When I was young those many moons ago a visual medium came into prominence-the music video. In the beginning most were not that good. And for the purposes of beginning I will use the beginning of MTV. They were cheap efforts largely recorded on videotape with bargain basement production values and clunky execution.
MTV may have made a network out of music videos for a while but music videos, or what we would think of as music videos, existed prior to that. I have read the concept goes as far back as 1894 and I really do not wish to get that deep here. Here I will use the K.I.S.S. concept.
Music videos were, and when done properly still can be, a unique medium. They can be a series of unusual images. They can be a visual experience bordering on the surreal or bizarre. Or they can just tell a story. A short form narrative if you will set to music. They can be humorous or exciting or romantic. It is a unique way to create something visual.
Sometimes what you get is just weirdness but it’s a captivating weirdness. I have seen quite a few movies that have aimed for surreal that have instead achieved dumb or just unwatchable. Different is an admirable goal and I feel it is easier for the filmmaker to do it in a music video than it in a full-length film.
Things can be done in music videos that cannot be done elsewhere. A personal favorite of what can be accomplished is the video for the Bonnie Tyler remake (yes it’s a remake) of Total Eclipse of the Heart. The character is journeying through memory and fantasy and it comes off just like that. It’s surreal.
You are taken into the mind of this teacher who appears to have had inappropriate thoughts on her male student. The flood of memory. Emotion. Fantasy. It is all brought to life in the video in a way that cannot be done in a standard film.
But weirdness/surreal is not the only possibility. One can do comedy as well. Combine the visuals with words and just the visuals alone and you have a comedy treat. You will find yourself smiling or just outright laughing.
You can also get a sense of pain and loss. Writers reach into their own experiences and put their feelings into words. Or they mentally set themselves in that situation and director of the video brings it to life. Those feelings are given visual form and move you.
You’re into dance? There’s plenty of that in music videos. Then again that’s been a part of stage shows for, well, forever. Dancing was a bit of a default in the genre.
There’s epic space opera or the implication thereof such as with the Backstreet Boys. I admit to not being a fan of the group but this has a fun Star Wars vibe as well as being a catchy song.
And there’s an homage to classic cinema like Rebel Without a Cause in Rush Rush. This was a minifilm with its own story and you can get that in videos as well.
Maybe you’re a fan of horror and you get something like Thriller. This was considered quite epic at the time. It was more a nod to older horror films and not the gorefests of the time.
And to bring up Bonnie Tyler again we get a Western themed video with Holding Out for a Hero though to be truthful I kind of disagree with using Western for this one. Mostly because she mentions ‘the street wise Hercules’ in the words. I would have gone with maybe something like Westside Story.
But the amazing thing about music videos is that fans can do them as well. If you’re a fan of a particular genre and you find a song you can marry that with footage and create a fantastic music video such as this version of Crazy in the Night. We get a wonderful homage to great 80s horror.
Unfortunately we now seem to get vanity projects rather than creative outings. I know the focus is the celebrity and every video is a vanity project but that does not mean you cannot try for something special. The music video was a wonderful creation for storytelling that is sadly not getting the love it once got. I would like to see it return in its full glory rather than be relegated to YouTube. It is a creative genre whose creativity has yet to be depleted.
Warren Watched A Movie 