5000 Ways to Love You – Page 38 – Exploring the world of NZ On Air music video funding

One Million Dollars “The Original”

One Million Dollars was a funk-soul band from Auckland who always seemed to be gigging. I saw them live once and my memory was of an epic collection of skilled musicians who easily got away with playing for a little bit too long.

“The Original” was their only NZ On Air funded video, but certainly not their only music video, as their vast Amplifier profile demonstrates. Instead of trying to capture the larger One Million Dollars family, it instead focuses on the band’s lynchpin, lead singer Richard, and there he is – walking down a road, singing a song. It’s like an outdoor version of the “Bye Bye Birdie” theme song.

And that’s mainly what the video is – Richard walking a country road, along a bleak path beside a motorway, and down a hip innercity street. The camera is following in front of him, but occasionally we get a few sideways shots of the scenery, a bonus if you like roadside shrubs.

The video actually gets a bit repetitive. I mean, there’s only so much a person can do while they’re walking alone, singing a song. The most exciting bit happens when he briefly stops and the camera keeps moving and things get a little bit “Virtual Insanity”. Other band members occasionally pop up as disembodied hands playing instruments, and the occasional head singing backing vocals.

It’s a really charming song (and I mean that in the good way, not the sarcastic way), but the video seems immune to its charms and is going for much less spirit and more grit.

Best bit: at 2:28, the energetic cut between the motorway and the countryside.

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… spewtastic.

Falter “Falling to Pieces”

A classic of the “torture the band” genre, director Joe Lonie put Falter and their instruments down a hydroslide. Apparently he used the same idea in the video for Christian hip hop duo Sumix’s song “Jump House”, but could safely recycle the concept given how few people would have seen the original. The Sumix video was filmed at the Waiwera hot pools, so I’ll assume the same location was used for “Falling to Pieces”. Actually – reader Thom says “99% sure the video was shot at Parakai – it’s got a much longer slide with the interchanging grey and yellow panels.”

So, we see the three band members gliding down the tunnel, each playing an instrument. The hydroslide seems to be covered with lichen on the outside and there’s a bit of graffiti which all gives it a kind of broken-down look – not quite a bright fun water park.

The most interesting thing about the execution of the video is how relaxed the band look. There’s no sense of “Woooohooo! I’m in a hydroslide!!!” It’s more just three dudes playing a song and they just happen to be doing it in a hydroslide. It doesn’t help that the lead singer’s hair looks dry and nicely styled.

Because 90% of the video takes place inside the hydroslide tube – and nothing much is happening in there – it actually gets a bit monotonous. Because there’s no visible horizon, the video can be a bit dizzying and made me want to look out the window to reorientate myself.

The near the end a bit of drama happens when a couple of amps at the top of the slide slip down into it. As the band finally spill out into the splash pool at the end, the amps come hurtling after them. There’s the sense that they might have been hit by the amps, but the video quickly ends so that’s never resolved. It’s like the video is ao enamoured with the sitting that it never really figured out what to do with it.

Best bit: the drummer, looking like the only one having old-fashioned waterslide fun.

Director: Joe Lonie
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… going for a walk.

Elemeno P “Urban Getaway”

Gibbo looks like a corpse. His skin has a grey pallor, with greasy stringy hair clinging to his face. Why, he looks like someone in need of a relaxing holiday.

The song us all about feeling claustrophobic in your own life, but the video takes its cue from the wishful sunny lyrics of the chorus. It seems to be shot on one take and sees Elemeno P all in a living room of a house. The camera is located in the middle of the room and it slowly rotates around room – 11 times, to be precise. As the camera rotates, the room slowly transforms from a bleak, grey hovel filled with miserable individuals, into a bright sunny room where the band are very much enjoying themselves.

I’m going to assume the video was filmed all in one go. If that’s the case, there would have been a lot of running around behind the camera switching out bits of the grey world for the colourful world – a bleak wooden sideboard suddenly becomes a cheerful tiki bar. I imagine there would have been so much stuff happening as soon as the camera was off a particular area, with everyone on camera having to ignore the other action.

The video is directed by Greg Page, and he’s used a rotating camera concept couple of times before. Once with an early Elemeno P video (“Nirvana”) and also with the Datsuns’ “Super Gyration”.

Ignoring the novelty of the concept, the video manages to keep the bittersweet flavour of the song. These are, after all, people having a tropical holiday in the living room of their flat, which isn’t actually all that flash.

Best bit: Lani’s book of exotic parrots.

Director: Greg Page
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… hydroslide fun time.

Eight “No Way to Decide”

The “No Way to Decide” video seems like the path of least resistance. It’s black and white, very serious and goes nicely with the band’s earnest grunty rock sound. Their previous video “Moments Gone” had a goofy plot that was at odds with the song’s feel, but it’s a good match here.

We see the band performing in a black space, with shadowy light making them look all fierce and rock. This is the first time the band has appeared in a music video in a classic band performance pose. (The closest previously was performing on a roundabout in the non-NZOA-funded “Shift”.)

