Drop The Prefix!

“To grasp cell phone culture, we need to understand not only the relationships between society and culture, as highlighted by du Gay et al., but also how these relate to another important concept, technology.” – Goggin

Hello all! This blog post is about cell phone movies… or, more specifically, why I think that we shouldn’t be stressing the fact that they are shot on cellular devices or even bother calling them “cellular” anymore. So, what brought this on… well, I upgraded my cellular phone last night and during my time before bed I found myself toying with the new features, apps and testing out the phone’s camera and other hardware. I was thinking that most smart phones and tablets have become fairly advanced in their technology and have become pocket or mobile computers/media systems. This phone shoots video in 1080p @ 60fps, has an 8 MegaPixel camera, has slow motion capabilities and apps that can edit my video to my heart’s content. I can download music and add it to my film as a soundtrack. I can make my own music and score my own digital videos as well. Heck, some of these phones have enough space to hold multiple FULL HD movies. I have been mulling over our conversation in class about “cellular” or “mobile” cinema and am beginning to think that there was definitely a point in time where this prefix was necessary or inseparable from the actual work but that is no longer the case. This is due to the fact that “cellular” was part of the work’s nature by definition and tied to the experience of viewing the film. The films meant to be shown on smaller cellular screens or shot on devices that created a specific visual style (purposely low quality, etc.)

Nowadays, on the other hand, these devices are just as good as some of the digital cameras used a decade ago! Heck, even a few years ago! After thinking about the film “Tangerine” more, I really couldn’t see how the film is necessarily “cellular” and needed to be put in it’s own special category. For all intents and purposes, this is a feature length digital film. It is no different from most digital films besides the fact that it was shot with three iPhone 5s cameras. Yet, we don’t distinguish digital films by what company or model the camera used on set is unless it is fundamental to our understanding or experience of viewing the film. This is the case with films that market themselves as or intend to showcase the boundaries or advances in certain technologies (i.e. IMAX, etc.) So, it is cool to know that the film was shot on iPhones… but it isn’t crucial to our experience of the film. It may enhance our viewing but it isn’t NECESSARY to understanding the work.

Check out the trailer for “Tangerine”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALSwWTb88ZU

Ultimately, this is why I believe that the term “cellular” or “mobile” film is just a ploy, a call for attention. It is no longer hard to make a film on your phone. Sure, it takes time, but so does filming a film on any other digital camera. It has become a useless prefix unless the film itself necessarily needs to be understood as a “cellular film” because it says something about the film. Even then, the film becomes as much of an advertisement for the technology as it is an artistic work but it is not necessary to our experience. Note the video “DOT”, which is meant to showcase the abilities of the Nokia N8, and the making of video as well as the final shots of the “DOT” short shown in class where we see the apparatus used to make the stop motion film. But, if this was not made clear to you, would you ever need to even think about it? Probably not.

“DOT” can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD7eagLl5c4 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTbzSiwbRfg

So much content is shot on cell/mobile phones these days that people are beginning to not care or even think about specifying the medium. Certain types of videos are implied to be done on a cell phone such as Vines or other app related shorts.

Proof… DAMN DANIEL – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnI-byHtMN0

People don’t care and I would argue that people shouldn’t care as cellular videos are becoming as common as any other digital short. It is no longer required that the viewer understand that a film is necessarily CELLULAR due to the advances in technology and evolution of the cell/mobile phone video in common, everyday culture… So, let’s drop the prefix?

Work Cited:

Goggin, Gerard. “Introduction: What Do You Mean ‘Cell Phone Culture’?” Cell Phone Culture: Mobile Technology in Everyday Life. London: Routledge, 2006. N. pag. Web.

