FTV Blog 12: Music videos, Distant Relatives & NABIL.com

I follow Kanye West on Twitter and one of my favourite things is when he talks about other rappers--it's just like they're normal friends in this high-profile social circle. A few months ago Kanye tweeted a link to a music video by Nabil Elderkin for the Nas & Damian Marley song Patience (which I love, from the album Distant Relatives, which I also love, having listened to it a lot since week one).

DISTANT RELATIVES "Patience" from nabil elderkin on Vimeo.

PART ONE: NABIL.COM

I didn't pay any attention to its director when I first watched it a few months ago (Kanye had tweeted with praise, as though he was a friend of the director's, or had previously worked with him), but I looked it up again recently because I wanted to listen to Patience while on a computer at uni. Its vimeo page has a link to Elderkin's website, Nabil.com, so I had a look.

The first thing that struck me was the unique way it's layed out. I actually like it, just white with a very long horizontal-scrolling line of videos, almost like a gallery of frames, each as visually artistic & classy as the last. I only scrolled across to see if Nabil has made music videos for any other artists or song that I know (he has; Kanye, k'naan, Bruno Mars) but I ended up fascinated and a little attracted to this idea of a catalogue of music singles compiled by the filmmaker. A showreel. With music videos it's always the opposite; a collection of songs listed by artist.

PART TWO: DISTANT RELATIVES MUSIC VIDEOS
My friend showed me the film clip for another song on the album, Nah Mean.

It's also a cool video but a completely different style to that in Patience. The two are almost opposites. It got me thinking about different philosophies in making music videos, different approaches. Should you tell a separate story in your film clip? Create a piece of visual art? Simply have a raw display of music, filming a live or studio performance of the song? It's an interesting medium, and I can see why so many filmmakers hone their skills on it. It's a short video but can include a vast range of narrative and stylistic possibilities.

FTV Blog 11: Footballer compilation videos

Over the past ten weeks I've tried to cover a wide range of media, offering a window into my thoughts. I'd like to talk about a fairly specific form of entertainment that's a small obsession of mine. This YouTube-based medium is a blend of short film, music video, and sports documentary. The best way to describe these videos is that they are basically highlight compilations for footballers (soccer players), made by fans. There are thousands of generic football videos where people upload highlights and maybe add a song they like over the commentary, but at the other end of the scale are the truly talented editors who create works of beauty and emotion. These are comparable to the stylised highlights you might see at the end of a match on TV, for example. Of course, it helps if you know about the players and the stories, or at least like football to start with.

Anyway, my current favourite is a certain video on Steven Gerrard, champion leader of Liverpool FC, made by MilanKakaBaros. The reputation of MKB for making these videos is perhaps greatest of all. A Liverpool fan, many were anticipating he would eventually make a Gerrard video. The result (below) is surprisingly restrained, with black & white filter and only the slightest red gradient over the picture, not to mention the beautiful music, a powerful juxtaposition against the high-intensity physical drama of Gerrard's feats.

Interestingly, the song was originally composed another football video, this one incredibly unique and definitely worth watching:

FTV Blog 10: The Piano

Very melodramatic, increasingly so towards the end. My favourite part was the climax where Sam Neill's character drags Ada back during the huge storm and he cuts her finger off. I'm not being sadistic or anything but it was deliciously dramatic, a proper spectacle. Having said that, the main reason I didn't like The Piano was for the melodrama. The characters behaved in a way that was surreal. They made strange, unbelievable decisions, like Baines' method of seducing Ada (and, in turn, Ada's puzzling affection for Baines). The story operated on a level that I didn't empathise with.

This is a clear pattern across the three Jane Campion films we watched: the whole thing was like a woman's strange fantasy. Every aspect of The Piano is heightened to increase the sexual repression, which grows the fantasy. It's in the remote forest, few people around; set in the 19th Century when sex was a far less discussed topic and the was certainly less sexual liberty; the protagonist, incredibly, is unable to speak yet she has two strong, handsome men fighting over her.

The movie reminded me of Porphyria's Lover, an 1836 poem by Robert Browning in which a psychotic man murders his lover, a pale woman who meets him in his small cottage during a cold, stormy English night.

We were asked to take notes on symbolism, setting and mis en scène, and for the latter I got absolutely nothing. I know what it means and I know what it entails but I find it impossible to take notes on it when watching a movie. To me it's a matter of either stating the obvious or looking too deeply and pulling meaning out of thin air. I won't do either.

I did, however, not that the titular instrument was a very direct, clear (it must be obvious if I realised it) symbol for Ada's voice, emotions, mood, etc. both in diegetic and non-diegetic score. You could also make a case for the piano representing Ada's heart or where her affections lie.

