Watching both abrogate need's AMV to this song and an AMV made by a random editor on YouTube, I couldn't help but wonder if the original music video for this song also featured characters being absolutely soaked in the rain. Well, not really. But Phil Collins is standing in front of... it's not really a waterfall and it's not really a shower but it's a basic backdrop of falling water. Is he getting wet? Well no, that would have made this video exponentially more difficult to film, but the effect still gets the idea across.
For decades music videos have featured clips from movies, certainly in hopes of promoting the song that the music video features (like any "professional" music video, they are "art" but they are also commercials for a product, trying to get you to buy an album or a single) but also to promote the movie that their featured song was written for. The music video for "Against All Odds" by Phil Collins does this, as the music video features clips from the 1984 film... Against All Odds! These kind of videos are not as common as they used to be, but throughout the 80s, 90s and much of the 00s, every big/semi-big movie had some video like this on MTV or VH1. They're typically the least-memorable sort of music video, the opposite of the high-concept auteur approach of directors like Michel Gondry, Chris Cunningham, Hype Williams, Anton Corbijn, Spike Jonze, etc. (these directors may not be in demand quite so much these days as record labels would much rather have thousands of people making TikToks of their song for free than having to pay someone to make an artsy, avant-garde mini-movie that's going to cost a small fortune, never get played on TV once and doesn't feature a dance that people can record themselves doing, but that's a different discussion for a different day).
Watching this music video made me realize that the assignment that these directors were given is basically the same challenge that AMV editors have when they sit down to edit anime to music. How do you take clips from pre-existing media and arrange them in an order that plays off the music in emotionally-stirring or exciting ways? They are, of course, making "live action" edits, which I know isn't going to amaze anyone here, you all know about this stuff already. No big deal, right? So why did AMVs take off as a hobby so big through the end of the 90s and the early 00s, while it's hard to find even even one "live action edit" made by a hobbyist for every thousand AMVs made during the same time period? That's not really a question I'm interested in asking but I just wanted to address this before someone comes in and says "vidding has always been big!" Not compared to AMVs it hasn't, sorry.
Anyway, I found it really interesting to watch this music video and see how the editor of this one seemed to approach the project with an eye that feels extremely familiar to me as both an editor and as a fan of AMVs. There are techniques that I thought were almost totally confined to the world of AMVs that show up on the site you're reading right now, and it's blowing my mind to see them reproduced in a place that has nothing to do with AMVs and from the hand of a person who'd probably never seen an AMV in his life. Indeed, the first AMV had only been made two years before this and had probably only been seen by a few dozen people or more. Besides, the medium of AMVs still had a long way to go before it would start to be defined by the ideas of external sync, internal sync or lyric sync... all of which are utilized throughout this music video in ways that are unique to working with preexisting video footage and not filming a 100% original music video. So yeah, obviously this was not influenced by AMVs, but it's interesting to me to see how the finished edit does kind of resemble one.
This music video is not completely composed of clips from the film. Like I said, there's lots of shots of Phil Collins singing in front of a mini-waterfall illuminated with different colored lights. In fact, 51.9% of the music video is Phil and/or shots of the set that were filmed just for the music video. This is difficult to quantify as there are a couple of clips where film clips are superimposed onto the shots of his performance (or incorporated in via split screen). These were the big moments that stood out for me.
0:00-0:08 A quick montage so you know what you're getting into. Go see the film, in theaters now!
0:11 I have not seen this movie so I have no idea what the significance of the ancient mask is, but yeah I guess that's one way to transition into the shot of the performer.
0:17 This is really subtle but the way this guy turns his head along with that piano chord is such a purposeful moment of internal sync, it's amazing that this was a thing 38 years ago!
0:21 "When I stand here taking every breath..." I mean you don't want to do that when you're underwater snorkeling but that's definitely a scene where breathing is gonna be on your mind more than it's usually gonna be.
0:26-0:33 "You're the only one who really knew me at all..." As if the relationship between the characters hasn't been completely established already, this makes it totally clear who we're supposed to care about and why. And the shot of the woman lying on her back gazing at the ceiling really nails the "knew" part of the lyrics. Is she remembering this in the past tense? Does her inner monologue sound like Phil Collins? The viewer is hooked at this point, they want answers!
