Lists of Best/Worst Videos Ever Made

Lady Gaga features in both worst + best lists...

If seeking inspiration, why not learn from the best, or apply the lessons from the worst?
Here's a few lists, mainly subjective of course, and reflecting the audience of the site/publication, which may help you identify some useful vids to investigate further - or simply to browse and to come up with a list of what features make for a truly popular/great/awful music video.
If you look closely, you'll find certain directors appear repeatedly: Spike Jonze, Anton Corbijn, Chris Cunningham and Michel Gondry prominent amongst these.
If you've any lists you can recommend (or have made your own), add a link as a comment.

Layering in Vids: DMode egs

See also: http://musividz.blogspot.com/2012/02/digipakmag-ad-layering-is-key.html

I've mentioned this quite a few times - and would welcome any egs you come across yourselves as a comment to this post (including URL of any posts on this). I'll mainly ref DMode vids which you can watch from the DVD - there's also a DVD of Corbijn's vids for U2 for you to borrow.

Anton Corbijn is a notable example of a director who makes extensive use of the creative possibilities of the use of multi-layering, as the pics below from various DMode vids [see Wiki] show. However, he often diegetically projects on location rather than edits in afterwards.

A good example of

INDUSTRY: Auteur film dirs still do high-profile vids: Loutallica/Aronofsky

News of a highly-reputed, auteur filmmaker turning his hand to music video - demonstrating that the form is more than just a pathway to filmmaking!
The video in question is for a track from the ridiculous Loutallica, but never mind: read more and see the vid at http://loudwire.com/lou-reed-metallica-black-and-white-darren-aronofsky-directed-video-the-view/

Spike Jonze's short film for Arcade Fire vid

Watch: Trailer for Arcade Fire/Spike Jonze Film

A sneak peek at Scenes From the Suburbs

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Scenes From the Suburbs, filmmaker Spike Jonze's short film companion piece to his video for Arcade Fire's "The Suburbs", is set to screen later this week as part of SXSW's film festival. The Playlist points out that a trailer for the short film has hit the Internet; you can check it out below.

Posted by Larry Fitzmaurice on March 14, 2011 at 9:45 a.m.

Tags: Spike Jonze, Video, Film, Arcade Fire

Music vid, web and film collide: David Lynch directs Duran Duran webcast

Source: http://pitchfork.com/news/41876-david-lynch-to-direct-duran-duran-webcast/

Obviously, this is a perfect illustration of the process of CONVERGENCE...

Monday, March 14

David Lynch to Direct Duran Duran Webcast

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"American Express Unstaged" is a live music webcast series that teams up big-name bands with big-name movie directors. Last year, they got Terry Gilliam to direct a webcast of an Arcade Fire show, and Spike Lee to direct a live stream of a Roots/John Legend show. And now the series has its most out-there artist/director pairing yet: On March 23, Duran Duran will play at L.A.'s Mayan Theatre. And David Lynch will direct the webcast.

Duran Duran's new album All You Need Is Now drops March 22, via S-Curve. The next night, the band's live show at the Mayan starts at 10 eastern time, and you'll be able to watch it at Duran Duran's Vevo page.
In a press release, Lynch says, "I am very excited about this opportunity to experiment with the band, Duran Duran, at the Mayan Theater on March 23rd. The idea is to try and create on the fly, layers of images permeating Duran Duran on the stage. A world of experimentation and hopefully some happy accidents." If you see Simon Le Bon holding a frozen smile for just a few seconds too long, you should probably blame this guy.
Below, watch a suitably ominous trailer for the show, and check out Duran Duran's forthcoming tour dates.

Michel Gondry

We will look at Michel Gondry's varied work as one of two director case studies.

Michel Gondry (born May 8, 1963) is a French film, commercial and music video director and an Academy Award-winning screenwriter. He is noted for his inventive visual style and manipulation of mise en scène. [SOURCE: wiki]

I've added a links list to this blog if you want to explore Gondry in advance of any November lessons