Tag: NZ On Screen

The 3Ds “Outer Space”

Cardboard sci-fi props, perfectly cheesy green screen use, Masonic symbology, scenic Dunedin, general malarky and an incredible pop song. I am so glad that this video exists.

Not only does the “Outer Space” video perfectly match the tone of The 3Ds’ first single of their first album “Hellzapoppin”, but it also lets the band’s deadpan non-rock-star vibe fit right into the crazy going-on. It’s like they’re all so bored with all the alien business that they can’t be bothered freaking out any more.

It’s also refreshing to see a New Zealand video that’s obviously set in a specific location, rather than in a studio or the nonspecific urban world of videolandia. The Dunedin Cathedral looks goth as well as gothic, and the countryside has that gorgeous Dunedin light. I can see why it would attract UFOs.

Best bit: Denise’s third eye. It blinks.



Director: Mairi Gunn
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… peace, love and ecstasy.

Head Like a Hole “Fish Across Face”

“Fish Across Face” suddenly appeared out of the blue, settled in at number nine in the charts and left everyone wondering who exactly this Head Like a Hole musical group was.

From their early metal years, the “Fish Across Face” video features the band naked (but for body paint) in most scenes. But Wikipedia says the video was banned for a different reason – in one very brief shot, liquid flows from the mouth of one HLAH to another (and apparently it was orange juice). At the time there was a meningitis outbreak, so concerned authorities didn’t want kids to copy this thing. They might as well ban pashing.

As well as the body paint, there’s high jinks in the ocean, at a rubbish dump and on a bouncy castle. While it all looks like a fun low budget video, there’s a rather sophisticated crane shot right at the end (or is it just a guy standing on a ladder).

“Fish Across Face” seems like such a perfect NZ On Air music video – the band stretches the budget as far as it will go, has fun and generally creates a ruckus that keep them buoyant for years to come.

Best bit: bouncy castle fun times!

Director: Nigel Streeter
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… really feeling the love of Jesus.

Headless Chickens “Donde Esta La Pollo”

“Donde Esta La Pollo” was to New Zealanders what “Sesame Street” was to Americans: a source of basic Spanish. Fortunately the video doesn’t linger on the Spanish factor, instead picking up on the carnival vibe of the song.

How cool were the Headless Chickens? While their compatriots were jigging about in front of green screens, the Chooks kept it real. They invited all their freaky friends into a circus tent and just filmed the decadent freakiness.

Ok, there was probably more to it than that, but no one in the video looks like they’re helping their mates make a music video; they all look like they regularly do freaky things in a circus tent and they probably all have more sex than you do. That’s how cool they were.

This video has a great tension between fun and unease, like they’re just one glass of absinthe away from terrible, terrible times. And I bet there would have been a few crazy religious parents who declared this video to be evil and forbade their kids from watching it.

Even though this is just one side of the Headless Chickens experience, this is how I like to remember them at their peak.

Best bit: the hairy guy with the egg in his mouth.

Directors: Bruce Sheridan, Rachael Churchward
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… an inappropriate public health act.

The Exponents “Sink Like a Stone”

After trying to make it big overseas, the Dance Exponents had returned to New Zealand, rebranded as just The Exponents and released their new single “Why Does Love Do This To Me”, which promptly tore up the charts to number three and provided a rugby singalong anthem for many years to come.

Their follow-single, “Sink Like a Stone”, a Beatles-esque pop track, didn’t quite have the same chart heat. In fact, you could say it sank like a stone. Shut up.

The video is your basic green-screen set-up, only with an outdoors twist. The band performs the song in various outdoor locations, filmed in black and white, with cRaZy colourful graphics of the urban landscape swirling behind them.

The song lyrics talk of New York and the adventure of travel. Perhaps the exotic locations green-screened in behind the band are a way of bringing some big metropolitan groove on a budget. $5000 can only go so far.

Best bit: Jordan takes his hat off and has bad hat hair.

Director: Kerry Brown
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… the circus come to town.

David Kilgour “You Forget”

I like a video with a storyline, and David Kilgour’s vid for “You Forget” does this nicely. Dave starts out by driving his car to the beach, complete with a hoon across Grafton Bridge back when it had the ugly chainlink anti-suicide fences.

He gets to the beach, hangs out on the shore for a bit, then jumps in the harbour and swims over to Rangitoto. He keeps his sunglasses on in the water because he is cool. The song is about a soured relationship. Perhaps Dave is exiling himself from the devilwoman by running away to a barren island.

On the island, he climbs to the summit, then catches the ferry back to Auckland, while his Chucks change colour several times. This is quite sensible – if you’re going to be mucking around on scoria fields but wearing only a thin-soled pair of sneakers, you’d want to take a spare pair or two along.

This is what happens when you have a cult following – you get to make a simple music video and 20 years later it’s online with happy comments from gleeful fanboys.

Best bit: the camera respectfully panning away when Dave falls over on the scoria field.

Bonus!

In 1992, “You Forget” won the prestigious Most Use of Water in a Video award at the Yahoo Awards – presented by MC OJ and Rhythm Slave, along with show host Moana on the Saturday morning kids TV show Yahoo. Flying Nun label head Roger Shepherd accepted the award.

Director: Stuart Page
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… a video that is just too obscure for we.

Tall Dwarfs “Fork Songs”

“Fork Songs” was a four-song EP, and the Tall Dwarfs got one single funding grant to make videos for all four tracks. Four videos for the price of one? With the Tall Dwarf’s DIY chops, this is business as usual!

“Wings” has an animated border, with the small centre square showing Chris and Alec mucking around in the Knox lounge room. Dancing with an umbrella and a wheel? Oh, why not?

