Music Videos And Time-Lapse Filming

Time-Lapse Filming

Music/Soundtrack

By Alex Lee

Artist Research,Time-Lapse films

My aim in my coursework is to be creating and researching time-lapse film pieces. Ever since I found that little application on my camera, its introduced a whole new world of filming. To show more in little time essentially. Its amazing, and I have a lot to research and show to example my work and what I aim towards. Time-Lapse films cannot be without an excellent soundtrack, for as when you film in time-lapse, you’ll find it doesn’t produce sound, for as, it would just sound awful or weird, sound just can’t be done with time-lapse. So an excellent soundtrack to collaborate with the work is very helpful to establish mood on whatever you’re trying to represent. So that’s another section, to look at musical artists with the kind of music I need for my music video. And to represent a meaning as well, a message to all my audience.

Artist Research: Michel Gondry

Michel Gondry is a French film, commercial and music video director and a screenwriter. He is noted for his

inventive visual style and manipulation of mise en scène. And he is an excellent inspirations towards extraordinary

music videos as well as time-lapse films.

He himself directed a lot of music videos, and created some of the most amazing videos I have ever since, so experimental, so original, and its unfortunate I can’t show you all of them. But I have a selection of favourites by Michel. And afterwards I’ll show you others from various independent artists. Time-Lapse truly is still at its early days, there is so much more that can be shown.

What made me choose Michel Gondry was his work with The White Stripes, he’s done quite a few music videos with them. The White Stripes music is really in itself unique, different and original, I am a admirer of a lot of their music. And if it comes to any interest, he’s also done music videos with the likes of The Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney. As well as directing famous films, one of which being “Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind”, a famous well-known film staring Jim Carrey.

Michel Gondry: The White StripesThe first video I’m going to show you of The White Stripes is called “Hardest Button To Button” and it isn’t exactly time-lapse, more of a mix between stop-motion and time-lapse. But the same basic method, just slightly slower, its hard to explain. What we have is filming of about half a second, so we get movement, but then they’ll be switched into a different position like the essence of stop-motion, to timing and collaboration with the music, to create a very cool way of movement, its amazing.

Here is the link to the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7h7ViExB68

Just to think about this method and the filming, it must of taken weeks and weeks. And then there's the travelling with all those drum kits and amplifiers moving around. Its almost like mirrors. And to get them to do the exact right movements. Extremely time-consuming but excellent results.

Michel Gondry: The White StripesThe second video is probably more recognisable, we’ve all probably seen it and all can relate to it. For as every song has a meaning, otherwise its not music, it will represent nothing but noise and meaningless lyrics. The second song by The White Stripes that I have chosen is called “Fell In Love With A Girl”, in which we have stop-motion with lego bricks. It was probably much more time-consuming than the other video, if you concentrate on all the detail. Just to think they’d have to build and re-build those lego brick models over and over, I’m sure they had a method to it, but still, very time-consuming. But results with the best music video ever in my opinion.

Here is the link to the video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q27BfBkRHbs

In my research to this song, I also looked more into the music, because of course, The White Stripes as clients have hired Michel Gondry to create a music video for them. And therefore Michel Gondry must look into the lyrics and meaning of the song. So I did a little more research and its about falling in love for the first time sort of, which would explain the title, but as I read and analysed the lyrics, it seemed a little childish, and that's not like The White Stripes, so I imagine they did this deliberately, and there we may have found the answer and thoughts behind the video, lego is childish, so it has the inner child, and lego is a toy of which we build and construct, just like building up a relationship. But I may be looking too much into it there.

Michel GondryBesides working with the White Stripes, I decided to look up Michel Gondry’s work with just full on Time-Lapse filming. In which I found a very cool music video, but also just a project that Michel Gondry did with his brother Oliver Gondry. The video is called Lacquer, which translates as Behind. What we watch in the video is who I believe to be the Gondry brothers themselves driving across the united states by car, to this very soothing manipulative music, which really suits the video. We are in the back seat of the car during the entire video, as we watch all the different locations flash around before our eyes. And to cross the united states takes days and even weeks, they managed to fit it all completely in four minutes, which really shows the magic of time-lapse.

Here is the link to the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQ1F29btH4c

Various Artists: Time-Lapse FilmsI wanted to take a change in my artist research and actually look at some independent artists doing some outstanding intriguing time-lapse films. Because not many famous artists have taken this method of filming and made something amazing, so these films, probably with no budget whatsoever, are great to observe.

I found the perfect website which just gave me bits of different works by unknown various people, who took opportunities or interests in something as to show it through time-lapse. Here is the link to that site

Various Artists: Time-Lapse FilmsI have made a selection of favourites from that website, of which I will analyse and I definitely recommend watching them as well, they really are something else. First of, the snowstorm in Colorado, Denver, filmed in 2006. Whoever made this film took the opportunity of this extreme winter weather to create a time-lapse film, which shows us the snow building up and disappearing and even interestingly...

...we see them move snow from this platform which turns out to be a Jacuzzi hot tub, which they take the golden opportunity to relax inside in this cold frosty weather, which I think was a good idea because at first the video seemed quite slow and boring, the ending made it cool and interesting.I noticed a lot of the videos really showed the power of nature, like growing plants, caterpillars turning to butterflies and a rotting apple. All shown in minutes, these long time-consuming processes. I particularly liked the apple rotting and moulding away. The blank space around it, all we can see is the apple decomposing. Then there's that representation in music as well, there's always a background music in most of these videos. Which really helps the effect, therefore its what I want for my video as well. But for example from the selection on videos, we have corn being grown before our eyes in one video, we watch the roots and sprouts sprouting from the ground. And they chose a bluegrass type of music for its background, because corn is typically country and American, therefore, bluegrass is the most related music in ways.

Music/Soundtrack

Moving on from artists and their time-lapse films and music videos, I also wanted to look into just as importantly, the music and soundtrack, the perfect core and essence I’ll need to establish mood and collaborate with my video. So from this point, I’m going to name a selection of musical artists and one of their songs that I have taken a fond interest of which I will choose one song from to go into a final piece music video, which all my work from all areas will lead up to.

Music/Soundtrack

•The Foo Fighters, look at “This Is A Call”•Dinosaur Jr, look at “Over It”•Jimi Hendrix, look at “Bleeding Heart”•Nirvana, look at “Endless, Nameless”•Korn, look at “Clown”•Soundgarden, look at “The Day I Tried To Live”•Pearl Jam, look at “Jeremy”•Vertical Horizon, look at “You’re A God”•The Meat Puppets, look at “Oh, Me”•The White Stripes, look at “My Doorbell”•Rage Against The Machine, look at “Take The Power Back”

My Own MaterialNow I will show some of my own work, whether its time-lapse footage, regular footage or just photography. It all is a part and preparation heading towards my final outcome, even some of the footage scraps are going to be used in the music video.

This time-lapse footage was done as originally a test, but eventually I decided it can be used and experimented with towards the final outcome. As we know, time-lapse filming diminishes time in a film and speeds things up. So I decided to actually show how time is compressed by filming our clock. Its a long film, so it gets rather boring just watching time go by, but its still compelling in its own way.

My Own MaterialThis footage is filmed regularly, I was at a bomb fire party with my friends, who were somewhat drunk as you may hear in the background. But you can take off the sound if you choose to. But with the camera facing the fire, its so hypnotic as watching fire and flames can be. We can see it decay away the wood and spark away into the air, extreme amounts of heat within. Its just very representative of many things for what it is. Such as aggression or an emotional explosion. Fire is dangerous, and can spread and create smoke. So to use this in my film would be perfect to represent such emotions, and get an emotional response as well.

My Own Material

Here we have quite the opposite to fire, we have nature, which is much more peaceful, quiet and calming. I went out to a forest one day to get some interesting footage and photos. I came across a miniature waterfall, and I gazed upon the water hitting the bottom as it created thousands of bubbles, and they spread out into different shapes, and this really got me thinking of how similar it is in ways to the fire footage I had got, it bursts out into random shapes and then diminishes away, but just keeps coming with more and more shapes constantly. So this had an opposite meaning to what I got with filming fire, but helpful to represent peace.

My Own Material

I also got a lot of nice photography done that day, just to show Nature and its beauty.

My Own Material

My Own Material

This is a regular car drive that I experience very often, its a drive from South Ockendon, where I regularly visit, to Upminster, to where I live. From a lot of the footage I had completed at this point, I could tell that this music video in ways is going to represent myself and my life. And my life isn’t perfect, there’s a lot of conflict in the mind that I deal with everyday. So I was starting to think about what music could represent myself and that factor of thought. I thought the car drive would be cool because its at night, and I was really keen to see the results of this short-ish drive home at night, all the stops and places I go by and the surroundings.

My Own Material

From the new idea of showing travel, a lot like the works of Michel Gondry in Lacquer: Behind, I found another regular train travel that I could film in time-lapse. Its my journey from Upminster station to Grays, where I would go to visit friends, its a long travel, and sometimes it can be quite troubling and annoying, so I thought that would be interesting to watch in my music video as well as represent more points.

My Own Material

The sequences in which you see a band either setting up or performing is the band that I am a part of. Plays a very big part of my life, I have ambitions to make a future with them. But with so many problems with members holding grudges against each other and members leaving and being replaced, it doesn’t make it any easier. Though, hopefully, these problems will not last forever. So one weekend I decided to take the opportunity of filming my band play in time-lapse, as well as some regular filming, some in black and white and some photography as well. And so here is one of the time-lapse videos, just so you can watch the entire film. This pieces of footage I got of my band cannot go unviewed in my music video, they are a big punch on the anger and musical expression I have in my life.

My Own Material

I did a lot of these fast glitch sequences during the music video to collaborate and express what we are hearing in the music. Like a small outburst of scream or a guitar screech. Its not just a fast glitch of my band practice area, but my house, my girlfriend’s house and this college I visit from time to time.

My Own Material

Take your time to watch these other intended glitch takes, that you will see in its full video here, but as little segments in the actual music video. For that’s just how I edited it. The top far left is my house, the middle is my friends at college, and the last is my girlfriend’s house, in an office.

My Own Material

My Own Material

Other parts of my photography had to represent other things in my life, in both emotional and literal terms. Above you’ll find me and my brother and friends hanging out, which we rarely get to do. So I took the opportunity to photograph these times, but to show it in a somewhat darker light, as to what I was aiming for.And below we have my girlfriend, who at the time was in a bad mood with me, so that helped get the mood I needed when I was taking these pictures. Because she plays a very big part of my life, but unfortunately have problems with the band I play in, in which a lot of conflict happens, which puts stress on me to control everything.

My Own Material: The last of the photosMy intentions is mostly on time-lapse films, so I had to stop with the photography, but it really does help express my point.

The Stop Motion

Towards the end of the music video, you’ll see there’s a short moralistic stop-motion I created. When I found Michel Gondry mixing his time-lapse with other types of filming techniques, I thought why not, I’ll insert something new to make a cool climax for my ending. Its my own moving art forming itself to get more and more packed and then finally, it bleeds and spreads. You’ll find a better more inside annotation towards the end.

MusicThrough all my thoughts and footage I had gathered up, I now needed a soundtrack to collaborate it with, and relate with. I came to a final decision of Nirvana and their song “Endless, Nameless”.

And its the song you should be hearing right now, its a long song, lasts for 6:46 exactly. Therefore, all my footage needs to be spread out and fit in perfectly.

The actual songs meaning I had to research into, it is very aggressive singing and distorted guitar playing as you can here. The lyrics are pure rage against what, is unclear. But it can be anything, therefore can be for myself and my music video to represent things in my life. I feel I have a lot of aggression to let out and express, but I can’t, its like a fire within, tamed from spreading, but eternally bottled up.

The Final OutcomeHere is the final video and outcome, watch and enjoy. The video and preparation work is analysed much more thoroughly in my essay.

Conflict Of The Hidden Thoughts