 

AI logic and the philosophies of mass battle: to flee or not to flee

Studying the reading from the past lecture on synthespians I noticed something that really stuck with me, and it came when I read this passage: “the human creators of digital actors have recently bestowed upon their offspring the gift of artificial intelligence (AI), and with it the coterminous appellation of ‘autonomous agent’. This effectively evacuates from the term ‘Synthespian’ any and all of its coyness or prematurity” (Burston 251). Given that Burston recognizes this revolution of intelligence is it not safe to ask; where will this take CGI films? Not even realizing this when we first watch it one has to go back and see for themselves the reality of of CG fight scenes (and I use ‘reality’ very loosely here) and the threshold its come to with modern filmmaking. “Consider Stephen Regelous’s justly famous ‘massive’ software program, which generated the extraordinary fighting hordes at the Battle of Helm’s Deep in LOTR: The Two Towers. One day early on in Massive’s development, director Jackson and programmer Regelous watched in awe as several thousand characters at Helm’s Deep, deploying a variable, ‘fuzzy’ rather than simple ‘binary’ logic, ‘fought like Hell, while in the background, a small contingent of combatants seemed to think better of it and run away”(251).
The very fact that the director and head programmer stood in awe represents the immediate and surprising aspect of these programs’ ability to determine whether or not a fight is worth ‘dying’ for. So this brings up the question; are AI CG programs operating at higher based order of thinking? This is not to say that there is a conspiracy going on or they are coming to life on their own, but to take out the physical actor and human agent on screen, there seems to be a basis of logic. In re-watching the Helm’s Deep sequence I noted that there are a couple instances where soldiers seem to tuck tail and run. The onscreen actors cut each other to pieces while some of the programs had enough and fled. We see this again in the latest installment of The Hobbit where the five armies clash, yet you can see a good portion of orcs and dwarves retreat. Are human actors really the ones operating on a binary logic within the diegesis? After watching Scorsese’s 202 historical drama Gangs of New York one notices that the opening battle scene has no CG extras. The battle gruesomely depicts rival gangs cutting each other to pieces with no evidence of retreat or mercy. After the battle concludes as the camera does an overview shot, the real life extras are taken over by the first CG programs we see. These are the residence of the city coming out to investigate. But some rush over to help carry bodies, others stand in awe, and others seem to walk over the wounded reaching out for help. This shows that CG AI programs may be operating on a higher order of logic, assessing what is worth doing and the consequences of certain actions, whereas the physical body of an actor operates solely on binary logic. Food for thought.

Remediation and Nostalgia in Star War Episode VII

Watching Star Wars Episode VII the Force Awakens (2015), the first two topics from our class that came to my mind was remediation and compositing. Watching a new Star Wars film was amazing, not only because it was impressively done, but because it manage to evoke feelings of nostalgia and déjà vu. I felt like a kid again the first time I watched the original trilogy. Afterwards, I asked myself why that was.

Obviously, the plot was a variation of episode four, but I noticed something else. Digital special effects were used during the film, but in my mind, at least, there was only one instance, where I was taken out of the story. The effects done for Kylo Ren’s master were glaringly noticeable, but that was all that stood out after one viewing.

What was so brilliant was, what was new about this new media, was the particular ways in which it refashioned the old media (Grusin 14-15).  An updating remediation was being used to full effect, not just narratively but special effects wise too. With the intermingling of practical effects and digital it was harder to detect, and with the two composited together, it was difficult to distinguish one from the other. Perhaps after multiple viewings, this opinion will change, but as of right now Star Wars Episode VII is a perfect example of Manovich’s definition of compositing. The “assembling together a number of elements to create a single seamless element” (Manovich 139).

So why did I have feelings of nostalgia and déjà vu? I had these feelings because I was seeing something I had seen before only better. Often times when you ask a Star Wars fan which one of the first three movies is their favourite, they’ll either state the title of the first one they saw or Episode V The Empire Strikes Back. For me, the first one I saw was Episode V, and I make no attempt to hide my displeasure at how boring I found Episode IV which was the last of the three I saw. Episode VII took what few elements I did enjoy from Episode IV and put it in the latest film, coupled with better effects (digital), and storyline, Episode VII felt like the Star Wars A New Hope I always wanted but never got.

