Music Videos 02 - Humanity

Something I find myself trying to do as a director and very much responding to other director's work when I see it is finding the humanity in the moment.

I think this might be one of the director's most important responsibilities and is something so often overlooked.

The result of NOT finding the humanity is when something a music video, a tv show, a comemrcial, a movie - whatever it is - simply plays generically - lalala blah blah blah - who cares etc.  Finding the humanity is what lifts a potential moment to a greater plane.  It can happen in any moment.  It could be the moment someone is eating an orange.  It could be the moment you turn the key into your home. 

A director needs to be thinking about that key turn, what does it mean, what is behind that door for the character.  What do they expect to see?  Is it opportunity behind the door?  Is it sadness returning to the same boring life they left in the morning.  If you can capture this moment, you've created magic on the screen.

So - let's have some examples.  In attempt to stay on topic and stay live, I'm going to use a music video that was brought up in the last blog's discussion (by me) - but one I'd never seen before - but a few moments struck me which work well to illustrate the idea....  First I'll share the video...

Video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=w28ZREQe3_Q

Now, I will share some moments:

First of all - I'm  going to include two shots of her performance moments.  Bic Runga has a few strange characteristics when she sings this song - it almost seems hard for her to get the words out and I love that this was actually captured and no one said "Hey - that seems hard, lets smooth that out some" - instead  they chose to really show how endearing it is that  she does this.

Next - just capturing a soulful moment for the performer.... she stops singing one moment when the lyrics continue and it really emphasizes her thinking...

Okay - now to the Humanistic Dramatic moments which are really where the director/storytell here have done some thinking.

This first shot comes after the object of her affection has been labling/pricing cans... she takes the can and holds it - just to hold something he's held... that's incredibly sweet and in one simple non obvious moment establishes her desire to be close to this guy.

Next is possibly my favorite shot of the whole video - the guy's shirt without his face.  First obvious choice on this moment is showing the guy - and we always have an instinct to show people's faces - but she is walking shyly up to him, so to capture this, we just walk towards his shirt, no eye contact.  Plus this helps us later when we see his face close for the first time to make the connection with him. 

The next snap is just of a great moment where she is carrying just a load of things she probably doesn't need, just to get up to the counter.  In the previous shot she takes this wonderful deep breath and here she looks to the side - again emphasizing both her determination and trepidation.

Finally - when she does reach the table and place everything down, she makes this very unusual push of the objects towards him like an offering.  It's a definite moment of connection and I think had she just placed everything down - or done the classic comic bumbling of stuff falling - it just would not have remotely the impact of this strange ritualistic pushing of the objects towards him.

Okay - well, that is a glimpse of what I am looking for when I watch things and what I mean by "humanity."

Basically - usually the most obvious choice is not the best one.  If you ever think about a moment, you can usually find some greater significance and can often share that with the audience.