But the main part of the video involves a man with a blindfold. “All this time I’m running”, shouts the chorus. But the video’s hero isn’t running, he’s walking blindfolded. And he’s walking in very straight lines.

Now, I’ve seen the episode of Mythbusters where Adam and Jamie tested whether it were possible to walk straight while blindfolded. They concluded it’s impossible, and indeed YouTube is full of DIY experiments of people staggering all over football fields. So while this guy in the Eight video is cautiously but confidently walking straight along the middle of the road, this is not what an actual blindfolded person would experience.

Our hero crosses a busy road, runs through a forest (which seems an odd choice, given that he keeps crashing into trees), along city streets, stumbles over craggy rocks and finally finds himself standing at a cliff edge. So, is this the end of his journey, or will he take another step forward and plunge off the cliff? Well, if the Mythbusters’ experiment was anything to go by, he’ll just end up walking around in circles.

Best bit: the Frogger-style road crossing.

Next… a warm summer day indoors.

Deep Obsession featuring Kantuta “I Am”

If there’s one thing to remember about Deep Obsession it’s this: their first three singles went to number one, and they are one of three New Zealand artists to have three number-one singles (the other two being Mr Lee Grant and John Rowles in the 1960s and ’70s).

But their glory days were in the late ’90s. By the early 2000s the group was in a state of flux. This song sees only one of the Deep Obsession singers, Zara Clarke, and she’s teamed up with Latin-Pacific entertainers Kantuta.

“I Am” was the final Deep Obsession song to be funded. It didn’t chart. It’s a pretty average dance-pop song that sounds like it hadn’t dealt with the new millennium and is still living in the ’90s.

The video is set in a dark night club where Zara and Kantuta are performing on stage. It’s a dark and stormy night outside and a young couple take refuge in the bar. People dance to the song, the couple canoodles and that’s about it.

It’s all very… ordinary. I miss the madness of the earlier Deep Obsession videos. The ice princesses of “Cold”, the futuristic fishtanks in “One and Only”, the parallel party universe of “You Got the Feeling”, even the hospital drama of “Miracles”. Instead Deep Obsession go out with the very unremarkable world of “I Am”.

Best bit: the way the editing makes it look like everyone on stage is smiling benevolently at the canoodling couple.

Director: Ivan Slavov
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… walking the line.

Dead End Beat “All My Riches”

A limousine pulls up outside the Crystal Palace cinema in Mount Eden. Its passenger is a wealthy but frail old codger who’s come for a private screening.

The limo has the comedy licence plates “GWBUSH” which doesn’t really make sense in the context of the video. Or perhaps the oldster’s name is Gerald Wilbur Bush. They’ve have been better off swapping the plates for some regular ones. Another strange detail – the cinema has posters advertising the film “Kombi Nation”. Was the song on its soundtrack (google says no), or were the posters just there as part of the cinema’s regular line-up?

Anyway, the old millionaire is accompanied by two bodyguards who are terrible actors. The video is trying to be all noir and sexual but the bodyguards are like kids acting in a primary school play.

The codger settles down and watches a old porno, starring Shayla LaVeaux, a real American porn star (you might know her work in The Cougar Club 2, Lesbian Mentors 1: Older Women, Younger Girls, or When MILFs Attack). We also see shots of present-day Shayla in the back of a limo.

The screening is going well when suddenly a thug appears and menacing walks over the seat tops towards ol’ pops where – we assume – he murders him. It seems that Shayla and the codge are/were married, so we assume she’s taken out a hit on him. Well, it’s understandable – it would be a bit weird if your husband was obsessed with your older porn when you were still pretty young and fit.

Hey, where’s the band where all this is happening? They’re out playing the song in a dark alley. The players in the cinema story dominate the video, with the band left lurking in the shadows. But it’s a shadowy song and it works having the band lurking as minstrels in the background.

It feels like the video wants to be a lot sexier and darker than it manages to be. There are some terrifically noir and beautifully photographed shots, but it seems let down by the bumbling heavies, who should be played as smart aides, not comedic thugs.

Best bit: the theatre manager counts the fat wad of cash he’s made – way more lucrative than screening Kombi Nation.

Director: Joe Lonie
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… the last obsession.

Damien Binder “Point & Shoot”

Maybe I’ve been watching too much Masterchef, but I want to call this “pop video, four ways”. The screen is split into four, with each corner filled with footage of that particular part of the scene. So most of the time it just looks like a regular shot of Damien Binder in a room, only there’s a strange wobbly cross going through the middle of the image.

Garageland’s video for “Feel Alright” used a similar technique, only theirs was played up for its surreal humour. In contrast, “Point & Shoot” ends up being a bit sedate. At one point Damien is sitting at a table with a cup of coffee and I found myself wishing for some “Feel Alright”-style split-screen lolz. But no, it’s just Damien sitting at a table.

It’s not until the surprising unpredictability of Damien’s guitar strumming comes along that the split screens really get around to showing a bit of contrast. And as the song progresses, the video mixes up the four screens a bit.