0:57 "So take a look at me now..." Guy takes photograph out of his pocket to look at it not once but twice!
1:14 "Just the memory of your face..." OMG she's holding her face!
1:20 "There's just an empty space..." This is probably the hardest lyric to literally illustrate but they did it. Spaces don't get much more empty than these ancient ruins.
1:36-1:39 This is not "In the Air Tonight" but these drums hit HARD and are just as wet sounding. And here we have a series of cuts where the editor aims to sync to every one and take this video to the next level. The editor doesn't hit these beats with exact precision, but this little sequence still works pretty well. This is capped off by a clip of a man being tossed into a drum set, timed perfectly with the cymbal crash of the music. This was the moment where everything came together and I could never look at this video the same way again.
1:40 "I wish I could just make you turn around..." Scene shows a man literally grabbing a character and making her turn around. This video is amazing. The (apparently unrelated?) short but violent clip that follows doesn't really make any sense but it still works as a really nifty-looking match cut, the likes of which I thought would be much harder to pull off with live action footage than with animation.
1:43 "Turn around and see me cry..." I thought this would feature a shot of the male character crying, but the editor can only work with what he's got, so I suppose that's why we get the shot of the female character wiping tears from her eyes. The editor never completely commits to either one of the main characters as being the surrogate of the singer. I doubt that anyone ever considered this to be a problem or noticed at all.
2:00 Directing Phil Collins to turn his head like that on the beat adds some unexpected internal sync from the filmed performance portion of the video. This was probably all they were going to get out of him, it's not like he was going to do a dance or anything.
2:05 "So take a look at me now..." He's taking a look... at something!
2:21 I really don't know what she's doing here but it syncs to the drum beat perfectly.
2:23-2:34 Nothing remarkable here in terms of the editing but I just want to say that I love this.
2:34-2:41 Competent action editing, I guess. This is the biggest and most bombastic part of the song and it probably deserves something more than this. The match cuts are interesting but I don't know if they really mean anything or are just there to look cool. Phil Collins probably didn't appreciate being superimposed over the back of a garbage truck like this.
2:56-3:00 Doesn't hit anywhere close to as hard as the earlier drum break sequence did but the way that falling rock bounces and syncs to two separate drum beats is pretty great tbh.
3:09-3:22 This was like every other AMV from 2000 to 2006 that featured After Effects. Geometric split screen (a triangle in this case, sorry hexagon lovers) with masking, no pun intended honestly.
I guess the big difference between AMVs and this approach is that the editor was likely forbidden from using certain scenes that would give away the ending of the movie. Or maybe they did and I don't even realize it!
Rest assured we'll be looking at more of these, whether you like it or not.
the movie tie-in music video: the big budget cousin of AMVs?
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Zarxrax
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Re: the movie tie-in music video: the big budget cousin of AMVs?
The concept of a music video goes AT LEAST all the way back to Disney's Silly Symphonies and Warner Bros. Looney Tunes, back around 1930. Even before that, some of the first sound films had tie ins with music of the day. I think "Pigs in a Polka" from 1943 is a good example of synchronization of the animation and music much like what we see in many AMVs. They had it figured out all the way back then, that people enjoy watching video accompaniment to music.
Why did AMVs take off as a hobby? I think it's due to the nature of how people had to watch anime back in the 80s and 90s. Tape copying and sharing was how you saw anime. It required you to have A/V equipment. It also required you to know people to share tapes with. It fostered the creation of anime clubs, which might have more equipment, and people talking about that equipment and cool ways to use it. Someone makes an AMV, then it gets copied onto the end of a fansub tape, and gets distributed out to other clubs where many people see it. Now other people think "that's cool! we could make something similar with the equipment we have here!" And I think that's how it all happened. I wasn't there at the time, but it's my best guess anyways.
But anyways, I don't think the techniques that AMV editor's use just sprung up entirely within our own community. There has always been influence from other media, music videos, promotional videos, even commercials. Heck, just yesterday I was watching wrestling, and a short promo came on highlighting the Undertaker's career, synched to music. My wife said "hey, this is just like those anime videos you make!"