While the remediation establishes this nostalgic connection, this link also makes it rather impossible for the film to establish immediacy. Even with the 3-D viewing we experienced at the theatre, didn’t immerse me in the diegesis of Star Wars. If anything, it drew my attention even more to the digital technology. By the time we talked about the film in class, I was able to see the film without the 3-D in the theatre. It was interesting reading my own reactions. With the 3-D, I was in a state of hypermediacy, “I’m watching a Star Wars film, this is so cool”! Without it, I was able to enter immediacy more easily, because I was focused on, Fin’s story, who is Rey, what is going on?

The conclusion I came to is that while movie theatres are trying to sell tickets by using technology like the 3-D, and the D-box to making the viewing of a film more interactive, if the film cannot survive without them, then the film is not very good. What is so wonderful about Star Wars the Force Awakens is that the digital effects, do what the film needs, but it is simply one instrument in the orchestra. This film possesses many elements that cause the audience to be engrossed into the Star Wars world.

What constitutes as ‘Spectacle’ these days? And why do I feel dumb watching it?

In recent months most, if not all, of my classes have discussed the increasing number of visual effects films being made in the past few decades. To most of us this has become a new sort of standard or precedent for what may constitute as a spectacle film or even a blockbuster movie. It seems the further away from the twentieth century we get the more intertwined visual effects films become with big budget “blockbuster” films, they almost become synonymous. So I decided to talk about what makes up a spectacle film (at least for me) these days, how VFX and blockbusters plays into it all and why it seems that as we progress through film history these films make me feel dim-witted.

Before I continue on this topic I feel it is important to understand why I was motivated to write on this particular topic. The answer is twofold:

1. In McCleary’s Film and Digital Technology class we are learning about the changing landscape of digital technology. (no surprises there huh?) Recently in this class we had a lengthy discussion on how in the past 15 years only two non-FX/superhero latent films have ever been the highest grossing domestic film in the year they came out. Being 2000’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas and 2014’s American Sniper.

2. After making a long trek back to my home town of Keswick (good luck finding that one on the map) I had a conversation with two of my nieces. They are 15 and 7 years old and after being asked what they think about VFX heavy films (obviously the conversation was phrased very differently but understand they were made clear to which films I am referring) the overwhelming correlation with said films was “dumb fun”. Going even further down this rabbit hole I had my 15 year old niece explain to me that she sees no difference between big budget blockbusters or Visual Effects heavy films as they both aren’t capable of having a compelling plot in her eyes. (Discipline for such a statement was swiftly administered, worry not haha)

So now you see a little of where I’m coming from and with the combined opinions of a Laurier Film Professor and 15 year old girl weighing on my soul I decided I needed to look further into this.

What I struggled with the most is the inherent truth that comes from the second opinion. Although I may understand that there can be films of this nature with compelling plots and geared towards intelligent audiences. It isn’t hard to see that over time the film industry has sold us on the notion that not only are the Blockbuster film and VFX heavy films essentially the same to the average movie going audience, but by labeling them as unintelligent or low brow there is more money to be made. She’s not necessarily wrong to identify VFX and Blockbuster films as the same or claim they don’t have very sophisticated plots because as this decade continues high brow Visual Effects latent films not sold as summer mega hit blow-outs are growing hard to find. It’s no surprise then that I feel cheated out of an intellectually charged plot in a Transformers movie or just simply one that isn’t clownishly smothered in lens flares, explosions and whatever the heck else Michael Bay woke up thinking about that day. (He must dream about GM and Mountain Dew a lot huh?)

