You bought a pack of smokes for your 18th birthday. Ella "Lorde" Yelich-O’Connor celebrated her's by releasing a hugely anticipated video for this new song off The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1. (And hey, maybe she also bought cigarettes, although I doubt it).
The video skips the usual movie clipjob in favor of a series of unexplained, yet surely not unrelated vignettes that bear several filmic influences, especially Kubrick.
Emily Kai Bock, director: "Ella emailed me during the summer while she was on tour with Majical Cloudz, who I made a video for a couple years ago. I was amazed that she would reach out to me directly. Usually with such a big-name artist, there is a team of people you have to go through, but she kept a close connection to me from start to finish - from feedback on the treatment to editing notes, we were in constant touch.
Ella is a true collaborator. She had sent me a reference video of Mae West being interviewed by Dick Cavett. In the clip, Dick Cavett walks across a massive airplane hanger to this tiny lit set, where Mae West is reclining in this chair - it's a really surreal interview setting.
I wrote her a treatment with a bunch of these kind of set ideas, of things that could live within a dark void of a large vacant space, under a singular light - a motel room, a confessional, a chandelier, a streetlamp, and so on - and she loved it. I was really excited about the idea of using black as a way to transition between the worlds, losing the context of what is exterior and what is interior.”
First off, don't pay attention to the bullshit headlines about Johnny Depp being in the new Paul McCartney video. Not that they aren't true — he has a cameo in a performance set-up with Sir Paul and some blues musicians — but we've been there and done that. Go watch "My Valentine" which is All Depp, All The Time, or the star-studded "Queenie Eye" video. In this case, Johnny Depp is the least notable thing about this video, which I mean as a compliment to all involved.
"Early Days" imagines the story of a rock band from the roots-up, sprouting to life far away from money and fame — and far away from The Beatles' Liverpool hometown. We're down in The Delta, circa the late 1950s, where a mixed-race band is defying all kinds of odds to reach a level of purity, success and maybe even a little peace.
A hazy beach jaunt with a young lover segues into the noir nightime drive at the side of an older man, and then back again, until it all ends up afire in this evocative comeback for Lana Del Rey.
The second annual Prism Prize, celebrating the best Canadian music videos, took place last night in Toronto.
Director Emily Kai Bock took home the $5,000 Grand Prize for her masterful narrative Arcade Fire "Afterlife" video. Director Kheaven Lewandowski won the audience prize via online voting for The Belle Game "River" video.
Creative team Scott Cudmore and Michael Leblanc received the inaiugural Arthur Lipsett Award, established to recognize an innovative and unique approach to music video art; Director Floria Sigismondi received the inagural Special Achievement Award.
He sells flowers on a streetcorner all day, comes home for a spaghetti dinner, prodding his youngest son to speak spanish and his eldest to spare him a drive to his friend's house. At nightfall they all mine different dreamscapes, but she's at the center of all of them — only existing in their thoughts until they hopefully meet on the other side.
What's presented as a day in the life documentary with The Mays Brothers — DJ, Demantre and Rodney — lulls you into something a lot deeper, off-kilter and magical. The brotherly bonds prove strong, but other forces are just as powerful. And the circle seems like it will remain unbroken, with another generation also stuck on top of the world in Compton, L.A.
I remember the Converter knocking on our door, seeing if we'd like to switch teams. I remember model airplanes and kites. Tie-Dye t-shirts and canned ravioli. And I remember kids with Pixelvision cameras (this video uses Super8), shooting stuff not all that dissimilar to what we see here. But, I don't remember their footage being as evocative as what Emily Kai Bock gets here, or reaching the transcendant (and literal) heights once it's made clear that childhood in the '80s wasn't all warm/fuzzy memories.
