Fotografieke

While searching for some interesting new music last week I came across Flying Lotus. I usually snoop around on Youtube just to hear a few tunes, but it’s a big plus if an appealing video accompanies the song. It’s a rarity these days, well at least you have to look for them yourself because MTV gave up on music videos a long time ago. That is why I want to pay attention to some of today’s most talented filmmakers working on music videos. When I find an interesting video I can’t help but look up the creator(s) and I often find a plethora of wonderful bits and pieces along the way.

Special Problems is one of those creative collaborations out there that knows no boundaries if it comes to creating imaginary videos. Campbell Hooper and Joel Kefali are the brains behind Special Problems. They create both live action and animation videos and do not shy away from blending both crafts together into one video, like they did with the Flying Lotus video I stumbled upon. I selected a couple of my favourite videos by this duo, and guess what.. the songs aren’t bad either.

Flying Lotus – MmmHmm

The Naked And Famous – Young Blood

Zowie – Broken Machine

Jonathan Boulet – A Community Service Announcement

Wolfmother – New Moon Rising

Tame Impala – Half Full Glass Of Wine

Kids of 88 – Downtown

Brooke Fraser – Something In The Water

I’m too busy taking care of other business right now so blogging has sunk a few spots on my list of priorities, sadly. But my eyes always wander all over the net looking for wonderful stuff, so let me just give you a mini-report for now. I will be back very soon with some reviews on recent cd releases and some other cool things.

Trailer for ‘A Single Man’
You know those ads for designer clothes and perfumes, those that look so very stylishly theatrical? Well this is a movie trailer that looks like an ad that looks theatrical! No wonder really, considering that the movie is directed by Tom Ford, of all people.

Liu Bolin – ‘Transparency’ artist
I found this amazing artist’s pictures through V1kram‘s blog. Yes, it’s painted!

Sondre Lerche – pictures by Isabell N. Wedin
Sondre kindly mentioned photographer Isabell N. Wedin on Twitter in regard to the new pictures used for his latest recording, ‘Heartbeat Radio’. I’m planning a little review later on.

Etsy shop: Elizabeth Wren Vintage
Ever since I started watching Mad Men and long before that show even started I developed an uncontrollable desire for 60s items. In those days there was such an incredible mix of quality products and pure, pure kitsch. But both very easy on the eye! Elizabeth Wren dug up some interesting vintage items.

Let me be very idiotic for a minute and pretend that I alone can give you lovely people what MTV can’t: heart-warming, unique, creative music videos. Now I’m sure that most of the following videos are being played plenty enough, so that’s not the issue in this first ‘Music | TV’ post, but I think it’s rather interesting to also show who’s creating those rare few cool videos these days.

Shynola has been a collective of 4 creative folks from London and have worked together for almost 10 years. Not only have they created music videos, they’ve also worked on video graphics for tv, movies and commercials. The most recent product of these multi-talents is Coldplay’s video for Strawberry Swing, which brought a tear to my eye when I first watched it. It’s really stunning. You’ll find more Shynola familiar videos below:

Working as a volunteer at a local moviehouse, while I sell tickets for the movies on view for the evening I find myself staring at the movie posters across the counter a lot longer than I’d like to admit. It’s become quite entertaining to analyze the movie posters on display and try to put into words why I prefer one poster over the other.

Recognizability is what’s important for the blockbusters of the western world. As a fan of independent, small movies I can’t stand all those generic, commercial movie posters. On the other hand, a poster for a commercial movie looking all artsy and intellectual, will most likely bore the living crap out of blockbuster lovers. The trick is to come up with a design that will register just long enough to remind people to walk into the theatre. A cracking movie poster is an incredibly powerful marketing tool.
I’m not condemning the movie industry and all its plain looking promo-material. The quality of all that plain looking promo-material isn’t bad at all. But what I do find interesting is how most commercial movie posters become rather hysterically predictable when in larger numbers.

Because of this I’d like to show just how much they all look like the next one, and I’d like to propose different methods of designing a movie poster, with a slightly tongue-in-cheek approach.  I just can’t help myself..

I’ve collected recent posters (all 2009) to vizualize my theory:

Action/Thriller
It comes as no surprise that this is all about men, very anxious looking men, surrounded by either anxious looking villains or buddies, an occasional anxious looking woman and/or a gloomy environment. The little head-turn and suspicious glance to the side are also clear action poster characteristics.