For anyone familiar with Guy Debord’s work in Society of the Spectacle this may come as no surprise. In it he can be quoted saying the following heartwarming, chipper and all around uplifting things:

“The Spectacle services the economy, and vice versa, because the economy is the guiding force of our current ideological system” (58)

“The Spectacle neutralizes free-will and individual agency by promoting choice and ‘freedom from work’ as real freedom” (64)

So I guess if Debord is to be believed Spectacle films are just here to brainwash us into social control, reinforcing the economy and that leisure is freedom. In order to achieve this at the most base form and to appeal to as many people as possible across all walks of life it makes sense for films to lack a sophisticated narrative that the “every-man” can follow. (Though with the way the Marvel Cinematic Universe is quickly growing even I might need to bring cheat sheets into  future films just to remember past film events, relax Marvel)

Debord makes some interesting points I guess, but I still wonder where this notion of merging VFX films and Hollywood blockbusters together so easily originates. A case could be made that Jaws (1975) altered how films were sold to audiences and in effect created the blockbuster format. Then the original Star Wars (1977) after coming out only a few years later capitalized on the success of the former’s saturation booking and horizontal integration while also displaying then mind-blowing effects. This might have snowballed into the constant correlation made today between VFX and Blockbuster films as films for decades after the fact still emulate this style.

But where did the stupidity in narrative come from? Why is it so prevalent today?

That Game about Cancer

A few weeks back I heard about a new video game on a podcast that was unlike any game I have ever heard of, and to say the least I was intrigued. If you are interested there is a link to the podcast here, it is actually a Radiolab podcast playing another podcast which initially reported on the game, with the hosts of Radiolab interjecting at the moments they found to be most interesting (an odd example of remediation maybe? But that is not what caught my attention). The story focuses on Amy and Ryan Green, and their newborn son Joel. More specifically the story centers around their struggle with one of the worst things you could have to face as parents, a child, a baby, with terminal cancer.

I won’t be able to convey to you the depth of emotion that is apparent when listening to Amy and Ryan’s voices as they describe their situation, but this is what I found to be intriguing. That this was exactly the problem Ryan was struggling with, how to express what he was experiencing, how to get across to someone the feeling of futility following every failed attempt to appease the pain of someone who also can’t express to you what is wrong, or what is going on with them. And not only that, but doing this all with the understanding that even if you are able to temporarily solve whatever problem was happening, that in the end it was not going to make a difference. What mode of communication could best convey that experience, how could he make people understand?

One particularly rough night in the hospital with Joel, where absolutely nothing Ryan did could help his son to stop crying, or hold down food or water, he came to a realization. After hours of trying this or that with no apparent effect on how his son was feeling, Ryan broke down and just prayed, and that is the moment he says Joel stopped crying and was able to sleep. Being a computer programmer, Ryan makes what the reporters covering the story note as an interesting connection. He is reminded of a video game and how there are all these available options that the player knows could be employed by them to solve whatever situation they find themselves in, and the process of the game is going about and figuring out which one of these options leads to the goal, or solves the problem.

The producer of the original podcast, Sruthi Pinnamaneni, while talking to the Radiolab hosts describes Ryan’s idea as this: “as a thought experiment, right in his brain, where he is thinking, you know usually people come into a game trying to solve it, and I wonder how if I could make this game where they couldn’t they would understand me, and how I feel right now.”

So that is what he did. Ryan and Amy began working on and have since released a video game called That Dragon Cancer (2016) attempting to express the emotions associated with the tragedy of losing their child to the battle against cancer. A game where you go through treatment with Joel, and just try to do what little you can for him. A game where you can try to make him laugh, you can try to stop him from crying, you can try to help him keep down his food, but ultimately it is a game with a final boss that you will never beat.

The expressive and affective potential for video games as a medium is something that I believe has yet to be fully accepted by mainstream society. People still tend to see video games mostly as a medium where narrative takes a back seat to things like game mechanics which are perceived to be more important to the gaming experience. For this and many other reasons (most of which I think are typical of the gradual acceptance of past media, which during their fledgling period were also denigrated and are now generally accepted as mediums suitable for artistic expression) the consensus around the artistic merit of video games is that, while impressive creative expressions, they are not considered art.