Why did AMVs take off as a hobby? I think it's due to the nature of how people had to watch anime back in the 80s and 90s. Tape copying and sharing was how you saw anime. It required you to have A/V equipment. It also required you to know people to share tapes with. It fostered the creation of anime clubs, which might have more equipment, and people talking about that equipment and cool ways to use it. Someone makes an AMV, then it gets copied onto the end of a fansub tape, and gets distributed out to other clubs where many people see it. Now other people think "that's cool! we could make something similar with the equipment we have here!" And I think that's how it all happened. I wasn't there at the time, but it's my best guess anyways.
But anyways, I don't think the techniques that AMV editor's use just sprung up entirely within our own community. There has always been influence from other media, music videos, promotional videos, even commercials. Heck, just yesterday I was watching wrestling, and a short promo came on highlighting the Undertaker's career, synched to music. My wife said "hey, this is just like those anime videos you make!"
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Re: the movie tie-in music video: the big budget cousin of AMVs?
When it comes to lyric sync, a wise man once said, "if the lyrics mention the word rose, show a rose." So with that in mind...
The previous music video I posted featured 51.9% "original content," shots of the performer filmed exclusively for the music video. The music video for "Kiss From a Rose" features roughly 50.5% original content, prominently leaning on the iconic shots of Seal singing in front of the Bat Signal on top of a skyscraper. This is NOT a situation that presents such a top tier artist with the total creative control of their image that they'd probably like to have for such an assignment. Somehow, this still became THE iconic image of Seal. Quite possibly, he is the most beautiful man who has ever lived. On the other hand, this music video is a confusing mess. It was directed by Joel Schumacher (RIP), who was also the director of Batman Forever, which probably explains why the footage of Seal singing to the camera fits so well with the aesthetic of the film. Did Schumacher also have to edit this music video, or was that a thankless task passed off to someone else who was forced to fill in the remaining 49.5% of the timeline here with footage from this ridiculous-looking movie? Who knows!
You can like this movie and still think it looks ridiculous, that's fine! I guess you don't have to think it looks ridiculous at all but if that's your true feelings then accept that we're not really going to be on the same page from this point forward.
This is the best-looking version of the music video that I was able to find on YouTube. Most are very low quality and/or have a huge VH1 watermark on them. Record labels and YouTube are supposed to have been working on this for quite a while now but I'll believe it when I see it.
0:00-0:17 There's no way around it, this looks really dumb. But this is as good of an establishing shot for the beginning of this kind of music video as you're ever going to get. Most of us would probably pick the same clip for the intro of the song. It's not great, but panning up to the Bat Signal in the sky before cutting to Seal sitting on the rooftop in front of it is as good as it's going to get here.
0:17-0:23 "There used to be a graying tower alone on the sea..." I cannot overstate how beautifully composed and shot all of these scenes with Seal actually are. He has a huge brand logo behind him of the most famous comic book character of all time--to Warner Brothers he is nothing but a small cog in half billion dollar machine--but he owns these scenes with a presence and grace that few artists ever embody this completely.
0:25 Random shot of Val Kilmer... this doesn't really happen for any reason, suddenly it's over.
0:35 Random shot of Nicole Kidman. Nothing happens here. The lyrics in this opening stanza are pure poetry and if (a BIG if) they could be visualized with clips from a movie... boy oh boy I don't know if this is the best one for the job.
0:43 Random shot of Jim Carrey as The Riddler. It's possible that they were trying some lyric sync with "my eyes become large" but that was used in the previous shot, so it's not even timed right. Nothing but baffling creative decisions so far! Does his Ridder staff have flashing lights on it to hypnotize people? I haven't seen this movie in 25 years.
0:50-0:55 "Baby, I compare you to a kiss from a rose on the gray..." The iconic chorus kicks in! Here we get a long shot of Batman standing next to his car. What is going on here?
0:56-1:00 "Ooh, the more I get of you, the stranger it feels, yeah..." Batman is swinging on a long chain and spinning around. He might be feeling dizzy, which is one way that people can feel strange, I guess. This is the height of a Random Scenes edit so far, which really does make me appreciate the attempts at storytelling or at least the illusion of an attempt at storytelling that the previous music video had.
1:11-1:16 This is such a pretty moment in a pretty song. Isolating this scene of the Batmobile driving up a side of a building as a visual match for it, which has aged terribly but probably also looked awful in 1995 (people still had imaginations and could still suspend their disbelief, you could get away with this stuff back then), it... it just doesn't work I'm sorry.
