Ben

Gnarls Barkley –“Who's Gonna Save My Soul”
This video, is an example of what I define as the "new wave" of music video; where the clip doesn't have to be a silent, mimed representation of the feeling expressed by the musical artist but a stylised short experimental film. This video also represents a great blend of, what I presume is Super 16 film, acting and 3D animation. The way that the clip is stylistically shot, with a mixture hand-held and mounted shots, creates a loose and almost chaotic feel which relates back to the tone of the lyrics in the soundtrack.

Boards of Canada –“Dayvan Cowboy”
Taking a instrumental and turning it into a promotional music video, in my own experience, is quite possibly one of the hardest things to produce. Listening to the audio track over and over and OVER again, trying to get take an emotional message from the type of chords that are played and how the songs production is put together and writing a story around that. Director, Melissa Olson, tackled this problem in a completely different way by taking grainy NASA footage documenting Joseph Kittinger's astonishing Project Excelsior high-altitude parachute jump and splicing it to the audio. The second section of the song features slow motion film footage of Laird Hamilton's perfect ride of a giant wave at Teahupoo, Fiji from around the same period. The simple footage, and the way it is woven together, create a great, balanced and seemless harmony with the audio track.

Sam

Red Hot Chili Peppers –“Otherside”
The first thing you notice about this clip is the striking production design and artwork almost identical to the iconic silent film The Cabinet of Dr Kaligari, amongst other German expressionistic influences, the dream-state narrative of this clip is quite linear but unhinged at the same time. The surreal props used as instruments (Flea’s telephone-line bass my particular favourite) encompassed by it’s particular schematic style allow the music to remain in control while simultaneously contributing to the presence of the “art”. It’s simple in that it’s complex.

Modest Mouse - “The Ocean Breathes Salty”
This film clip is densely symbolic and representative in it’s use of metaphors, presumably due to the fact that during the time-frame of this album Isaac Brock (as outlined in the albums final track The Good Times Are Killing Me) was suffering a difficult lifestyle. The film features a young child exploring his corn-field surroundings through glasses and stumbling across a fallen crow, later revealed as Brock. The boy mends Brock’s wings and shows him to his mother who reacts with disdain at the apparently dead creature. The boy cares for the crow, as the band, dressed in animal costumes perform the rest of the song and disappear. The symbolism is inescapable, however it is a moving clip that pleads with viewers for the emotional attitude of the band.