Warpaint: Yours Truly Session
Yours Truly is a company focused creative people and the creative lifestyle. They tell stories through editorial pieces as well as session videos where they film musicians performing. On the 12th of February 2014 Warpaint uploaded a video of them performing Love Is To Die, of their latest album Warpaint. This video was produced and shot by Yours Truly. Although not strictly an official music video it is a video of musicians performing music. I think its one of the most beautiful examples of a performance video. Because it is a session it is purely performance, which is considered by many as not that engaging or interesting in the context of a music video. However this video defies that, despite not being a music video. The way that it is shot keeps the audiences attention and makes it interesting throughout. Because none of the shots are traditional tripod mounted motionless shots the movement makes the video far more interesting. Also compositionally only select portions of the scene are in frame. For example when the drummer, Stella Mozgawa, is shown a majority of the shots are of her hands and the drums. When her face and head is in shot that is the only part of her in the frame. By being really selective about what is in the frame it makes video far more intriguing. If the whole video was shot with long shots with everything in focus it wouldn't have the same effect. During the video the focus is constantly being shifted and pulled which shifts the attention. For example during the video when the bass player, Jenny Lee Lindberg, is in frame the focus shifts from the body to the headstock of the bass which adds energy and motion into the scene. Below are some stills taken from the video that demonstrate specific techniques that I am going to incorporate into the video.
Warpaint: Recording Studio 2010
The next area I am drawing influence from is a video of Warpaint recording some tracks in 2010. Although I don't know the intention of the video there are some stunning lighting techniques coupled with beautiful shots that make the video one of my favourite sequences. The lights in the studio are fitted with red bulbs so the whole video, minus a shot of a bus driving by outside, has a monochromatic red colouration. This is really interesting as it is different to normal incandescent room light. Although they potentially chose this lighting option for that effect, it is more likely that it was a coincidence that those were the lights in the studio. However if I was to intentionally use that effect in mine it would make a clear distinction between shots of the band performing and unrelated more abstract shots. During the video there are also some really beautiful shots of the members of the band playing. For example I've attached some screenshots of specific shots below. Although the video follows a more documentary styled approach it has a very natural look. As I stated above I'm not sure the band members knew it would be released, but it certainly has the feel of a fly on the wall documentary. In a sense this is the kind of environment I want to create on set as this will allow my actors to be comfortable and most importantly perform from a very true perspective, thus avoiding my footage feeling contrived.
Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways
Sonic Highways was an eight part documentary miniseries that showed the band putting together their eighth studio album. The main body of each episode consisted of the band recording the instrumental tracks. This was coupled with shots of Dave Grohl interviewing musicians. These interviews would then be used to put together the lyrics. For the final few minuets of each episode the band would perform the finished track. Although not strictly music videos these were 100% performance videos. Because during the episode the studio would be shown in normal day to day conditions the performances emphasised the attention to putting together the set and lighting etc. For my video I'm going to draw influence from the lighting, editing and movement that they use. My video wont be 100% performance so these are perfect examples of how to make performance sequences interesting.
The top left still is taken from early on in an episode whilst the band were running through the parts. The top right is from the performance of that track in that room at the end of the video. The bottom two are from a different episode and are both from the final performance at the end of the video. The lighting on those shots links with one of my concepts for lighting which can be found here.