1:17-1:22 "There is so much a man can tell you, so much he can say..." Does Seal mean to say "There is (only) so much a man can tell you"? Val Kilmer cannot tell Nichole Kidman that he is Batman. If she only knew, then she wouldn't be dancing with Jim Carrey. I think this is what they were going for here? When Jim Carrey spins and dips and gives Kilmer that look, it's the first actually GOOD moment of internal sync in this entire video.
1:30 I think there will be more clips of Batman breaking through windows still to come, so I understand that they couldn't blow their entire stash on it this early. Seems like the big moment at the end of this measure where Seal yells "pain!" would have been a good moment to show Batman actually breaking through the glass here, but instead we just get this clip where he's falling and... it's just so abrupt and then it's over before you know it. There are so many sequences like this where we get a 1-second shot from the movie and it's totally out of context and makes no sense.
1:32-1:36 "To me you're like a growing addiction that I can't deny..." Shakespearean lyrics tell a story of passion the likes of which neither you or I will ever truly feel. What this has to do with Batman doing flips and fighting thugs, I have no idea.
1:38-1:42 "But did you know that when it snows..." At last, a romantic scene for this romantic song. The severe lack of snow and roses in this movie must have been a nightmare for the editor(s) of this video, but they make the best of what they have here.
1:48 Good internal sync as Batman flicks his boomerang into throwing position.
1:51-1:53 More mindless action but at least this looks really pretty and hits just as the soaring chorus is coming in.
1:58 Chris O'Donnell was going to be a huge star. Like every other actor who I think has disappeared, he is now a regular on a gritty CBS crime drama for Boomers and is living his best life.
2:02-2:09 "Now that your rose is in bloom..." I don't really know where to begin with this.
2:11-2:30 This is the longest sequence in the video composed only of clips from the film. It doesn't really convey anything or match the song. Some of it is pretty. I really think that there are people here who could make a video with this movie/song combination that would make me feel something that this video just doesn't. Great internal sync with the shot of The Riddler at 2:22. Jim Carrey is barely featured in this music video and he's really carrying the load in every appearance he makes.
2:32 "I've been kissed by a rose on the grave..." Finally, the lyric sync you've been waiting for actually happens.
2:36-2:37 "And if I should fall..." They probably had a lot of clips to choose from here. Fortunately they didn't drop the ball.
2:45 Sometimes I think it's okay to hold back on the lyric sync as it's happening. The lyric is finished before the cut to this scene, but I think the internal sync with the drum beat as he kisses her works better than trying to force it to happen along with the lyrics... besides, neither of them are literally being kissed by a rose and I think that would have bothered viewers if they'd gone that route instead.
2:58 Astounding internal sync followed by the weirdest freeze frame ever?
3:17 The only appearance of Tommy Lee Jones as Two Face--were they afraid of including any more of him because he's grossly disfigured and that would kill the Gorgeous People vibe they were going for?--but they really make the most of it here with great internal sync.
3:18-3:30 Helicopter explosion, the Batwing, the Batboat... this does nothing to seal the deal but I guess it adds some exciting visuals during the final chorus of the song. Pretty pointless though, imo.
3:37-3:45 They were probably required to feature this shot and by the end of this video I would probably also be slapping it on and walking away from this as fast as I could.
This is one of the greatest songs of the 90s and one of the most cynical and dumb music videos of the entire decade. The shots of Seal are all amazing, the rest is just glue to hold those clips together. He wrote this song in 1987, years before his first album. It was released as a single a year before the Batman Forever soundtrack and was a commercial failure. I didn't know this at all until now! There was a completely different music video made for it! If you thought the quality of the 1995 video was bad, check out this VHS rip of the original (this upload has less than 100 views, btw):
It's possible that none of us would know this song at all if it wasn't for Batman Forever. The video is an incoherent mess and makes no sense, even by corporate synergistic standards. When I was a kid there was a Jeep down the street from me that was professionally covered in Riddler question marks on the hood and on the doors and the license plate actually said RIDDLR on it. I'd be surprised to find out this music video would even appease whoever owned that vehicle. Yet I don't know if it's possible for a better version of this video to even exist. By all means, have at it and prove me wrong.