It’s a bit uneventful. The song is like that too – a really chilled out acoustic guitar pop number – so the end result is a a bit dull. I think the song would be really good to see performed live in a small club setting. But on video, it’s just not very engaging. There’s absolutely nothing bad or wrong with this video, but there’s nothing about it that makes me want to watch it again.

Best bit: Damien pours wine into one glass, another glass remains empty *sadface*

Director: Jonathan King

Next… a pornstar.

Crumb “Stay Hard”

Like 3 The Hard Way’s video for “Nothing’s Changed”, Crumb’s video for “Stay Hard” is also set in an Asian restaurant with a karaoke machine. This time it’s a quiet night, with few customers and bored restaurant staff, played by other band members. This lack of audience doesn’t mean lead singer Carter Crumb is going to give a subdued performance. In a very un-New-Zealand manner, he rocks hard.

The karaoke video features the band’s drummer as a rugged outdoorsy bloke, getting back to nature as he slices up a log with a chainsaw, and later frolics with a dog. And that makes about as much sense as any karaoke video.

Back in the restaurant things get a little surreal, with a giant bank of televisions displaying more rock action. The song is a full-on rock song about the subject of rocking hard. The video kicks off with that rock energy and never relents.

As the video progresses, the performance seems less rooted in the reality of restaurant karaoke, and more like a surreal red room where Carter is alone with a microphone, free to rock out as mightily as he wants.

Now here’s the thing – when I think back to that 3 The Hard Way video, it’s not really a song that would work as a karaoke selection. Everyone would go off to get more drinks and/or use the toilet and you’d be left just singing to the one remaining person in your group, too polite to walk away. Whereas “Stay Hard” would actually be quite a fun song to do for karaoke, one of those early-evening numbers that gets everyone all revved up.

Best bit: The random cheerleaders – they appear, do a routine, and are never seen from again.

Note: The YouTube URL for this video contains “Porn” – Porn-QKrRLg, to be precise. This will probably see 5000 Ways get blacklisted by some overzealous corporate keyword blocker.

Director: Jonny Kofoed
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… sitting around.

Autozamm “Day to Day”

Autozamm were an unusual band in the history of NZ On Air funding. They received funding for 12 music videos, but none of their singles and only one of their albums charted. Consider the other acts who’ve received funding for 12 videos (Che Fu, Die! Die! Die!, Dimmer, Fur Patrol, Goodshirt, Headless Chickens and the Mutton Birds) – they were all over the charts. But the charts aren’t the be-all, end-all over musical achievement (and it’s certainly not a criterial for NZOA funding). One bio says the band were “renowned for exhilarating live shows”, so perhaps they were taking a very mid-2010s approach – forget the charts (there’s no money there, anyway), live shows are where it’s at.

The “Day to Day” video is very simple and low budget. Filmed in a steep Wellington suburb, it’s a one-take video, following the band as they leave a house and run along the street. Well, when I say “street”, it’s one of those theoretical Wellington streets that’s too steep for cars to drive down or people to walk down, so it’s been turned into a zig-zagging walkway. The group end up in a park at the bottom of the hill, with a rope swing to muck around on until the song runs out.

It seems to be shot digitally, with the footage later stabilised, meaning there’s an ever-changing border floating around the image. It’s just as well – if it had been left as it was shot, it would be unwatchably shaky.

The song is an angry rant – “I am not happy from day to day,” Mikee snarls. The video doesn’t convey that anger. It’s more like a fun adventure the Monkees might have, messing around with wacky video tricks. If this is a band known for their live shows, I’d like to see that captured in a video.

Best bit: the council worker tending to the garden with a weed trimmer.

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… glorified karaoke.

Adeaze “A Life with You”

Along come brothers Nainz and Viiz, who make up the R&B duo Adeaze, following in the footstepz of Split Enz, Nine Livez and Rockquest winnerz Dancing Azians.

“A Life with You” is a smooth jam, a heartfelt apology to a mistreated lover. So with a song like that, the video needs something with a bit of a story involving the sad-faced lover.

Nainz and Viiz are left to sing the song in a recording studio, but it’s the studio producer who becomes a player in the story of love and deception. After a busy day in sliding knobs in the studio, the producer returns home and sees a photo of his girlfriend. He thinks back and thinks back to his marriage proposal (with his girlfriend kneeling before him, in tears).

This doesn’t make him happy, and he writes a note, packs a bag and leaves. The girlfriend comes home, reads and letter and shrugs. Oh, snap! Despite the male voice of the song, it turns out she’s the cheating cheater and he’s the the one getting out of the crappy relationship.

Back at the studio, Adeaze invite him out for some sort of post-recording celebrations, but he declines. He’s probably going to spend the night sleeping on the control room floor.

That’s not quite an M Night Shyamalan level of twist, but it’s still highly entertaining. It works with the laidback groove of the song. And it’s a good introduction to the smooth world of Adeaze.

Best bit: in the studio, the producer mouths “wow” at Adeaze.

Director: Sophie Findlay
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… running down a hill.