Where Music Videos and Movies Meet

Another common purpose of music videos is to help sell a film that the song appears in. Here are some of my annoying, exciting and downright depressing examples:

Armageddon and Aerosmith: I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing

Love how this one takes on some special significance as lead singer Steven Tyler is effectively singing it to his daughter Liv Tyler who appears in the movie Armageddon. I also love the way the clips from the film are used with Aerosmith appearing on all the screens being watched by the characters. And the use of the rocket blast as an excuse to have the band having their hair blown dramatically around is cheesy genius! Liv Tyler crying over her father in the film played by Bruce Willis but actually replaced by her real father on the screen is the icing on the cake!



Ill Manors and Plan B: Ill Manors

This one is interesting not just because it is a bleak, violent and sensationalist look at modern British youth culture but also because although it is the title track from the film of the same name, it does not actually feature any footage from the film. Instead some of the actors/characters pop up in the music video and it is set in the same kind of locations as the film. It also deals with the same themes as the film with its look at disaffected youth running riot.



Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and Bryan Adams: (Everything I Do) I Do It For You

This one stayed at number one in the pop charts for sixteen consecutive weeks back in 1991 which was a record. It no doubt helped that Robin Hood was also doing well at the box office, showing that a song and a film can help each other towards greater sales. I always enjoyed the video just for getting to see the little clips of the film but wasn't so much of a fan of the bits of Bryan Adams all dressed in denim with his own band of merry men playing in the woods.



Titanic and Celine Dion: My Heart will Go On

You can't keep a good ballad down and certainly not if it's featured in one of the biggest films in history. Not a big fan of the song or the video but it's great to see clips from the film. Celine Dion croons from the bow of the Titanic and beneath the stars but for me this video is just an opportunity to see Jack and Rose again!



Men In Black and Will Smith: Men in Black

A great example of synergy at work. Will Smith sings the song, stars in the movie and Sony produce both the film and the soundtrack meaning that one helps sell the other. Sony's music making division helps promote its film production and vice versa, meaning Sony get very rich from using different parts of their business to promote other parts. Simples! The music video uses the cast, locations, special effects, costumes and clips of the film, making it probably relatively cheap to produce.



TV does this too with The Rembrandts' music video for I'll Be There for You being a perfect example that helped to sell Friends as a brand new sit-com by featuring the stars of the show pratting about in a studio with the band.



There's many more examples. What are your best and worst?

Blu-Ray Review – Ill Manors

Ill Manors is full of ting dat’ll make you sick blud. The characters are ripped from the streets of London, as are many of the non-professional actors. Debut director Ben Drew (a.k.a. British rapper Plan B) attempts to dig beneath the blazing front page pictures of looters to reveal the reasons behind the madness. Drew doesn’t like the media calling these kids ‘chavs’ and he makes it his mission to offer some context and explanation for the actions of what so many have called “out-of-control” youth.

The film takes a multi-stranded narrative approach (similar to Pulp Fiction but with far less humour and far more grit) with a range of characters mixing in circles that lead to frequent confrontations. A missing phone, a missing gun and a missing baby propel the characters like pin balls bouncing back and forth around the East End streets. Riz Ahmed (Four Lions, Shifty) stars as Aaron, one of the rare truly sympathetic characters who is a bit too smart, and a bit too empathetic to be mixing with the kind of low-lives his social circle keeps him bonded with...

Read the rest of my Ill Manors Blu-Ray review at Filmoria.

Test Screenings

Touchy subject in the film industry this. Test screenings are happening more and more these days with producers insisting that filmmakers get feedback from audiences before releasing their films commercially.

Some filmmakers refuse. Terry Gilliam for example. Put some of his old films in front of an average audience and they may not have ever seen the light of day. Spielberg doesn't do them. His films always make money. The distributors of Paranormal Activity used footage of test screenings in the trailer for the film. They also changed the ending due to audience feedback.

What's the point? Audience research. Producers want to ensure the film appeals to the widest possible audience. So they screen the film early, get the audience to fill in a questionnaire and then they make changes. Maybe the film needs to be shortened to a more manageable length. Maybe some scenes are not working, some sub-plots are unnecessary or some effects look shabby.

But is this fair on filmmakers who shed blood, sweat and tears for the film? Has their soveriegnty been taken away unfairly? Does the film belong to a director or the investors? It's understandable that producers, financers, investors want to see a film make money and I'm sure most directors want everyone to get paid. But isn't the money being put into the filmmaker as much as the film? Isn't their some trust in the filmmaker's creativity and vision?

Are audiences really experts on film anyway? I'm sure many would argue that audiences are the perfect people to be giving the filmmakers feedback. After all we are the ones that are going to pay to watch the film. We watch films. We know what we like and what we don't like.

But looking at the questionnaire after attending a test screening on Tuesday (04/10/11), I started to wonder about the range of responses Revolver Entertainment would be getting from us. As a media teacher I like to think I know a fair bit about film, narrative, scriptwriting, production etc. I tried to make my responses reflect this. But I'm not sure that I'm even the target audience for this film so are my responses valid? And I found it very hard to fill out the form thoughtfully and carefully. I wonder if others had more or less trouble.

Anyway I signed a non-disclosure form without reading it so I'm assuming I'm not allowed to say anything about the film. I don't know if I can even mention that the film is being test screened. However the film in question will be released in February and I was told that that they are trying to cut the length of it down by around 40 minutes. I can't imagine what this is like for the filmmakers. I could only identify a couple of scenes that I felt were unnecessary. So I can't say much because the film will change.

All I will say is the music is unsurprisingly outstanding and the opening credits blew me away. So I hope they stay as they were. It's a grim, gritty film and an extremely promising directorial debut. The narrative structure and many of the stylistic techniques of the film were excellent in this early cut. The writer/director just added another talent to his already glowing career.

In completely unrelated news:

Ben Drew a.k.a. Rap/Soul artist Plan B says:

"there’ll also be my first full-length film, which I’m titling ‘Ill Manors’”, he adds: “Which is a hip hop, music-based feature film which has six short stories that all kinda mix together to make one BIG story - and each mini-story will be represented by a different hip hop track. It’ll all be narrated by me, and it’ll actually be the reverse of ‘The Defamation Of Strickland Banks’ - in that with ‘Ill Manors’ the film will come out first and the soundtrack will come afterwards. And again the soundtrack will be a film for the blind, in that you’ll be able to listen to it and it’ll tell you the story of the film…" (http://www.bluesandsoul.com/feature/522/plan_b_from_a_to_b)