The previous music video I posted featured 51.9% "original content," shots of the performer filmed exclusively for the music video. The music video for "Kiss From a Rose" features roughly 50.5% original content, prominently leaning on the iconic shots of Seal singing in front of the Bat Signal on top of a skyscraper. This is NOT a situation that presents such a top tier artist with the total creative control of their image that they'd probably like to have for such an assignment. Somehow, this still became THE iconic image of Seal. Quite possibly, he is the most beautiful man who has ever lived. On the other hand, this music video is a confusing mess. It was directed by Joel Schumacher (RIP), who was also the director of Batman Forever, which probably explains why the footage of Seal singing to the camera fits so well with the aesthetic of the film. Did Schumacher also have to edit this music video, or was that a thankless task passed off to someone else who was forced to fill in the remaining 49.5% of the timeline here with footage from this ridiculous-looking movie? Who knows!
You can like this movie and still think it looks ridiculous, that's fine! I guess you don't have to think it looks ridiculous at all but if that's your true feelings then accept that we're not really going to be on the same page from this point forward.
This is the best-looking version of the music video that I was able to find on YouTube. Most are very low quality and/or have a huge VH1 watermark on them. Record labels and YouTube are supposed to have been working on this for quite a while now but I'll believe it when I see it.
0:00-0:17 There's no way around it, this looks really dumb. But this is as good of an establishing shot for the beginning of this kind of music video as you're ever going to get. Most of us would probably pick the same clip for the intro of the song. It's not great, but panning up to the Bat Signal in the sky before cutting to Seal sitting on the rooftop in front of it is as good as it's going to get here.
0:17-0:23 "There used to be a graying tower alone on the sea..." I cannot overstate how beautifully composed and shot all of these scenes with Seal actually are. He has a huge brand logo behind him of the most famous comic book character of all time--to Warner Brothers he is nothing but a small cog in half billion dollar machine--but he owns these scenes with a presence and grace that few artists ever embody this completely.
0:25 Random shot of Val Kilmer... this doesn't really happen for any reason, suddenly it's over.
0:35 Random shot of Nicole Kidman. Nothing happens here. The lyrics in this opening stanza are pure poetry and if (a BIG if) they could be visualized with clips from a movie... boy oh boy I don't know if this is the best one for the job.
0:43 Random shot of Jim Carrey as The Riddler. It's possible that they were trying some lyric sync with "my eyes become large" but that was used in the previous shot, so it's not even timed right. Nothing but baffling creative decisions so far! Does his Ridder staff have flashing lights on it to hypnotize people? I haven't seen this movie in 25 years.
0:50-0:55 "Baby, I compare you to a kiss from a rose on the gray..." The iconic chorus kicks in! Here we get a long shot of Batman standing next to his car. What is going on here?
0:56-1:00 "Ooh, the more I get of you, the stranger it feels, yeah..." Batman is swinging on a long chain and spinning around. He might be feeling dizzy, which is one way that people can feel strange, I guess. This is the height of a Random Scenes edit so far, which really does make me appreciate the attempts at storytelling or at least the illusion of an attempt at storytelling that the previous music video had.
1:11-1:16 This is such a pretty moment in a pretty song. Isolating this scene of the Batmobile driving up a side of a building as a visual match for it, which has aged terribly but probably also looked awful in 1995 (people still had imaginations and could still suspend their disbelief, you could get away with this stuff back then), it... it just doesn't work I'm sorry.
1:17-1:22 "There is so much a man can tell you, so much he can say..." Does Seal mean to say "There is (only) so much a man can tell you"? Val Kilmer cannot tell Nichole Kidman that he is Batman. If she only knew, then she wouldn't be dancing with Jim Carrey. I think this is what they were going for here? When Jim Carrey spins and dips and gives Kilmer that look, it's the first actually GOOD moment of internal sync in this entire video.
1:30 I think there will be more clips of Batman breaking through windows still to come, so I understand that they couldn't blow their entire stash on it this early. Seems like the big moment at the end of this measure where Seal yells "pain!" would have been a good moment to show Batman actually breaking through the glass here, but instead we just get this clip where he's falling and... it's just so abrupt and then it's over before you know it. There are so many sequences like this where we get a 1-second shot from the movie and it's totally out of context and makes no sense.