Action/Adventure
Crossing over to adventure we notice more anxious looking ladies and gentlemen, this time (mostly) on their own, completely centered, weapon drawn and ready for battle. Whatever battle they’re facing, it’s bound to be rough. (although I’m wondering what Mr. Gray’s up to)

Drama
We’re moving slowly from anxious to happy or sad facial expressions. In the category drama the designers develop a  sudden urge to use lots of squares and rectangles to be able to get either the entire cast involved or show some moviestills.

Romance/Comedy
I try my best to avoid any movie where the actors are potrayed looking like the ones below. This category needs no further explanation I’m sure. One thing though: a lot of men still haven’t worn off their anxious looks or have gone to shocked/ill-at-ease.

Animation/Family
Designers find it necessary to be as obvious as possible if it comes to flicks for kids, therefor including most, if not all characters and use as many colours as possible. Kids love it, you know! And notice the huddling.

Now let me propose some solutions and show alternative ways of making a poster look awesome. Again I’m only showing posters from 2009.

Characteristics
If we’re talking about characteristics, why not use the main character’s? And keep it simple, less=more.

Graphics
Don’t shy away from using pencils, brush, crayons, but same goes for Photoshop, Illustrator and the lot.

Teenagers
Dealing with teenagers? Go all Juno, use their crazy imagination!

Love Story
Want to focus on the couple? Use colour, go abstract. No white backgrounds! And be easy on the leading actors, don’t photoshop the poor people until they look like their own waxmodels.

Cast
Sure you can introduce the entire cast if that’s your thing. Put them in one scene for example. Do an impromptu shoot between takes. And if you insist on using geometry keep it interesting. Use colour, avoid predictable (a)symmetry.

Moviestills
If you’re using moviestills for your design, why not just use one as a whole? Toy around with typography and its location within the moviestill, surprise and charm people with a stunning shot.

Faceless
Designs without the actors can send off a powerful message. All the more room for graphics and your own creativity.

After writing this item I came across actually just one blog that discusses movie posters and does so on a regular basis. If you’ve been drooling over the above posters, whichever posters you were drooling over, you’ll enjoy this blog: Movie Poster Addict.

This week I went into town to see ‘The Young Victoria’. The past few years I’ve seen a fair few royal moving pictures, among which ‘The Queen’, ‘Elizabeth’, ‘The Other Boleyn Girl’ etc. It’s very intriguing to watch all of them and eventually being able to connect the stories chronogically. If you’re not too familiar with royal history, this is a lovely way to educate yourself.

It’s apparent that the British royals are a very popular resource for movies. Even tv-shows, of which ‘Elizabeth I’ and ‘The Tudors’ are recent examples. (Tidbit: ‘The Tudors’ has been created by Michael Hirst, who directed ‘Elizabeth’ and ‘Elizabeth: The Golden Age’) Having watched a certain number of those movies and shows you can see a clear division between the overly dramatized and the fairly realistic. ‘The Young Victoria’ can be catagorized in the latter. With a movie like ‘The Other Boleyn Girl’ and a show like ‘The Tudors’ we’ve been made aware that facts aren’t that important to its creators. What’s more important is to engage and entertain the viewer, so a heavy dramatisation and a loose grip on history isn’t considered to be a sin with that purpose in mind.

However, it is a pleasure to watch a movie that is both true to life (as true as possible of course) and engaging. ‘The Young Victoria’ succeeds in both. Queen Victoria’s life story obviously lends itself for a lot of onscreen drama, but by the end of the movie all I could say is that the creators have done a fine job in keeping it classy and tasteful. They’ve clearly indulged on the visual side of things. The costumes and locations are a joy to behold. There are a dozen of lovely camera angles and tricks to look out for and Emily Blunt and Rupert Friend are incredible, their best performances to date. What I considered a lovely bonus is how much care has been taken of the casting. Most of the actors show a fair resemblance to the real royals. I was exceptionally surprised my Paul Bettany’s appearance, he’s barely recognizable.

There are obviously plenty of complaints when it comes to a movie like this. According to some people, this movie should have focussed on a larger part of Victoria’s young life, showing how she became responsible for the biggest turning point in the history of the UK. How people can expect one single movie to deal with a thing like that, a reigning period of 63 years, is beyond me. I prefer to consider this the beginning, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we’d see a few sequels in the near future. I normally detest the idea of a sequel, but in this case I certainly wouldn’t mind!