April 2009: Midnight Youth, Minuit, Nathan King, Opensouls, Pluto

Nostalgic matrimony, a golden explosion, the photographer at work, old style, and green screen to the ’90s.

Midnight Youth “Golden Love”

The very emotional “Golden Love” became established as a wedding favourite, but google also reveals it’s been used at funerals and on an episode of One Tree Hill. The video sticks with the matrimonial theme, using old home movie footage of a couple getting married in the 1950s. It’s just an ordinary wedding, with all the aunties and uncles dressed up. And it’s exactly the kind of video that people love, inspiring all sorts of adoring YouTube comments.

Nga Taonga Sound & Vision

Minuit “25 Bucks”

We last heard from Minuit in 2006 with their video “Fake”. Three years later they’re back with “25 Bucks”, an ode to a small but significant debt. The video puts the band in a white studio, with plenty of close-ups of the band members and the cables, knobs and speakers of their set-up. As the video progresses, the background changes to golden yellow, with the band shot in silhouette. The whole thing looks amazing and is an example of getting the close-up band video working well.

Director: Brendon Davies-Patrick

Nathan King “Eyes For You”

In the “Eyes For You” video, Nathan plays a portrait photographer. He takes pics of various clients, including an old man, a martial arts guy, a bequiffed lady and little kids, but he’s not happy. Specifically, he misses his bae and baby, and keeps nervously looking towards the door. Finally they show up, with the baby making an avant-garde baby fashion statement by wearing a massive headband. It feels like there’s been a run on emotional, sentimental ballads and their videos and it’s hard to get excited over yet another one.

Director: Chris Clark

Opensouls “Hold You Close”

Your milage may vary, but I found this song so long and so boring that I struggled to listen to the whole thing. Both and song and the video are a pastiche of 1960s Motown soul, and it feels like so much effort has gone into imitating the original sound that there’s been no room for anything fresh. The song has its fans (YouTube comments testify to this) but I find it so hard to love.

Director: Jacob Thomas

Pluto “Snake Charmer”

A 2009 press release describes Pluto’s new venture as independent artists, having set up their own recording studio, complete with “their own graphic design suite all topped off with a green screen studio for music video shoots!”. So what do they do with their green screen? They get Florian Habicht on board to direct a video with crazy green screen effects. It’s like an early 1990s throwback, that time when blue/green screen was newly accessible and people just went crazy with it. The press release also promised a new album from Pluto, to be released in 2010. But that never happened, and “Snake Charmer” was the last of their 14 (15?) funded videos.

Director: Florian Habicht

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