5000 Ways to Love You – Page 41 – Exploring the world of NZ On Air music video funding

Opshop “Secrets”

This is Opshop gradually getting better at their craft. They hadn’t yet bothered the pop charts, but there was a catchiness to their work.

“Secrets” is a really no-frills video. It’s just Opshop playing in a dark studio, lit with white lights. It has the effect of making the video look almost black and white, and it gives the shadowy band a hint of mystery.

Jason is wearing spectacles in the video, which reflect the ring lighting used in the video. There’s also a curious light on stage which echoes the shape of the light reflected in Jason’s glasses, making it all seem a bit Twilight Zone.

Just when things seem to be getting a bit predictable, suddenly words start flashing on the screen. First “stop the propaganda”, then “start thinking”. But, like, what if that itself is more propaganda?

After the messages it’s straight back to the band, and they keep playing just as they were before, seemingly unchanged by the effect of the propaganda messages on the band or indeed their audience.

So yeah, it’s a really no-frills exercise. It is a bit boring, but it adequately captures the song and the band.

Best bit: the mugshot-style poses of the band members.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F52G-mCS9oY

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… working overnight at the gascrankinstation.

No Artificial Flavours “Sweet As Bro”

No Artificial Flavours was the next project of MC Taaz, previously of Dam Native. “Sweet As Bro” continues with the social conscience of his earlier group, but this time it’s a bleak buzzkill. Check out the chorus:

The streets that I’m from, they say “Sweet as, bro”
Kids going to school are like, “Sweet as, bro”
Top-notch athletes – “Sweet as, bro”
But in reality I know it’s not sweet as, bro

So, the song’s message is “You think your life is ok? Well, it’s not. It’s shit. Here, let me list all the ways in which your life sucks.” It also sounds a bit like the sort of thing a right-on band would perform as part of a schools tour, followed by a workshop in which students are encouraged to discuss all the ways in which New Zealand society is not “Sweet as, bro”.

But anyway. The video is black and white, with a lot of shots of Taaz wearing a rugby league shirt, walking down a suburban street. With vibe assassin lyrics telling of babies running out of formula, power cuts and being too poor to afford medical care, the video shows people standing around their non-sweet-as neighbourhoods, both in Auckland and rural Northland. There’s also some slow-mo footage of those “top-notch athletes” (i.e., community football) playing a non-sweet-as game.

Along comes the song’s bridge and it’s singer Cherene on the back of a trailer driving around a suburban shopping centre, which is also not sweet as. She also shows up later doing the same drive at night.

The main problem with this video is that everything actually looks ok. The people (especially kids) look happy, the neighbourhoods look tidy. If the video is trying to convince the viewer that it’s hard out here, it’s not doing a very convincing job. But then, would it work to make the video as much of a buzzkill as the lyrics?

Best bit: the disembodied head of an old man, poking up out of a pool.

Director: Tim Groenendaal
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… a circle of mystery.

Mareko “Mareko (Here To Stay)”

So, the Deceptikonz had come along and caused a bit of a ruckus, and Mareko seemed like he was going to be the group’s breakout star. He was handsome, his rhymes were clever – it had to work, right? cough Savage’s international hit single. cough

“Mareko (Here To Stay)” seems intended as an introduction to the artist, possibly inspired by Eminem’s kick-arse “My Name Is”. But “Mareko (Here to Stay)” doesn’t have a catchy chorus. Everyone can sing along with Slim Shady and feel cool, but the line “All I know is that my name is now here to stay – Mareko!” is a weak-as anti-hook.

The video sees Mareko performing the song down a narrow alley, surrounded by people wearing t-shirts promoting his album and waving banners with his name on them. It feels like there was a marketing manager on location, fiercely monitoring the shoot to ensure that everyone in the video had at least one piece of Mareko branding visible on camera.

The only bit of charm the video has is the group of little kids in the audience. In the narrow brick alley, the kids make it all seem like scenes from an urban production of a musical like Annie or Oliver, which I would actually like to see.

Otherwise all the constant brand pushing in the video becomes annoying. There are some smart rhymes in there, but they’re overshadowed by the video’s insistance in showing yet another person waving a Mareko banner at the camera. I can’t help thinking that if the video wants me to do something (i.e. remember Mareko’s name), it has to do something for me in return (i.e. give me a good song). It doesn’t hold up its end of the deal.