1:32-1:36 "To me you're like a growing addiction that I can't deny..." Shakespearean lyrics tell a story of passion the likes of which neither you or I will ever truly feel. What this has to do with Batman doing flips and fighting thugs, I have no idea.
1:38-1:42 "But did you know that when it snows..." At last, a romantic scene for this romantic song. The severe lack of snow and roses in this movie must have been a nightmare for the editor(s) of this video, but they make the best of what they have here.
1:48 Good internal sync as Batman flicks his boomerang into throwing position.
1:51-1:53 More mindless action but at least this looks really pretty and hits just as the soaring chorus is coming in.
1:58 Chris O'Donnell was going to be a huge star. Like every other actor who I think has disappeared, he is now a regular on a gritty CBS crime drama for Boomers and is living his best life.
2:02-2:09 "Now that your rose is in bloom..." I don't really know where to begin with this.
2:11-2:30 This is the longest sequence in the video composed only of clips from the film. It doesn't really convey anything or match the song. Some of it is pretty. I really think that there are people here who could make a video with this movie/song combination that would make me feel something that this video just doesn't. Great internal sync with the shot of The Riddler at 2:22. Jim Carrey is barely featured in this music video and he's really carrying the load in every appearance he makes.
2:32 "I've been kissed by a rose on the grave..." Finally, the lyric sync you've been waiting for actually happens.
2:36-2:37 "And if I should fall..." They probably had a lot of clips to choose from here. Fortunately they didn't drop the ball.
2:45 Sometimes I think it's okay to hold back on the lyric sync as it's happening. The lyric is finished before the cut to this scene, but I think the internal sync with the drum beat as he kisses her works better than trying to force it to happen along with the lyrics... besides, neither of them are literally being kissed by a rose and I think that would have bothered viewers if they'd gone that route instead.
2:58 Astounding internal sync followed by the weirdest freeze frame ever?
3:17 The only appearance of Tommy Lee Jones as Two Face--were they afraid of including any more of him because he's grossly disfigured and that would kill the Gorgeous People vibe they were going for?--but they really make the most of it here with great internal sync.
3:18-3:30 Helicopter explosion, the Batwing, the Batboat... this does nothing to seal the deal but I guess it adds some exciting visuals during the final chorus of the song. Pretty pointless though, imo.
3:37-3:45 They were probably required to feature this shot and by the end of this video I would probably also be slapping it on and walking away from this as fast as I could.
This is one of the greatest songs of the 90s and one of the most cynical and dumb music videos of the entire decade. The shots of Seal are all amazing, the rest is just glue to hold those clips together. He wrote this song in 1987, years before his first album. It was released as a single a year before the Batman Forever soundtrack and was a commercial failure. I didn't know this at all until now! There was a completely different music video made for it! If you thought the quality of the 1995 video was bad, check out this VHS rip of the original (this upload has less than 100 views, btw):
It's possible that none of us would know this song at all if it wasn't for Batman Forever. The video is an incoherent mess and makes no sense, even by corporate synergistic standards. When I was a kid there was a Jeep down the street from me that was professionally covered in Riddler question marks on the hood and on the doors and the license plate actually said RIDDLR on it. I'd be surprised to find out this music video would even appease whoever owned that vehicle. Yet I don't know if it's possible for a better version of this video to even exist. By all means, have at it and prove me wrong.
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Re: the movie tie-in music video: the big budget cousin of AMVs?
This one has been on my mind for years.
The first time I watched this was on the 1999 DVD collection of Bjork music videos, Volumen. It is one of the most creative and unique collections of music videos ever put onto one disc. No one and I mean no one was using the medium like Bjork was throughout the 90s to really be creative and take risks and try to do things that hadn't really been done before. That is, of course, another subjective statement and I can't really back it up without saying "well you had to be there" or something. Watch a video like this, this or this to see what I mean. Of course, no one in their right mind would make or finance such projects today, not when you can get people to lip sync to your songs online and promote your work for free, but I digress.