This lack of acceptance of video games as art on par with the great works from painting, poetry, or performances on the stage and screen, I think is due to the fact that artistically video games seem to be just now moving past the point of fascination with what you can do or show in a game on a surface level, similar to the period of early film characterized by the actuality, and now the medium is moving into an expressive and exploratory period where certain video games are becoming concerned with how the things we are experiencing in them make us feel, or if they can express something which can’t be conveyed through words or images alone, something that we may only be able to comprehend if we experience it by doing it.

I think that the release of a game like That Dragon Cancer demonstrates that this is certainly a direction that people are considering for the medium. And while this is conceptually interesting to think about, I’ll be able to speak better to the actual affectiveness of the game after playing through it, so I will leave it here for now, and check back in after I sit down for a bit with Joel.

Oh yeah and Happy Valentine’s Day…

Puppeteers in Star Wars

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, PRACTICAL EFFECTS WERE INCREDIBLE! The effort these puppeteers went to in order to achieve the perfect performance from their puppets is unbelievable. Frank Oz, a puppeteer most recognized as performing such iconic Muppets as Miss Piggy, Bert, Fozzie Bear, and countless others, gave life to the character of Yoda in the Star Wars franchise. But why is it that the puppeteers who worked so diligently and tirelessly to create these iconic performances would one day be all but forgotten as they were covered up or completely replaced with animated versions of the characters?

While there are some reasons why the animation may seem to be beneficial to the film (its ability to create facial expressions and movements that the puppets cannot due to restrictions in movement and mobility), it is undeniable that the films lose a sense of its personality and style when it looses the puppeteers work. Not only does it lose this personality, but it covers all of the difficult and dedicated work that went into creating the puppets. Even though Lucas has gone on record saying that had the technology been available at the time, CGI would’ve been used over these practical effects, the fidgety, jittery movements of the puppets adds something unique to their personalities; the fact that they are puppets adds to their character in a positive way. Multiple skilled puppeteers were hidden within the Jabba suit and used a complicated system of both animatronic technology and classical puppeteering skills.Without the men pictured above, and the incredible technique and skill that these masters utilized, the original Jabba would not have been remotely possible.  However, animating over this negates all of the work that they put into this making their hard work redundant in the over all scheme of the film. Those responsible for the creation of Jabba and Yoda’s puppet characters would go on to create the Jim Henson Creature Shop, responsible for films such as The Labyrinth and Dark Crystal; there is no denying their skills are among the best. Yet Lucas still chose to animate over them for the Special Edition. 

The joining of Oz and the Jim Henson studio with Lucas and Lucas Films created an incredible series of works to follow (such as the Star Wars cast appearing on The Muppet Show in 1980, and Sesame Street in the same year, and also Lucas’ involvement in Jim Henson’s Labyrinth) but when it came time to create the prequels, they introduced the CGI Yoda for Episode II and Episode III and only used the voice of Oz. Several fans were of course very much disappointed by this decision as it created a very different personality for the character as his movements much smoother and intricate. It is however the original puppet Yoda and Jabba that make the characters the iconic ones we’ve all come to know and love.

Here is a fun video from Sesame Street that brings together the world of Star Wars and the Muppets in a hilarious parody.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-LfQCPJJkY

Digital and Practical Effects: Best of ‘BB-8’s World

In a galaxy not that far away came a film that became one of the biggest box office sellouts in history. A film that is part of one of the biggest film franchises of all time (along with Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings, of course). A film that has been quoted so many times over the years, and the franchise that has made technological advances within each film made. That film, as you may already know, is Star Wars: The Force Awakens and with it comes some returning favourites and some new ones. This is a film that has combined the use of digital and practical effects in the settings, and in the characters themselves.  One of the new characters introduced is BB-8, the droid created thirty years after the Battle of Endor.

Something interesting that I learned while looking up the new movie’s effects is that it is mixed with practical and digital effects; in fact, this film has more digital effects shot than The Phantom Menace. At one point in the movie, even Kylo Ren’s helmet is computer generated; however, the return of the practical and analog effects is worth noting as well. BB-8 is one of the major examples that uses both the practical effects and the digital.