But then a curious thing happens. After two and a half minutes, the song comes to an abrupt halt and suddenly we get a minute-long preview of Mareko’s next single “Stop Drop and Roll”, featuring the Deceptikonz. And suddenly there it is. There’s the hook-laden single with an in-your-face Savage (sporting a black eye!) delivering the ultra catchy chorus. It totally overshadows the main single, making all the shenanigans with t-shirts and banners seem like a boring waste of time. It’s a sign that something isn’t right with the original single when the preview at the end of the video is the best thing in it.

Best bit: the small kid brass section.

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… you think things are good but they’re not.

King Kapisi “Elemental Forces”

A boxing ring is a simple and dramatic setting. It symbolises conflict on display. So it’s not surprising that the boxing ring has been the setting for many music videos (check out this list). But I can only think of two NZOA funded videos that have used the ring – Rubicon’s “The Captain” (with the band in netball uniforms) and Wordperfect’s “The Word Perfect Show” (he doesn’t take off his robe, but the ring girl wears a bikini). But the obvious comparison is LL Cool J’s bombastic 1990 video for “Mama Said Knock You Out” – and indeed “Elemental Forces” seems to be paying tribute to LL in some shots.

So here’s King Kapisi entering the ring for his ode to hip hop culture, shouting out to “MCs, DJs, b-boys, graff artists”. And while the video starts off with a traditional boxing match, the ring is soon given over to hip hop artists, mostly b-boys. There’s also King Kapisi going the MCing (of course) DJ CXL behind the turntables, but there’s no sign of any graff artists. But then, there aren’t all that many surfaces to paint.

The video is directed by King Kapisi himself, and stars his friends and family. Like “Mama Said Knock You Out”, the most of video is shot in black and white. It gives it all a very dramatic look, and not just a bunch of entertainers mucking around in a boxing gym after hours. The one excursion into colour takes place outside the ring. In front of a giant backdrop of Kapisi’s Overstayer flag, he gets enjoys some full-colour posing.

There’s also something to be said for King Kapisi actually having the right build for boxing. He looks like someone who could actually win a boxing match, no accidental lolz from a skinny-arse muso trying to be Rocky. (The only time this has ever worked is Sandra Bernhard kicking David Lowery’s arse in Cracker’s “Low” video.) Yeah, there are better boxing music videos, but as far as the genre goes, this is a really good effort.

Best bit: the fierce breakdancing spins.

http://youtu.be/6cZyznQpJaM

Director: King Kapisi
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… overexposure.

Greg Johnson “Save Yourself”

So, here’s a simple concept – Greg Johnson goes for a wander at Piha, while the girl of his dreams lounges about the house. Well, let’s just hope he doesn’t go tracking sand in the house when he comes home.

“I’ve been exploring your mind,” sings Greg. “I found giant rivers, mountain ranges never climbed.” This is accompanied by Greg walking alongside a piddly little beachside creek. But hey, if the giant rivers are imaginary, the ones in his actual environment don’t need to be Amazonian.

Greg’s beach scenes are shot in sepiatone, with a sense of it being deliberately scratchy old film. But back in the house, things are a little brighter.

The footage of the lady in the house is shot like a nostaglic, dreamy Instagram-style filter. She sits around, smiling at the camera. Sometimes she’s rolling around in bed, other times she’s curled up in a corner. Do we assume this is home video shot by the song’s narrator? Or has a rogue hipster film-maker snuck in while Greg is out?

There is a third party to this saga: the guitarist. Sometimes when Greg’s out walking, we also see a guitarist. Most of the time he’s up in the dunes, like a wandering minstrel who’s just happened to enter Greg’s world.

By the end of the video, there’s a lot of split screen, showing Greg, the girl and the guitarist. But the best thing about the video is that it ends with one of those amazing west coast sunsets, with the wet black sand reflecting the golden light. No wonder Greg went for a walk.

Best bit: the person who does a cartwheel on the beach. Yay!

Director: James Holt
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… in the ring.

