Showing posts with label technique. Show all posts
Showing posts with label technique. Show all posts

Monday, August 16, 2010

The Power of Visuals

Something I've been thinking about lately is how great music videos can make you like a song you otherwise wouldn't pay attention to. After all, the best music videos extract parts of the song and enhance your listening experience of them.

I have to say, one of the most mediocre musical experiences to be completely augmented by visualization would have to be The Chemical Brothers. They have a history of great visuals and have worked with amazing directors, including Oscar winners Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze.

While I find some of their music quite good, I feel like the best experiences I've had with them have been accompanied by visuals. They released a new album, Further, this past June, and the complete album was accompanied by an almost seamless visual track that blew my mind. The best part is that there's actually a "Behind the Scenes" video on there too, and I got to see that the processes used by the directors were mostly executed in production rather than post. I not only LOVE directors who reveal their secrets, but I love directors who don't rely solely on post-production effects to get their point across. Maybe that's because I would like to be more like that myself.

Anyway, here's a couple excerpts from my favorite parts of the complete video. I highly suggest you get your hands on it, pop it in a projector, and turn off all the lights.



Dissolve
The quality is a bit pixelated, all the more reason to pick this up and view it at home. The backgrounds were actually made of paint swirled in between glass that they filmed on a light board... Lately I've been super into silhouettes so I obviously love this.

This video has a similar effect that I'm quite fond of.




Escape Velocity
Also one of my top choices. I LOVE simple projections on a face. Also, I argued with a friend about whether the figures in the later half of the video were motion capture or if they simply filmed people with lights on them. I was correct, and psyched that there was no motion capture involved! I want the next party I throw to look like this video....


Anyway, enjoy, and stay bored.