I am glad J.J Abrams was insistent on a more practical BB-8 to be used. It would have made just as much sense to make a CG droid in order to accomplish his vision of a rolling robot, but Abrams did make the robot work in the film quite well. On an online website literally titled “howbb8works.com”, it goes over the development done for the droid and the advancing technology used in order to create such a complex character.

Watching the film, I was wondering if BB-8 was a specially made robot, or if they had used extensive CGI effects; after all, the droid never missed a beat in the film and although they could have just done multiple takes if the droid messed up, it still felt too seamless for it to be entirely analog. And BB-8 is mostly a practical effect (a real life droid, if you will), but there’s still a portion of its character that had to be created digitally. First off, the puppeteer behind the droid would have to be CG’d out whenever he or she is in the shot. Then there are the other digital shots that have BB-8 that might also need to be CG’d in.

In an interview done by a couple of the special effects technicians, they go through all the effects used in the film, including the ones about BB-8.

‘Cause the technology available to you today if you have, you know, if you have the right sort of mindset and the right kind of planning and the right kind of restraint, I think it’s amazing what you can actually do with that technology. And you’re just constantly, you’re constantly changing the rules in shots about what’s real and what isn’t real.
-Roger Guyett

This is an interesting quote, due to the fact that technology has grown so much in even just the last ten years. Since the original film came out in 1977, technology has grown and changed to the point where it is difficult for many companies to catch up in time for the next big change. What is real and what isn’t real comes into question now whenever we watch a film filled with digital effects. The fact that I even had to question if BB-8 was a real robot created for The Force Awakens says a lot about the change that has happened in the film industry. As Lev Manovitch says in chapter six of his book:

“In traditional filmmaking, editing and special effects were strictly separate activities….the computer collapses this distinction.”
-Lev Manovitch (301)

It’s harder now to distinguish the practical from the digital, because of the smooth transition made from real life footage to the computer. It has become easier to mix both effects together, but so many recent films have preferred the digital effects.  And now, with toys being made of BB-8, the lines between practical and digital become even more blurred in a science fiction film, but one that absolutely sells its point since the success of the film has led to the success of merchandise, like the rolling droid, being sold. The Force Awakens uses both effects together to make one hell of a film and its insistence to used the mixed effects has certainly paid off in its favour. Now, can we get a flying droid next?

Links

1. http://www.howbb8works.com/
2. http://www.slashfilm.com/force-awakens-visual-effects/

2 Dimensional Characters; 3 Dimensional Puppets

 

Dragon’s Lair was a great game. For its time it was revolutionary and expanded what video games could have been and helped develop what we know of them today. The game was created by  animator Don Bluth and featured a main protagonist named Dirk the Dashing, who’s main goal was to enter the castle and save Princess Daphne, winning her heart and the throne to the kingdom, all in one fell swoop.  The game featured magnificent 2D animated scenes, created using the traditional cel animation techniques. The animation was then used to create the video game, where the main game mechanic was fast, quick-time events, used to rid children of their hard earned quarters.

Recently this intellectual property has been in the news for a whole new set of reasons. Don Bluth created a Kickstarter/Indiegogo campaign for the creation of Dragon’s Lair: The Movie. In this  campaign he made it extremely clear that the animation process would feature no new or contemporary digital techniques, and instead would feature only traditional animation. He even went so far as to make some of the reward tiers centered around teaching people the art of traditional animation. Here is a link to the Indiegogo page:

Indiegogo- Dragon’s Lair:The Movie

This hyper-focus on traditional animation seems extremely out of place for a project such as this. Grusin explains that ” [A creator] can try to refashion the older medium or media entirely, while still marking the presence of the older media and therefore maintaining a sense of multiplicity or hypermediacy.”(Grusin 46) The original Dragon’s Lair was considered revolutionary for its application of this remediation process. It seamlessly fused cel animation techniques, that were only primarily seen in Disney films all the way back to the 1930s, with the mechanics and new media of arcade games in the 80s. It made people feel like they were playing a Disney film.