Goodshirt “Buck it Up”

With “Buck it Up”, Goodshirt ended its previous collaborations with director Joe Lonie. They went in a different direction with new director Kezia Barnett, an old art school pal of Rodney Goodshirt.

And it’s very different from the five one-shot-wonder videos the band made with Lonie. “Buck it Up” is more grown up, more sexy and it has lots of actual proper choreography – something I’ve been hanging out to see in a NZOA music video for so long. And it is fearless with edits.

The video is set in a school, where an impossibly handsome young student is troubled by strange visions. His strict teacher becomes a saucy temptress (played by one of the other people who did the artists dole course with me in 2003!) – and it’s done with a lot more style than Van Halen’s “Hot For Teacher”. The student sees a butterfly with the face of a cute girl. He’s beaten up by bullies who transform into wolves. And then there are cheerleaders wearing masks of the Goodshirt members.

This menagerie of madness comes together for a final chaotic dance scene, then the student comes to, finding the butterfly girl (in human form) there for him in real life.

The band don’t directly feature a lot in the video. They make a few cameos, but are largely absent (they are shy). But this means the story has been given over to the casts of pros, the ones who can do the high kicks and shimmies.

It works having lots of dancing in the video. The song is upbeat and highly danceable, so it seems almost like a no-brainer that you’d work with the rhythm and get people moving.

Best bit: the cheerleaders putting on their Goodshirt masks, piece by piece.

Director: Kezia Barnett
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… a walk along the beach.

Elemeno P “Verona”

For the “Verona” video, director Greg Page put Elemeno P in an industrial freezer. Why? As he explained to NZ On Screen, “There was no legitimate reason for shooting in a freezer – I just enjoy torturing the bands I work with.” Rock on.

I’m sure they could have shot the video at the actual Verona cafe (it was also the setting of Fur Patrol’s “Lydia” video), but by using a much less predictable setting, the video is a lot more interesting than if we just saw the band playing in a bar.

So there are the band playing in an actual working freezer. It’s so cold their breathe is visible, but they’re all playing in t-shirts. Because it’s all bloody freezing, there’s a kind of tension to band’s performance in the video. It’s like they’re putting everything into rocking out but at the same time they’d also like to get out of there and into the loving embrace of room temperature air.

Because the freezer is relatively small, the band are shot individually. But the editing cleverly makes it feel like they’re all in there together, united in ice.

The freezer setting is a bit gimmicky, but the band’s performances and the cool-as cinematography make the video more than just a standard torture-the-band vid.

Best bit: the video starts with a bit of “Fast Times in Tahoe” and the lyrics “playing in the snow”. Lol.

Note: NZ On Screen has lots of behind-the-scenes stories, both on the video page and in this interview with Greg Page.

Director: Greg Page
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… classroom discipline.

Dei Hamo “We Gon’ Ride”

Well, there’s a lot going on in this video. The video starts with a prologue – Dei Hamo and pals sitting in a car parked in the pedestrian area outside the Britomart Transport Centre. After declaring that there’s no “new sound”, the four discover that – hey – you can make cool noises with things inside a car. This suggests that none of them have ever been a bored kid waiting inside a car.

After a minute of that, the song proper kicks off. Most of the action takes place in and around Commerce Street in Downtown Auckland, right in front of the bookshop selling cute Asian stationery. There are cars galore, along with boys and girls who are just as much into cars as Dei Hamo is. He’s pestered by the media (with one reporter played by Jane Yee) but just as things seem about to get boring, they instead get weird.

There’s Dei Hamo and Chong Nee dressed as military generals standing in front of a big wall of shiny mag wheels, Dei Hamo in white-face as Paul Holmes having a dig as the notorious “cheekie darkie” comment, Dei Hamo relaxing with an underwear-clad model in an RV. And then there’s Matthew Ridge excitedly boogieing down with the boys.

At the time the video came out, it all seemed very exciting. As Duncan Greive says over at Audio Culture, this is what big flashy hip hop videos were like at the time. It takes a lot of effort to make a video like this (the video reportedly cost over $50,000), but Chris Graham and Dei Hamo pulled it off. And yet… as Greive also observes, “something about the cumulative impact feels a little overblown – like, this is New Zealand. We can’t possibly afford to live that life.”