As for the setting, I note that the lush forest was not a typical paradisaical beauty but a dark, menacing landscape of nightmarish scale with difficult, ghoulish terrain. This adds to Campion's fantasy--have the love triangle developed in a larger settlement, say in a Scottish city or even Sydney cove, it would have been far less powerful (nor would that setting have allowed for some narrative aspects, like the piano left on the beach, the lack of characters/places for Ada to escape to early on).

FTV Blog 9: Jerrycan

Jerrycan was my favourite of the three short films we watched. Clearer story, surface level interactions--bully picking fights, aggressive dialogue. The film was more up front (than Gasman or Crackerbag). Fascinated by boys that age. The drama more colourful here. More instantly entertaining, you could just sit there and watch it.

(Perhaps as somebody not too far from that--boys, of that age, only 5 or so years younger) I enjoyed learning the dynamics within this group between these boys--the obnoxious leader who rules with a 'fuck you' attitude. He is so clear-cut it's a pleasure to watch. I've not been directly subjected to that sort of character before in real life but, like anyone else, I've been through stages of insecurity growing up where you struggle to find a balance between peer pressure, strength of character/identity, and social acceptance. The ages 13 or 14 are notorious in boys for brining out the worst. This film divulged that whole social world as well as telling its story clearly and concisely.

Jerrycan looked good, yeah, and again it was shot on real film. I'm convinced that that alone raises the grade of any movie. The three shorts we saw all had high production values--not necessarily high budget but high standard of production, detail...

You can praise all you like the quiet, beautiful pictures and they're fine but at the end of the day I enjoy watching Jerrycan far more.

FTV Blog 8: agIdeas

I made the decision to attend agIdeas, a three-day design conference at Melbourne Conventon Centre where acclaimed designers from Australia & the world speak to an audience of around 2,500. Some spoke about their work & influences, detailing projects like you would read an art museum curator describe an exhibition--jargon, dull, difficult. Others spoke about their lives and told stories about how they came to their current point in life. Most speakers offered advice and lessons they've learnt during their careers.

Walking out of the convention centre at the end of the third day I was feeling mixed opinions. My ticket cost $300, is that justifiable? There was so much to take in but no measurable outcome. So much conceptual inspiration and wisdom but so little tangible value.

There were two messages at the forefront of my mind. One was that the best designers have the type of character that sees them 'putting themselves out there', being proactive, working out of passion rather than to pass a uni course or comply to the boss's instructions. They go out and work on their own projects and interests regardless of whether it's paid or acclaimed or popular (yet). Only then can be fit to be employed or make a career out of designing something.

The second message I hold from agIdeas is that collaboration is greater than any individual labour. This is not a new philosophy or a revelation to me but it was notable to hear it repeatedly from people who are somehow seen on a pedestal by much of the adoring audience.

FTV Blog 7: A Quiet Word with Rob Sitch

The other week my parents were interested in watching this show A Quiet Word With..., a half-hour talk show hosted by Tony Martin, again on ABC. 'Hosted' is actually an overstatement; each episode he sits down one-on-one with his guest and chats about their career, old times, anecdotes, etc. On Easter Saturday, Martin's guest was Lily Tomlin, who I had never heard of and who didn't interest me at all. I didn't have any enjoyment watching her reminisce about shows and people I didn't care for.

Anyway last week the guest was Rob Sitch, comedian member of Working Dog productions, the film team responsible for the likes of Frontline, The Panel, Thank God You're Here and The Hollowmen. I love Frontline and I'm a big fan of the group, fairly familiar with their work. So it was properly interesting watching him talk about his projects at a very root level, not polishing the final product or phrasing himself like an advertisement.

Having done a few months of this course, slowly understanding the processes within the creation of a film or TV Show, it was good to hear Sitch discuss the way he and his team take ideas and run with them. He says sometimes everybody quietly agrees an idea is great but they leave it for a few years because nobody want to step forward and be responsible for it.

Review of 'Targets' (1968)

Targets is a quiet, simple film, its plot basic but dark: an American man (played by Tim O’Kelly) goes on a killing spree, escalating to a massacre at a drive-in cinema. Meanwhile, horror actor Byron Orlock (Boris Karloff) prepares to speak at the drive-in for his last appearance before retirement. While it’s a terrible thought that a sniper is killing off audience members in their cars, the emotional impact of Targets could have been far deeper if (for example) we became familiar with a family of cinema-goers during the daytime before they are killed that night. Instead, Boris Karloff’s story had little bearing other than to provide quirky, self-referential parallels of film-within-film. Targets is less a scary movie and more a comment on the evolution of the horror genre & its changing reception by audiences.