Can you suggest examples of music videos (or other short form videos) that have a high ‘how did they do that’ factor? Videos featuring clever optical or digital effects, or ingenious trick photography, or just highly creative and unusual visual effects? Artist, genre and musical merits irrelevant.
Some good examples of the sort of thing I mean…
Kylie Minogue, ‘Come Into My World’. I won’t link to it, but there are copies all over YouTube, MetaCafe and elsewhere. A truly mind-boggling video which must have required a thousand hours of extremely precise digital editing. As a welcome bonus, there’s a YouTube video clip of the director explaining how it was made.
Squeeze, ‘Hourglass’. The whole video is essentially a series of visual and optical illusions, some traditional (the Ames room) and some quite innovative (the mirror). The nice thing about this one is that it was made just before digital effects came in, so almost all the illusions were created in the studio, rather than relying on post-production.
I remember being really impressed by a-ha’s “Take On Me” video. The part in the “mirror” was especially eye-catching. I’ll also second “Hourglass” by Squeeze. Excellent vid!
One more from Micheal Gondry (total freak visual genius)- Cibo Matto’s SugarWater. Nothing special, until you realize that it is one single take shown simultaneously forwards and backwards (side by side) and oddly reflecting itself until meeting at one point and proceeding/receeding simultaneously from there.
My brain can’t do it justice. Check here for the making of, which will give you an idea of just how much of a visual savant Gondry is. This guy’s C.V. is a “how the fuck did they do that?!?” greatest hits package.
A few (5? 6?) years ago there was a pretty forgettable song with a title, and by a band, that I’ve forgotten, but the refrain had something to do with “it’s closing time, I want to take you home (or I want you to take me home)” or something like that. Anywho, I saw the video once and thought it was cool; it was a split screen and started out with two people in the same shot, then they got separated and went different directions. Each side of the split screen followed one of them, and I think there were no cuts/edits. By the end of the video they had made their way back to each other. Everything was timed perfectly. I just sort of stumbled across it once and never saw it again.
Or try to find their video for “Let Forever Be”. They swap between special effects and real set pieces seamlessly so you can’t tell what you’re watching.
Uuuuuuh? :o I am seriously embarrassed. Can anyone destroy the link in post 7 or fix it to the correct link given in post #10? Someone sent me that other link which I opened but never finished watching because it was stupid, and I somehow cut and pasted the wrong link. My head is a pretty serious shade of crimson at the moment. :smack: :smack:
