Music Videos...To Go, Please
Leave it to those NPR dudes to continually cover interesting, emerging
stories in the colliding worlds of technology and music. This week the topic
of conversation is the evolution of the music video, how they are now consumed, and thus, created.
Music videos these days are viewed in grainy youtube boxes, on palm-sized
iPods, embedded in Facebook, etc. Suddenly watching an epic video with a
cast of dozens (the article references MJ's "Thriller") on your iPhone's
tiny window doesn't seem too appealing. Videos these days need to be shot
with lots of closeups, with everything in the center of the frame, and
edited with lots of quick cuts to keep the web surfer's attention.
Sadly this isn't good news for the elaborate, lush, cinematic productions we
have come to love and expect from groundbreaking artists like Battles,
Bjork, Missy Elliot or Sigur Ros. Who needs more fidgety, hyper-spliced,
epilepsy-inducing videos anyway? We say film that shit like it's meant for
IMAX. What happened to songs that tell a story?
