How to Make Music Videos in the Modern World

I'm a big fan of the idea that there are no such things as new ideas. As Coco Chanel says, "Show me a man of originality, and I will show you a liar."

I happened to catch Beyonce's video for "Get Me Bodied" this weekend:

http://www.vh1.com/video/play.jhtml?artist=1236911&vid=140291

For the first few seconds, I was pretty thrilled that the director was using touches of the '60s in the costume design and was amused by the throwbacks. Then I realized I had seen this before:




For a second I thought I was making too much of a stretch, and then I found this mashup also on YouTube:



"Get Me Bodied" is just a photocopy of The Rich Man's Frug from Sweet Charity.

Yes, Beyonce just didn't Xerox the choreography and call it her own, but it's too similar to really be called anything but a copy. The concept (displaying "modern" dances in a nightclub), design (dresses) and movement (again, the choreography) are taken straight from the musical number. Just because the director uses a few different camera angles to get closeups of Beyonce doesn't make it an "homage" or "pastiche;" it's still laziness.

This is probably a bit of an extreme example of what I'm trying to get at. But my bigger fear is that no one really tries to be original anymore. I feel that more and more movies and television shows are repeats of shows from the '80s (one of the summer blockbusters was Transformers, this season alone brought us The Bionic Woman, American Gladiators, and the new Night Rider premieres in a few weeks). Has living in such a mediated society make it possible to accept this? Or are new ideas just being put on hold until we can find a new technology to facilitate them? Hmm...

Hollywood Comes to 14 Dunham Place

So I was awoken yesterday at 7:00am to the sound of a film crew prepping for a shoot. There were little pink flyers posted up and down the street on Friday to prepare me for the inconvenience, but I figured I might as well start my day. I travelled down the street to get a cup of coffee before the crew locked me inside my building, and settled in to a few episodes of Knots Landing.

After things had settled down with Val and Gary Ewing, I actually started to pay attention to the noise outside. It sounded rather familiar, like a really good Matchbox Twenty rip-off. I checked their Wikipedia entry and checked out the lyrics to their latest single.

Yeah, Rob Thomas and the band was performing right under my fire escape at 9:00 in the morning. Sweet!



After standing and freezing for an hour, my roommate and I went back inside. I jumped in the shower to get ready for a brunch date, but was interrupted by a knock -- the producer wanted to scout out my room to possibly shoot inside. Of course, I'm mid-shampoo, so I rinse quickly, dash to my closet, and put on some clothes. After quickly doing the dishes, I need to leave before I throw up from the anxiety of having a camera crew in my living space.

I get back from brunch at 3:00pm, and turn the corner to still find Matchbox Twenty filiming. Yeah, now they're going on nine hours of shooting for what will probably be edited into a three minute video. I guess production values are high, since they have to repeatedly coordinate women walking down the street and a kid bouncing a basketball.

Anyways, I enter my building after the director yells "Cut" and find my roommate really disappointed that our room isn't good enough for the video. However, our neighbor has a visitor -- McLovin from SuperBad. It turns out that the producer called my roommate to arrange for Rob and the band to meet the guy, and my roommate was able to meet everyone.

Yep, just a typical day in the southside of Williamsburg...

Oh, and if anyone's curious, the song is "These Hard Times." I'll be sure to post a copy of the vid the minute it hits the airwaves.