It looks like a world created for a music video, rather than an actual depiction of a blinged-out good life. The song was number one for five weeks, in that remarkable time in 2003-2005 when eight New Zealand hip hop songs made it to number one before the trend flipped over to reality TV show winners. And now, 10 years later, the world of “We Gon’ Ride” seems like ancient history, that time when entertainers used to dress up and dance around cars.

Best bit: Dei Hamo holds up a fat wad of Rutherfords.

Director: Chris Graham
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

And with this blinged-out extravaganza, I’ll end the year. 5000 Ways will now take its annual break, back on Monday 20 January right in the midst of that particularly fruitful time for New Zealand music in the pop charts. As always, thanks to you, dear reader, and to everyone who’s commented and shared stories, and to all the people who’ve tracked down old videos and got them online. Merry Christmas, happy New Year and see you in 2003!

Robyn

Brooke Fraser “Better”

Oh, the sweet sound of Brooke Fraser, and in the golden age before she got her tongue pierced and started singing with a pronounced lisp. “Better” stars Temuera Morrison (pre teeth veneers – what’s up with entertainers messing with their mouths?) as Brooke’s troubled dad – like a lower-middle-class Jake the Muss who’s got most of his issues under control, but still has moods.

He comes home from work, heats up a really depressing looking dish of microwaved veggies, but he has no appetite and so goes upstairs for a lie-down. While he’s resting, daughter Brooke lets herself in and gets to work on a makeover of his living room. He wisely doesn’t come downstairs. If he did, she’d probably hand him a paintbrush and make him join in.

Brooke gives the place a good dusting (the place is filthy), paints over the dingy yellowing wallpaper with bright white paint, adds a few stylish throw cushions and a lamp, hangs a photos of a tropical island, arranges a colourful bunch of flowers on the table, and takes off, happy with her three-minute makeover.

There are actual TV shows exactly like this (the Living Channel is full of them). Troubled people get quickie makeovers to put a smile on their face and help brighten up their life. But does the fresh new look make Tem happy? As he sits down to finish his plate of microwaved veggies, he sees the flowers and has a little smile on his face. But really, Brooke goes to all the effort of making over the house, but she leaves him with the old plate of microwaved veggies? How hard would it have been to phone for pizza? Yeah.

The videos works really well with the themes of the song. There’s no attempt to dress it up as a boy-girl relationship song. Yeah, the makeover is a bit silly, but overall there’s sweetness.

Note: this video might not have actually had NZ On Air funding. It’s one of the “yeah nah” ones.

Best bit: Brooke’s careful arrangement of the throw cushions.

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… a fat wad of Rutherfords.

Blindspott “Blank”

Blindspott have a lot of serious, emotional rock songs in their repertoire, but this is one of the most serious and emotional songs. See, it’s about addiction, portrayed in the video as alcoholism – a stark contrast to the fun but sensible drinking of the WBC’s “Ease Ya Mind” video.

The video is set in a gloomy room. It might be a bedroom, or it might be a motel room, the last refuge of the troubled drinker. We see the drinker hanging around in the room, and each member of Blindspott is seen performing individually in the room.

The drinker, meanwhile, is drunk. There are close-ups of Scotch being sloppily poured into a tumbler – the cinematic shorthand that says “I’m so desperate for a drink that I will sloppily pour a glass, but I am not so desperate that I’d drink straight out of the bottle.”

The drunkard doesn’t do anything fun when he’s drink. He doesn’t even stagger about or drunk-dial an ex. He just lies down on the bad and grips the sheets. Because booze.

There’s also some symbolism in the video – a fading Polaroid photo, a blue liquid – ink? curacao? – trickling down a wall. Actually, if they really wanted to show alcoholism, they’d make the blue liquid spilt curacao and have the guy lick it off the wall, not wanting a drop to go to waste.

Is there a lesson to be learned? Well, it’s that all the success of being in a popular alternative metal band doesn’t mean much when your mate is an addict. Mmm.

Note: this video is taken from a music show broadcast and there’s an annoying scroll advertising a competition underneath the video most of the time. And the sweary lyrics are awkwardly silenced out.

Best bit: the elegant mid-century sideboard.

http://youtu.be/PNeeNDjMOqA

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… two-minute home makeover.