The other day I was scrolling through my films, choosing what to include in a film portfolio, and made a simple realization: all my best films are music videos. While I have always been open about music videos being a central form for me, I never realized the degree to which that was true. I still want to make narrative films, however for the next while most of the new films I make will be music videos. Most of my favorite directors have made music videos at some point in their career including Paul Thomas Anderson, Spike Jonze, Donald Glover, and Boots Riley (director of the above video). Music video directors have a high success rate in narrative films because music video direction gives you a better sense of visual tempo and how to use music, so narrative films created by these directors are very well shot, edited, and scored. Compare this principle with the success of animators, such as Brad Bird or Tim Burrton, in action movies from their better of visual ideas.
Music videos are distinct from scored films. While a film score adds to and works as a musical representation of/adds to a completed film, music videos provide visual representation to completed films. To illustrate:
These were films I shot, edited, and then wrote/mixed the music for,
this was a video working off a pre-existing song. In making a visual score there are two primary strategies I have noticed: Thematic representation or interesting tempo following.
There are also music videos that directly represent what the singer is talking about, but I find to find these boring so I will not talk about these.
Thematic Representation:
The first major strategy taken by music video directors is to use the video to further the message of the song, while following in a limited sense with the music. This Is America is a metamodern song about American society forcing black men to code switch to be successful, but there is no way to change this problem single handedly so may as well make your money. The video supports this message by going through the ways white Americans have represented black people in art throughout the 20th century beginning with mistral shows, then showing the idealized civil rights church choir, finally showing the dangerous rioter. all the while the background dancers are wearing idealized white Christian school uniforms. This is an example where the video is not directly representing what the singer is talking about, as music videos tend to fall into, while still thematically representing the topic. On a side note, this music video may be one of the greatest films ever made, definitely my favorite in its sub-form.
Temp Based
Music videos can also follow the music and somewhat ignore the lyrics. These videos are less analytically rich but are far more fun to make. There is a certain talent required to dogmatically follow the tempo of the thing your visually scoring. Often times this type of video can include a loose connection to what the songs about but the music maters far more than the content of the lyrics. This style of music video is what I tend towards, mainly because the songs I'm adapting are the half-improvised lyrics of Ed so representing them exactly would be...difficult. This type of music video is exemplified in my most recent and new favorite film, Fire Race Car:
Work Log
Monday- Finished Editing Fire Race Car
Tuesday- Watched Clips for HGO Doc
Wednesday- Figured out plot of HGO DOC
Thursday- Started labeling clips for HGO doc
Friday- Finished Labeling. Started editing HGO doc opening scene,
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