My latest music video, for Edinburgh singer Joey McDowall.
Review from Media Muppet www.mediamuppet.com
"Overall I liked this video and I felt it completed its objective. What
was immediatly interesting to me about this video was the use of
silhouettes, which werent overused fortunetly and added a very nice and
memorable touch. As far as its narritive goes it is pretty clear that
the girl is reminiscing about a relationship that went wrong(as if the
lyrical content didn't give you enough hints),in that it contrasts
scenes of a young couple having a good time together, with a girl on
her own seeming distressed,.....and wearing a wide variety of
outfits(perhaps women do a lot of shopping when they are broken
hearted). The black and white imagary seems to be quite consistent
through the piece but I'm not too sure if it is trying to convey a sad
mood, or if it is trying to suggest that these events happened in the
past, as very often black and white is used to convey the past in film.
Perhaps it was a bit of both, either way it overall worked and didnt
draw my attention too much away from following the events. It would
really only be in the uses of colour that I could find anything other
to criticize in this, as I have said previously, otherwise good music
vid. The film starts and ends in clear color, and I feel this could
have been either avoided completely or perhaps the color contrasting
with the black and white could be used to represent past and present,
as well as mood. Perhaps the choice of color at the start and end was
to symbolise that she has overcome her sadness but ultimatly I am not
sure, if this was the objective a little more use of this technique
could have been implimented.
The shots of Joey singing are great in that they give her the full star
treatment and are exactly what is to be expected in a music video of
this genre and there are some extremely great shots of the couple
running through Edinburgh, which is, if you avoid the drunks, and the
chavs, actually quite a romantic city, especially around about the
castle and the Royal mile, and it's nice to see you have used these. I
particularly like the shots of them hugging, with the camera
overlooking the city at night and the shot where the guy twrils Joey
just outside the castle, which is enhanced by the very effective use of
fluidic, handheld camera work.(when I say handheld I simply mean
without a tripod or dolly, you may very well have been using a
steadycam).
I think finally one thing that I noticed is that the girl seems to be
very relaxed around you, and for a director this is an extremely big
part of producing good quality work and the shot at the end with Joey
laughing seems to confirm that she was having a good time when she was
making this, perhaps it deters a bit from the overall sad tone of the
song but I don't think it's that bad and it is afterall showing a bit
of her real character, which for an up and coming singer is key.
Overall, well done dude."