Blame it on Bolivia Music in Rough/Mood board

Here's a rough version of the music I'll be making for my film. This is a bit like a mood board really. It's not properly mixed and lot of the sounds are only rough sketches but this should still give you a bit of a feel for the kind of music that'll be accompanying the visuals.

Chris Cunningham

Right now I'd say that a combination of the ideas I have in my head, what I like and the way I work all point me in the direction of creating music videos; music videos like these.

I find it of no coincidence that Chris Cunningham chooses to make videos in this case for three of my favorite artists, two of which are on the same label. His style of directing I feel is intimately linked to this genre of abstract, twisted, technically immense and in places somewhat sublime form of electronic music.

Like any good music video they have a narrative and in the top two videos they all start with a prolonged intro which sets the scene well. Most importantly though they exhibit something which I'm all too familiar with now; "the uncanny". Yes robots with human mannerisms and kids with human faces all make for a thoroughly chilling and powerful music video as well as a great trademark from the directors point of view!

What does space sound like?

If space had a little atmospheric background music-which in reality wouldn't be audible due to space being a vacuum-then it would probably sound a little like this.

This track is one of my favorites from probably my favorite artists; Autechre. If you look back at-or remember-my first post then you'll see I posted a track of theirs.

This tune serves as a good blueprint for creating "spacey" sound effects as I intend on doing. Long sweeping sine wave pads and analogue synth stabs here and there with plenty of delay and reverb create the perfect "dreamy" soundscapes.

Aesop Rock Rocks, So Do His Videos!

I'm not massive rap fan. Too much of it is unmusical rubbish associated with highly insalubrious subjects such as "crack" and "shanking".

The three below videos from the rapper Aesop Rock are far from one's typical nonsense. His lyrics are abstract and his vocabulary is wide. This is probably what some may call "intellectual rap".

And such music will always need a good video to do it justice. The three below are no exception and on top of that all completely different!

Shpongletastic

Here's some footage from a Shpongle gig. These guys make a hybrid sort of music that most people can only really describe as "psychedelic". What really attracts me the most to this is the manner in which in manages to incorporate such a wide variety of sounds into something that is actually pleasing. We have everything from cellos to synths to evan a bit of mongolian throat singing! This all encompassing "multi coloured" approach to music making is in a broad sense how I plan on creating my own moving image sequences; through the use of a wide variety of images coming together to end up being rather bizarrely yet none the less beautifully juxtaposed.

Kind of a random post I know, I just felt that this type of music illustrated perfectly how I like most art forms to feel; full of drastic, just about compatible variety.

Wise Words

When my friend told me that Baz Luhrmann had released a single I small smile spread across my face.

When I checked it out on you tube the smile widened to a contented grin.

What's quite refreshing to me is that it doesn't feel like any of his films. This isn't a case of "Baz Luhrmann, in music form". It's something new entirely.

They are first and foremost, wise words coming from a rather wise sounding speaker- he sounds old- and they avoid sounding preachy thanks to just the right amount of humour.

Next of course there's the animation which I feel is best described as a nice combination of quaint and familiar.

Then there is the music which gives it all a nice a poignant feel.

And with the seemingly irrelevant "bookends" so to speak regarding sunscreen this music video is given a rather clever little beginning and end.

Tedious But Cool

This little music video encapsulates my feelings on animation; tedious to execute and brilliant to watch in conjunction with music and in moderation. At one minute fifty five seconds and with one hell of a tune over the top it already has the makings of something tasty.

What really jumps out at me though (and I'm sure this goes for most people) is the fact that this animation screams out to the viewer the level of tedium involved in it's making and for that matter the tedium present in all forms of animation! Michel Gondry the man behind this video is a patient man, as well as a multi talented one; he's also responsible for films such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Be Kind Rewind and a whole plethora of music videos and short films

Filming of Gigs

I was doing my usual browsing of You Tube for a song to listen to wile I worked. I settled on this video of one of my top bands, Placebo playing at the 2006 Reading festival.

This video got me thinking of what goes into the decision making process when filming large gigs. Do they have a generic way of filming large stages or are the shots and cuts carefully decided upon for each different band or even different song?

One would first of all jump to the conclusion that they would of course select each shot with the upmost diligence however it is also not implausible to consider the fact that the people behind the lens know that the fans watching the footage are going to be so enthralled by their favorite bands, that any sort of slow moving picturesque image that shows a rockstar strutting their funky stuff is going to get their juices going.

I think the only way to answer this question is to compare the above act with the Prodigy's performance at this year's Glastonbury.

The footage of Placebo has two obvious differences to that of the Prodigy. Firstly the Placebo video's cuts are far less frequent. As we know, frequent cutting creates a far more energized feel to the footage and seeing as one can't really get much more energized than a live Prodigy gig the second video is cutting left right and centre!

Secondly the camera is far more static in the Placebo video. At least a fifth of the shots in this video are completely static and the remainder of the shots involve very little movement at all. The Prodigy video is of course a completely different kettle of fish as aside from the start, the "calm before the storm" so speak, the camera is constantly moving. It pans left and right and zooms in and out. I suppose it's doing a rather good job of mimicking the head movements of the crowd! I should know, I was there!