Music Video Director Analysis

I tried to find out who directed the original Gold - Spandau Ballet music video but i couldn't find the information anywhere. HOWEVER I did find out that Band member Gary Kemp started writing this as a spoof of James Bond theme songs (specifically Goldfinger) which i thought was quite interesting. Anyway i decided to look into other music video directors...
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Jonas Odell
Information obtained from wikipedia

- DOB - 10th November 1962, Stockholm Sweden
-a swedish music/film video director
-founder of 'FilmTecknarna'
-specialises in a mix of animation and live action

Videos He's directed

• Take me out -Franz Ferdinand (for which he received an award for an award for a breakthrough video of the year at the MTV Music Awards 2004, as well as a Grammy nomination.
• Feeling a moment - Feeder
• Strict Machine - Goldfrapp

Found this video ('Michael' by Franz Ferdinand) while looking for Franz Ferdinand music directors and i noticed a number of similarities between our music video and the performance in the above video. There are a lot of CU 'beauty shots' of the main vocalist and there are 4 members positioned in basically the same way as in our music video. Both videos also have the same set up i.e. a performance and a narrative.

Genre

It could be said that 'eighties' is a genre in itself but researching into it a bit deeper I've found that in the early 80s the most popular genre was 'disco' and for the rest of the 80s hard rock, glam rock and 'hairbands' dominated

THIS website gives a list of songs and bands who were very popular in the eighties
Further research -http://80music.about.com/cs/tp.htm

The Music Scene
Taken from here ...

The 1980s was a decade of revolutionary changes on the music scene. The two major developments were the advent of MTV and the compact disc. Music became more diverse, with new wave, heavy metal, rap, techno pop, alternative rock and the "new" country sounds. And music became a huge marketing tool as filmmakers, TV producers and manufacturers of everything from sneakers to soft drinks used hit songs and hot performers to sell their products.

MTV was called "illustrated radio" and a "subliminal fashion show" by its detractors, who complained that it elevated image over music. Daryl Hall, of the pop duo Hall and Oates, said that "the visual has begun to overpower the music." But music videos revived an industry that was in decline in 1979, when revenues plunged 10% in a single year. Video dance clubs sprang up everywhere. Radio played a wider variety of music. Many artists acknowledged the impact of MTV on their careers; Duran Duran understood that their appeal depended on music video exposure. No artist surpassed Madonna in terms of taking advantage of the decade's image-based music revolution.

U2, Tina Turner

Applied Theory

Andrew Goodwin in his book "Dancing in the Distraction Factory (1992)" set out a number of charateristics/features common to all music videos. They are as follows...

1) Muisc videos demonstrate genre characteristics
There is a definate 80s influence evident in our music video idea which is shown through our mise-en-scene, performance style, costume etc

2) There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals
Our idea doesn't stick to this rigidly as it's quite abstract and is more conceptual than literal. Howeevr there are specific lyrics such as 'remember we were partners in crime' and 'the man witht he suit and the pace' which directly link to our narrative story (amplification) and helped us to initially think up ideas.

3) There is a relationship between music and visuals
The performance in our music video idea links to the eighties style of music in our chice of hairstyles, costumes etc which helps withour bands band image but our narrative part is more film noir, 20s infleunced which makes this particualr music video by the band unique...

4) The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur their work. These include CU of the star's face, iconography of band image, visual trademarks/motifs.
We plan for our performance to be mainly CU, tightly framed shots with only a few whole band shots every so often. The bands 80s style should be part of their image and should continue to be evident in further videos

5) There is frequently refereence to the notion of looking and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body.
The female charater in our video is supposed to be a femme fatale (master os seduction etc) which has sexual connotations. There will be lots of shots of her walking, CU of specific parts of her body (e.g. lips, eyes etc) .......

6) There is often intertextual reference
The video plays homage to 80s culture and referances other bands such as Franze Ferdinanad, Spandau Ballet, and Duran Duran. There are also intertextuak referance to traditional film noir characters e.g. femme fatale

Song Choice

Spandau ballet - Gold
Weahve made a unanimous group decision to make a music video to the song 'Gold' from the eighties band, Spandua Ballet. It is a big song, quite similar to Celine Dions 'my heart will go on' in the way that eveyrone knows it. This means it will be a real challenge to make our video believable, entertaining and suitable for repeat viewing and therefore successful. However, I feel with extensive planning, group cohesion and also the fact that all the members in our group have individual skills and are dedicated, I think we can do it =)