Laura Marlin " My manic and I" Directed by James Copeman 2010
video link my manic and I
I'm a big fan of Laura's music and this video has always stood out to me for its atmosphere and strangeness so It seemed a good place to start my research. I like the use of mixed media approaches of using real time, illustrated animation and blended together with stop animation used on real time footage. It very Alice in Wonderland in reference and blurs the reality and story. It's quite literal at times how it visually translates the lyrics of the song. The subject of the song is bipolar and its the interpretation and nuance by use of medium I think works really well here.
James Copeman is an English photographer and film maker currently working in music videos, commercials as well as his own personal projects that often revolve around dance. Looking at his recent work he seems to have made a departure from this style of film making and has a diverse portfolio from making TV adverts for big brands and TV shows to working with more alternative music artists.
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Screen shot stills from the video showing how she is watching the
Story unfold in a mini box theatre. She both animated as a character of herself and as her real self. The animation of herself enters the room and the lines are blurred, perhaps relating to the unreal feelings of mental illness and seeing yourself as a character.
Agnes Obel "Riverside " Directed by Alex Brùel Flagstead 2010 Berlin.
My hand written notes, what I like about the visuals and style of the video
Agnes Obel is a Danish multi instrumentalist, singer songwriter. She's writes on piano and more recently keyboard instruments such as harpsichords and spinnet. She has a classic style while being very experimental with he use of her voice and instruments in production. lots of her music has featured in films and TV show, always with a dark edge, Including Netflix series "Dark" she defiantly has that gothic nior vibe about her music. Its something I reply to people when they ask what kind of music I make , I answer the kind of music that could be used for a murder Mistry.. Or at least I try.
Screen shot stills from the video
Kate Bush " Suspended in Gaffa" Directed by Brian Wiseman 1982
Video link Suspended in gaffa
- "The video of ``Suspended in Gaffa'' was to be done as simply and quickly as possible; as always with very little time to complete it in, the simpler the better.
- I saw it as being the return to simplicity, a light-hearted dance routine, no extras, no complicated special effects. [In fact, however, there are many very sophisticated and subtle technical effects in this video, and the production design is very impressive.] As we were all so pleased with the previous sets - put together under the supervision of a very clever man, Steve Hopkins - we asked him to build another, this time an old barn with large gaps in the walls where we could allow the light to streak through. We used a combination of natural and artificial light, and everyone was thrilled with the sense of realism that the set achieved. Steve brought in huge branches of trees that were behind the gaps in the set, and a dedicated helper called ``Podge'' sat up on a piece of scaffolding for six hours and enthusiastically shook a piece of tree to make the light move and dance as if motivated by a furtive wind. The video did remain uncomplicated - just a few effects and just one extra: but a very special. one. There is one section where a child's voice says, ``Mother, where are the angels? I'm scared of the changes.'' And there was only one person that could be addressed to - my mother."
- (Above is Kate talking about making the video taken from" Kate in her own words "section of the Wikipedia page for this song)
- I include Kate bush in my research as I just think she's an incredible and original artist who has influenced so many. Though her music videos are now visually very dated,, she whole heartedly wrote and performed dances for the music and even made her own costumes, a trailblazing artist in the way she took so much creative control of her sound and image. This video like she says is a simple dance routine, Something very innocent and playful, dont worry I don't plan to do any dance routines or really feature much physically in my video however I like the idea of costume and how she uses her body/ dance/ movement to add to the meaning of the songs, interpretive and quirky rather than the over sexualised videos of some female artists of the time.
Kate with her Mum in a still from the video.
PJ Harvey "I inside the old year dying". Directed by Cristobal Leon and Joaquin Cocina 2023
Video link " I inside...
PJ Harvey says of the song: “This delicate and beautiful song eluded us until the very last day in the studio. Over the previous five weeks we had tried so many times to capture it and failed, but then John reinvented the feel of the guitar pattern. As he was demonstrating it in the control room, Flood handed me a microphone and pressed record whilst I sat next to John trying to work out how to sing to it. The result somehow captures the ethereal and melancholic longing I was looking for.In the lyric everyone is waiting for the saviour to reappear – everyone and everything anticipates the arrival of this figure of love and transformation.There is a sense of sexual longing and awakening and of moving from one realm into another – from child to adult, from life to death and the eternal.” Of the film’s directors Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña, PJ Harvey says, “I have long admired their unique work and its combination of animation and drawing. I love how they have created their own narrative for the song yet still harness all the emotional qualities it inhabits. I encouraged them to go with their intuition and imagination and gave them complete creative freedom which resulted in this magical film.” Taken from an article on folk radio june 2023 |
always a new approach to every project, I think her performance, imagery, videos, and sound combined create a very immersive world. In this example she has sourced artists she admires to make a music video for her song "I inside the old year dying" and what is interesting is that the artists Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña are telling a separate story through their animated film to the narrative of the song yet they piece together beautifully to create a 3rd story . Polly speaks about the visuals "harnessing the emotional qualities "of the song, suggestive that that was the most important consideration to capture in a video.
Thinking about this work, when choosing imagery for my own video, it doesn't have to be literal , I want it to enhance the story of the song in some way weather through interpretation or more abstract gestures, that expands it into a visual world
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