Directors Challenge

Chris Cunningham. Michel Gondry. Spike Jonze. Anton Corbijn.

We have these 3 DVDs + work by Corbijn

Just 4 of the many video directors who have developed a distinctive individual style, leading some to label them as auteurs. The latter 3 have all directed successful feature films too - its a common route into the film business (remember that both Warp and WT emerged from music video producers deciding to take it a step on).

[2012 selections: Andy: Gondry; Will: Jonze; Tom: Cunningham]

Before you start to firm up ideas for your own videos, you should spend some time exploring the distinctive media language employed by some of these music video auteurs, and see if you can find some inspiration. One of the most successful IGS Media productions to date was the Joy Division video (here's one of their blogs, JH's) which was strongly influenced by the visual style of Anton Corbijn, a good example of how individual creativity can be bolstered with influences. Postmodern theorists would argue that any original idea is in any case impossible: everything is intertextual, every idea merely a remixing of existing ideas and expressions.

So, your task is to:

Chris Cunningham's style comes across loud + clear

1. Identify a particular director with a clear visual style that you can research
2. View a good number of their videos and use screenshots from these plus any additional research to summarise their style
3. Having blogged on this, prepare a pitch for a class project, where a short section of a whole music video (at least 30 seconds) will be produced ... in the style of that director. You need to identify a track for this and in your pitch make it very clear which aspects of this director's style you propose to use. Remember that a pitch is a competitive process; you need to provide reasons why your classmates would want to work on your idea
4. Having picked one of these to work on, plan this in detail so that you end with storyboards, a shotlist and full details of which cast member/s are required for each shot. Use the appropriate templates to do this.
5. With casting and shots arranged, and every aspect of mise-en-scene (including costume, props, locations etc) arranged, shoot your footage.
6. Using the expertise of whoever's pitch won out, each then individually upload and edit your own version, making notes as you go on how you're reflecting this director's signature style.
7. You can use this opportunity to have a go with Final Cut Pro X.
8. Blog on your learning as you go

You can find links lists on some big names in this blog, and could search for posts on each within the blog too - here's just 2 egs on Corbijn: http://musividz.blogspot.com/2012/02/layering-in-vids-dmode-egs.html and  http://musividz.blogspot.com/2011/11/mlang-deconstructionism-pomo-dmode-eg.html.