The focus on traditional animation when transferring this successfully remediated piece seems like a weird attempt to go backwards. In an interview with The Nostalgia Critic, Don Bluth described 3D animated characters as closer to puppets, where 2D animated characters possessed more personality.  The interview can be seen below, the paraphrased quote being in part two.

 

Dragon’s Lair: The Movie should be, in my opinion, a great piece of remediation again, and not an attempted time capsule of historical technique. Its essence should be centered around a fusing of what is new and what is old, harkening back to the original project’s creation. Why could the film have not been in digital animation? Why did he not play with the idea of integrating new techniques with old, so he could have a film that holds up impact wise to its source material? This hard rejecting stance on the way the film world is heading seems to have left Don Bluth aching for a past that has long evolved and left him behind.

Music Video Auteurs and the Death of the Album?

When was the last time you watched MuchMusic or MTV? When was the last time you remember seeing a music video on MuchMusic or MTV? To be fair, most of us won’t be able to recall the last time we’ve seen a music video on television. Youtube has become the go-to place for music videos and just about every other kind of video that isn’t a full-length film. Because of this, the music video has greatly impacted how the music industry operates. Now music videos are representations of an artist’s single (the hit song on the album) because the album is a dying format for musicians which will be touched on later. For now, here’s the history of music videos.

History of Music Videos

The musical film genre is the first example of the existence of music videos but those are songs that were specifically written for the film they’re in. Another earlier example would be video recordings of live performances. However, a music video is the image that acts as a representation and a companion to the song which was written well before the production of the video began. The first official music video to air was “Video Killed the Radio Star” by The Buggles in 1981.

In 1983 music videos hit a new hallmark as Michael Jackson released his 14 minute long video for “Thriller” directed by filmmaker John Landis. The “Thriller” music video set a precedence for the choreography required for a video to be a massive success since most music videos at this time where either choreographed dance/singing or live performances. It really wasn’t until the 1990s when music videos were directed by more artistically driven film directors such as David Fincher and Spike Jonze.

Spike Jonze: Music Video Auteur?

My personal favourite music video director of all time is undoubtedly Spike Jonze. Throughout the 1990s, Jonze moved up from amateur skateboard filmmaker to professional music video director. Throughout the 90s Jonze directed some of the most iconic music videos by some of the world’s most successful acts such as Daft Punk, Weezer, the Beastie Boys, Bjork and many more. Through his music videos, Jonze displayed that there is more to music videos than a band playing their instruments while being interjected with an awful narrative vaguely relating to the lyrics. Jonze realized that music videos were something completely different from the music and that they could be his own experimental short films with a pre-made soundtrack.

Pretty much all of my favourite music videos are the ones that Spike Jonze directed for Weezer which include “Buddy Holly”, “Undone (The Sweater Song)”, “Island in the Sun”. “Buddy Holly” is completely unique as it makes it seem as if Weezer is performing in Arnold’s Drive-In diner from the TV show Happy Days. “Undone (The Sweater Song)” is one of the coolest music videos ever because the band is performing the song at double-speed so the final video is actually the recording of Weezer being played at 50%. Oh, and it’s all one take… And the camera is upside down in the beginning.

Another music video that shows Jonze toying with the normality of music videos is “Drop” by the hip-hop group The Pharcyde. In the music video it appears that it was shot in reverse and somehow special effects were used to make it look like the group is rapping along with the song. However, Spike Jonze insisted that the group learned how to perform the song phonetically backwards. So while it looks like the group is walking forward while everyone else is in reverse, the group is actually performing the song phonetically backwards, while walking backwards.

