Christina Aguilera's body positive anthem "Beautiful" gets repositioned for the social media generation in this new narrative clip for the now 20 year old pop classic.
Now that she has a Driver's License — and a smash hit with that song — of course Olivia Rodrigo is ready to go for a drive. This dreamy/glitchy video also dips into themes of memory and voyeurism that culminate in a sort of merging of identities.
Bodies everywhere in this personal and poignant commentary on our current world situation.
Andre Muir, director: This video was deeply personal and stemmed from a tragedy in my life and in a way was my way with dealing with grief. I originally pitched a few different ideas to Vic Mensa, that he wasn’t really into. The ideas weren’t really there and I guess Vic could tell. We have known each other for more than a decade now, so I guess he could tell there was a level of distraction there and he had challenged me to make something based on what’s on my mind. My mother had just passed due to COVID 19 and we decided we would make something dedicated to her. I’m really thankful to him for allowing me to take his song and really make it something so much more personal...
When coming up with the idea, I knew I wanted it to be a social commentary and a critique on what was going on around us, but I couldn’t exactly narrow what exactly we wanted to critique, who was to blame? Who were the bad guys, who’s our antagonist? Who’s at fault. We knew we didn’t want to blame the victims, blame their habits or blame their lifestyles? You can’t blame essential workers or the elderly? That’s when we kind of realized what was at the heart of this video. It was this idea: “COVID’s not the disease, it’s the symptom.” – Of course, COVID is a disease but it is doing exactly what a virus is designed to do. The people dying from COVID, the essential workers, the elderly, the people with bad health – they are dying because they are victims to the socio-economic system that failed them. Most of the victims of COVID are people with underlying health issues, health issues that couldn’t be addressed because they didn’t have access to healthcare. Or their essential workers that couldn’t stay home and safe during the pandemic. These are all victims of bad infrastructure. They're just victims of being forgotten, being insignificant. COVID in a way was just the straw that cracked the camel’s back." [via press release]
The workplace is a literal killer in this over-the-top video comprised entirely of cleverly and massively manipulated stock footage that makes clear the fakeness and the danger underlying much of corporate culture.
These visuals take on a different meaning in the CoronaCrisis that hit after shooting the video, but "Ohh LA LA" basically imagines the party that will bust out when cash no longer rules everything around us.
A multi-media video that's inspired by 90's-fighter-video games, stop motion animation and comic books.
rubberband., directors: "We had a lot of fun taking outdated processes (everything from 16mm long exposure stop-animation to step printing) and blending them together in a relatively post heavy way. There’s a lot of vfx in the video that you wouldn’t notice outright. We sort of loved the idea of taking what most people would consider laughably old school and bringing it to life with people who are used to working with slick, CG heavy imagery. We just wanted to make something that translated all these influences and references into something original. And we feel pretty good about where we landed.
However long you plan to shoot stop motion, we’d recommend making it longer."
I love the track because it manages to be both intensely personal and honest but still uplifting and celebratory. It feels contemporary, unique to Ray but also kind of classic.
Director Miles Jay masterfully brings us back to Marcy Projects in the '70s, where Gloria Carter raised her son Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter while keeping a big part of her heart hidden in the shadows.