The first time I saw this music video, I was absolutely smitten with the concept. Obviously, it was a parody of the "movie tie-in"-style music video, complete with scenes from a totally fake film interspliced between shots of Bjork singing. I mean, it had to be that, right? Bjork music videos did not exist to cross-promote movies or do anything at all except strive to match the creativity of her songs with equally interesting and daring visuals and concepts. Years later, I finally read that this actually WAS a movie tie-in music video featuring scenes from a 1993 movie called The Young Americans. There is no trailer for it on YouTube in a good enough quality to bother sharing here. That being said, yes I realize that the quality of the music video embedded in this post is absolutely awful, actually WORSE than the DVD that I bought in 1999 and has been uploaded to Bjork's official YouTube channel. I doubt that anyone here will click through to watch it or will stick with it more than a few seconds. I've literally read people here say that 720p footage "hurts their eyes." I have just the video for them!
We'll do this anyway because it's going to bug me if I don't.
0:25 Bjork isn't really viewed as a 90s iconoclast anymore, just a human meme. "She's so weird, lol!" Not sure if anyone encountering her today even pays attention to how amazing of a singer she is. The opening vocals of this song are a reminder of how powerful and emotional and unique her voice is, and while this music video is completely disposable, this little moment in it is absolutely triumphant and sends chills down my spine. So far the only clips from this movie in the video are literally of guys sitting around in a bar looking bored, so yeah that's why I'm not commenting on what I said I was here for. Not the most intriguing scene selection so far.
0:34 A smoke and steam-filled room with silouetted figures sitting in the dark, a dude looking out a window in his car... Okay yeah these are shots dripping with film noir atmosphere but out of context they feel a little generic, like stock footage that people would put in their YouTube video essay any time an instance of criminals doing crimes are mentioned.
0:52 The world's darkest bar? No real lyric sync going on here.
1:05 I could watch her lip sync all day.
1:14 "I have to go through this, I belong to here where no one cares and no one loves," okay here's the lyric sync we've been waiting for. The viewer still has to infer a lot from very little information to get much out of this, but it still succeeds in selling the sensation that the visuals and the lyrics are on the same wavelength.
1:29 "Finger gun" gesture synced to the beat, okay good so I'm not the only person who tries to do things like this.
1:34 Really riding hard on the appeal of this guy just sitting there and staring across the room, I'm not keeping track but I think this is like the 5th time they've cut to this kind of thing.
1:35 The cymbal crash synced with the bottle breaking is nice, not groundbreaking by any means but we've waited a minute and a half for something like this and now it feels like something is "happening" for the first time. I also like the short shot of the motorcycles in the alleyway, which feels synced to the bass guitar but I'm not entirely sure this was intentional or not.
1:39-1:46 Not getting a whole lot out of this sequence, other than just establishing that there are, in fact, more than 3 or 4 different human beings in this movie.
1:50-1:51 Match cut of a mourning babushka melting into Bjork's pained expression might have worked better if she was actually singing during this part? Just an idea, I'm sure makers of this 1993 music video would love this kind of viewer feedback.
1:55 Lip flap that feels out of place.
2:14-2:19 Any semblance of a coherent moment, regardless of the actual presence of action, feels very welcome at this point.
2:42 Genuinely curious if this shot was cropped for the music video or if this is straight from the film. The odds of me ever learning the answer to this are less than one in a billion. I'm probably not going to watch this movie, and I've seen this video like a dozen times. This video had one job and I don't think it succeeded.
2:47 Nicely-timed face grab synced to the cymbal crash.
2:50-3:03 The editor does a nice job of interweaving these scenes with shots of the performer. The strobe lights create a sense of cohesion between these two separate elements of the video, as they feel like they're taking place in the same space. The actual content of these film scenes doesn't really communicate anything other than "gritty crime movie" where gangsters hang out in the sort of club that, if they weren't rich and powerful, they would probably not be let into or even want to visit in the first place. Maybe it's not hard to create a sense of flow when all of your clips are ridiculously dark?
3:03-3:15 Strobe lights everywhere, this is the climax of the video and it feels like it.
3:30 We end where we began, some guy sitting at a bar looking creepy and bored. What a journey.
The first time I watched this was on the 1999 DVD collection of Bjork music videos, Volumen. It is one of the most creative and unique collections of music videos ever put onto one disc. No one and I mean no one was using the medium like Bjork was throughout the 90s to really be creative and take risks and try to do things that hadn't really been done before. That is, of course, another subjective statement and I can't really back it up without saying "well you had to be there" or something. Watch a video like this, this or this to see what I mean. Of course, no one in their right mind would make or finance such projects today, not when you can get people to lip sync to your songs online and promote your work for free, but I digress.
