 'Where The Wild Things Are'. He also directed various skateboard videos and was the creator and executive producer for the TV show 'Jackass'. He also co-founded 'Directors Label' which was a series of dvd's featuring the work of music video directors such as Chris Cunningham and Michel Gondry.

The first video by Spike Jonze that I will be analysing is the video for the song 'Buddy Holly' by the band Weezer.
Here is the link to the video (embedding is disabled)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiIC5qcXeNU

In this video the band are superimposed into an episode of the 50's TV show 'Happy Days'. In this video the character 'Al' introduces the band and the kids in the show are dancing with each other as the band perform the song. During the song the band make flirtatious looks and winks to girls in the audience. The fonz then comes in, does a weird russian dance thing and then walks out at the end of the song with two girls.

The band are dressed up as a 50's pop band, with wollen jumpers, ties and neatly combed hair. They also play as if the were an comemrcial pop bands, smiling alot and bopping around, as opposed to rock bands peformences now days where they are usually alot more energetic. By doing this the band really look like they belong in this 50's TV show.

Everything you can see on screen, other than the band, featured in the original show. Everything from the characters, the tables and chairs and the iconic juke box in the corner of the room. This is especially good for fan's of the show as they can instantly recognise things that feature in the video.

Obviously there is heavy intertextuality between the video and the TV show happy days, diwn to the finest detail, such as the opening credits, the audience reactions and the 'to be continued' message that comes on screen halfway through the song.

The lyrics of the song relate well to the video, especially the chorus that features the lines 'I look just like Buddy Holly, and you're Mary Tyler Moore', as these are famous people that would have been most popular back in the time that the show Happy Days was set/aired.

I think that the video is effective as it is rememberable, it is also humorous so you would want to watch it again which would obviously promote the band and the song featured within it.

The second Spike Jonze video I am going to analyze is the video for Bjork's 'It's Oh So Quiet'.
Here is the link for the video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5ndoBdm0yY

In this video, the singer of the song Bjork is seen walking around calmly singing along with the songs until the loud part kicks in and the whole video becomes a lot more active, with everyone dancing and whacky things going on such as people dressed as postboxes and tyres flying around.

This portrays Spike Jonze's creative and imaginative style, almost abstract is some places, but more 'whacky' than totally beyond the realms of reality.

The editing in this video portrays the change between the slow quiet music and the loud fast part very well. The quiet parts of the song seem to be in slow motion even though the singing in synced, and these parts are filmed very close up to the singers face, or the camera is postitioned to not show alot of the surroundings, however when the fast part kicks in the camera pans out for a long shot to show the entire set and everyones dance moves. The fast pace actions and dance moves really works with the music, and although there is a high contrast between the two parts of the song, the two parts don't clash at the change over so they still seem into flow into each other.

The colour contrast between the two parts of the video is also largely evident. During the quiet parts of the song the whole scene is shaded, almost fading to black around the sides of the video, but when the camera pans out and the music and video come to life the colour becomes alot brighter. The drab rundown looking walls suddenly become gleaming and colourful, and Bjorks over the top orange dress on full display also adds to the colourful aspect of these scenes.

Spike Jonze's style of not being completely serious but not going too far is evident in this video. Although the fast past give of a cheery sunny vibe and is made to make you smile, it doesn't seem childish or stupid in many ways, and by retracting us back to the murkier side of things after a brief ray of sunshing, it doesn't seem like too much, it almost makes these over the top bits more welcome and enjoyable to the viewer.

I think the attended audience of this pop culture, cheery songs would really like the video as it is not serious at all and is really somthing fun that they can watch and be entertained by. The audience comments on the you tube video are all moajorly positive, with such things being said such as 'What an amazing voice! and a great video' and 'This video and soundtrack is a class act all the way through! '. This shows that the fans of the music also really enjoy the video, and that the video and the music really compliment each other.

Overall I think that the editing, lighting and camerawork on this video really works well with the song and actively portrays the style of the song, along with the pace and characteristics. The video really appeals to its target audience and even though it is over the top and whacky, it isn't too much and it an enjoyable video for everyone.