Filmic Music Videos and the Death of the Album

So after that tangent of me just wanting you to watch cool Spike Jonze directed videos, I’ll get back to my main point. Things like MTV and MuchMusic are no longer how people access their music while sitting at home. Most people either get their music by downloading songs off iTunes, streaming on Spotify or by watching music videos on Youtube. Downloading and streaming have become so dominant for music that an internationally successful pop-star like Rihanna can only sell 460 copies of her new album “ANTI” (http://www.nme.com/news/rihanna/91181). I know local musicians who have sold more CD’s than that but the album was downloaded/streamed nearly half a billion times in it’s first week so it’s safe to say that is the primary way music is being accessed.

Since physical albums are no longer selling like they once were thanks to the internet, musician’s singles are so much more important because they’re most likely the only songs the casual listener will hear. This also leads to the music videos for huge artist’s single being far more visually enticing to the viewer. Since the listener has the option to simple listen to the song, it is much harder for the artist to get them to become a viewer of their music video. This why there are music videos like Rihanna’s “B***h Better Have My Money” which is a 7-minute video for a 3 and a half minute long song. The video features a long prologue and successful actors such as Mads Mikkelson which means it probably had quite a large budget. So by turning her song into a short film that doubles its length, Rihanna has created a way to get people to here her video when the song it self is so widely available to be listened to. And Rihanna is only one example of many that I can’t think of right now. [edit: Adele’s “Hello” is also similar (in the sense that it’s a short film) and is directed by Canadian filmmaker Xavier Dolan]

So… Do you think musician’s are more focused on delivering strong singles with big-budget music videos instead of front-to-back solid albums? Could this perhaps been seen as a kind of immediacy for the listener to hear the song they want to while avoiding the songs they don’t want to hear? Or am I just making stuff up and felt like writing about Spike Jonze music videos? I don’t know, but I don’t remember music videos being longer than the song as a kid unless it was “Thriller”.

MUSIC VIDEOS:

Weezer – Buddy Holly

Weezer – Undone (The Sweater Song)

The Pharcyde – Drop

Rihanna – B**** Better Have My Money [NSFW: Nudity]

Michael Jackson – Thriller

“Synthespians” and True Creative Freedom

Before we get into my topic lets have a little experiment.

Picture for a moment a live action character from a movie, as an example, Jason Bourne from the respective series of films about him.

What did you picture? Did you picture a man, somewhere in his late 20’s, dark hair, cold exterior, physically powerful? Or, more likely, did you picture Matt Damon, the real life actor who played him in his series of films.

On a similar note, picture an animated character in your head, Elsa for instance from the film “Frozen”.

When you try to picture her you don’t picture any other possible referent but her. Unlike before, you picture the character as they were designed for the film as genuinely intended by its artists. The current technical limitations of filming demand that we mostly use the real world to some extent in order to tell the visual stories we see in film and television today.  Well, mostly. There are exceptional cases, Dobbie from “Harry Potter” and Gollum from “The Lord of The Rings” as mentioned by Jonathan Burston in his peice “Synthespians Among Us” are characters that transcend the shackles of what would normally be their real world counterparts. If asked to picture Gollum you likely don’t picture Andy Serkis, but Gollum, the character specifically, just as you did with your animated character. These characters, digital cyborgs of real world human and CG, are definitive examples of Synthespians.

Sythespians are characters created for their worlds. There was no hiring practice, no managers, and no interviews that decided how they would look on screen, only the creative input of one person, or a group of people and a motion capture actor to give them a basic framework. If the technology behind our current Synthespians could expand to realistic, or at least believable, human characters then films could be filled with characters, with actors behind them breathing life into them, instead of actors taking the referential place of the character that is supposed to be on screen. In this sense the process of creating a Synthespian is theoretically better creatively then the method of normal film-making. As a writer you would no longer be bound to the real world someone would be filming in, and could instead write and design your characters freely with no need to write around the actor that would stand in for them.

This is of course not to undermine the great abilities of the normal actors we see today, nor the voice actors, mocap actors, or teams of animators that breathe life into synthespian’s, however a medium that has more convincing CG characters would have more creative freedom and vision overall.