The first time I saw this music video, I was absolutely smitten with the concept. Obviously, it was a parody of the "movie tie-in"-style music video, complete with scenes from a totally fake film interspliced between shots of Bjork singing. I mean, it had to be that, right? Bjork music videos did not exist to cross-promote movies or do anything at all except strive to match the creativity of her songs with equally interesting and daring visuals and concepts. Years later, I finally read that this actually WAS a movie tie-in music video featuring scenes from a 1993 movie called The Young Americans. There is no trailer for it on YouTube in a good enough quality to bother sharing here. That being said, yes I realize that the quality of the music video embedded in this post is absolutely awful, actually WORSE than the DVD that I bought in 1999 and has been uploaded to Bjork's official YouTube channel. I doubt that anyone here will click through to watch it or will stick with it more than a few seconds. I've literally read people here say that 720p footage "hurts their eyes." I have just the video for them!
We'll do this anyway because it's going to bug me if I don't.
0:25 Bjork isn't really viewed as a 90s iconoclast anymore, just a human meme. "She's so weird, lol!" Not sure if anyone encountering her today even pays attention to how amazing of a singer she is. The opening vocals of this song are a reminder of how powerful and emotional and unique her voice is, and while this music video is completely disposable, this little moment in it is absolutely triumphant and sends chills down my spine. So far the only clips from this movie in the video are literally of guys sitting around in a bar looking bored, so yeah that's why I'm not commenting on what I said I was here for. Not the most intriguing scene selection so far.
0:34 A smoke and steam-filled room with silouetted figures sitting in the dark, a dude looking out a window in his car... Okay yeah these are shots dripping with film noir atmosphere but out of context they feel a little generic, like stock footage that people would put in their YouTube video essay any time an instance of criminals doing crimes are mentioned.
0:52 The world's darkest bar? No real lyric sync going on here.
1:05 I could watch her lip sync all day.
1:14 "I have to go through this, I belong to here where no one cares and no one loves," okay here's the lyric sync we've been waiting for. The viewer still has to infer a lot from very little information to get much out of this, but it still succeeds in selling the sensation that the visuals and the lyrics are on the same wavelength.
1:29 "Finger gun" gesture synced to the beat, okay good so I'm not the only person who tries to do things like this.
1:34 Really riding hard on the appeal of this guy just sitting there and staring across the room, I'm not keeping track but I think this is like the 5th time they've cut to this kind of thing.
1:35 The cymbal crash synced with the bottle breaking is nice, not groundbreaking by any means but we've waited a minute and a half for something like this and now it feels like something is "happening" for the first time. I also like the short shot of the motorcycles in the alleyway, which feels synced to the bass guitar but I'm not entirely sure this was intentional or not.
1:39-1:46 Not getting a whole lot out of this sequence, other than just establishing that there are, in fact, more than 3 or 4 different human beings in this movie.
1:50-1:51 Match cut of a mourning babushka melting into Bjork's pained expression might have worked better if she was actually singing during this part? Just an idea, I'm sure makers of this 1993 music video would love this kind of viewer feedback.
1:55 Lip flap that feels out of place.
2:14-2:19 Any semblance of a coherent moment, regardless of the actual presence of action, feels very welcome at this point.
2:42 Genuinely curious if this shot was cropped for the music video or if this is straight from the film. The odds of me ever learning the answer to this are less than one in a billion. I'm probably not going to watch this movie, and I've seen this video like a dozen times. This video had one job and I don't think it succeeded.
2:47 Nicely-timed face grab synced to the cymbal crash.
2:50-3:03 The editor does a nice job of interweaving these scenes with shots of the performer. The strobe lights create a sense of cohesion between these two separate elements of the video, as they feel like they're taking place in the same space. The actual content of these film scenes doesn't really communicate anything other than "gritty crime movie" where gangsters hang out in the sort of club that, if they weren't rich and powerful, they would probably not be let into or even want to visit in the first place. Maybe it's not hard to create a sense of flow when all of your clips are ridiculously dark?
3:03-3:15 Strobe lights everywhere, this is the climax of the video and it feels like it.
3:30 We end where we began, some guy sitting at a bar looking creepy and bored. What a journey.