“Lowlands” is animated, with the animations drawn on the phone book. Starting from the emergency pages at the start, each page moves the animation, with people’s faces morphing into one another. Each chorus is live-action footage of a TV, and then it’s back to a replay of the phone book, but getting blacker and scratchier with each reprise.

“Oatmeal” takes the food theme to extremes, with stop-motion animated foodstuffs messing up the place. Dancing chickens, baked beans, bacon, and identifiable edibles. Just when it starts to look palatable, Chris puts a face on it and makes it look at me.

And finally “Two Humans” is a quickly cut montage of still images of many humans. It’s fun to randomly pause, and check out the snapshots of ordinary people in their best ’90s fashions.

The “Fork Songs” videos – each costing an average of $1250 – is evidence that pretty good videos are possible on a very low budget. Of course, it helps when your art already has a low-budget, DIY aesthetic anyway.

Best bit: Chris being caught fiddling with his home recording gear.

Director: Chris Knox
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… Maree goes awol.

Hinewehi Mohi “Kia U”

Years before Hinewehi Mohi teamed up with Jaz Coleman to form the world music power pop group Oceania, she released “Kia U”, a sweet te reo soul song. The production of the song is a little painful – clunky, cheesy synth and Santana-wannabe guitar.

The video — directed by the accomplished filmmaker Niki Caro — is simple but effective. Hinewehi is filmed in close-up, with the camera exploring her face. We also see other women, one holding a baby. This is cut with shots of native bush, and the occasional glimpse of the glamour of a modern city. The camera lingers on the ordinary – a logo, a fence, a skyscraper – seeing patterns that a passerby might not.

I’m missing out a little by not understanding the lyrics – they’re in te reo Māori. The occasional word jumps out at me, but I’m relying on other contexts, including the music video, for meaning. But that’s what a good music video does.

It’s a nice video, but I’m so glad she got a better producer for the music.

Best bit: the slow pan over the gold dots of the old BNZ crest logo.

Director: Niki Caro
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… a westie girl is launched into pop hyperspace.

JPS Experience “Precious”

The appearance of the JPS Experience marks the first Flying Nun band to get funding. The JPS Experience break out the green screen, which is fine, but they take things to the next level with silver foil. The band play the song in a series of rooms, each with a different special effect colour scheme. It’s all very psychedelic, with the crazy swirling outside, and resembles the cover of their 1993 album “Bleeding Star”.

This green screen malarky was newly affordable video technology, so it’s no surprise that it pops up all the time in music videos, but here it’s just overkill. It’s like they’re not quite confident enough in the song or their abilities on camera, so they’ve hidden behind an oil slick of green screen.

I’ve always thought of the JPS Experience a very male band. Their songs weren’t just love songs, but seemed to be about the struggles of love and the modern male, and even floppy fringes and silver space suits work perfectly with that.

They’re all so young and beautiful, and the song is lovely. Unlike other bands in this funding round, there’s still plenty of love for the JPS Experience. A lot of fans consider them to be a band that should have been much more successful than they were, which adds a slightly bittersweet tang to the video.

Best bit: Dave’s floppy fringe.

Director: Kerry Brown
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… a chronological question is asked.

The Front Lawn “The Beautiful Things”

The Front Lawn was a film/theatrical duo (or trio). They wrote really good pop songs and made really good music videos, but they weren’t quite mainstream. If they (or a similar band) were around today, would they get NZ On Air funding? Don McGlashan still does, but he writes serious grown-up songs now.

“The Beautiful Things” is a slightly sinister song, looking at the love of material possessions. It’s set in a manic 1960s television advertising world, where the grinning salesmen attempt to convince viewers to buy things to make all their pain go away.

I say “1960s”, but it’s more that kind of retro ’60s style that was big in the ’90s. And there’s layer upon layer of green screen trickery and cheesy computer graphics. All this stuff must have seemed quite cool and cutting-edge back then. Video editing software was cheaper and more accessible, so you didn’t need to be The Cars or Dire Straits to do rad computer animations in your video.

The Front Lawn made short films as well as their live performance work, and they’ve taken full advantage of the music video medium to make an entertaining video that doesn’t just promote the song, but adds another layer to its message.

It was a pleasure to rediscover this song and the video. It doesn’t quite sound like a song of its era, such was the magic of The Front Lawn.

Best bit: Harry snogs his mop wife.

Director: Fane Flaws
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… The promise of stormy weather.

Moana and the Moahunters “A E I O U”

This is where it begins. The first funding round had only three videos, but they managed to cover the extremes of New Zealand pop. The first was Moana and the Moahunters’ ode to indigenous cultural pride, “A E I O U”.

But was its NZ On Air funding considered newsworthy? A 3 News story makes no mention of that – the focus is more on the message of the lyrics. And it’s noteworthy that back in ’91, a national news story was “Hey, check out this music video!”

Watching the video itself, you can tell the early ’90s have come to New Zealand. Moana’s wearing a peasant blouse and waistcoat – Vanessa Huxtable chic. Moana performs the song with her girl group the Moahunters in front of a green screen, while Māori-influenced graphics swirl around behind her.

There’s no pretending that the world of the green screen is real. There are wide shots that show the edges of the screen, and the cold concrete floor of the studio (warehouse? suburban garage?) they are filming in.

This video features the familiar rotating NZ On Air logo in both bottom corners of the screen instead of the usual one corner. NZ On Air originally get a bit carried away with their branding requirements or was the video’s producer not quite sure what to do with it?

It’s a bright, cheerful music video, that nicely matches the uplifting house beats. It’s a perfect video to begin our journey into the world of NZ On Air funding.

Best bit: Moana’s dad, looking cool as.

Director: Kerry Brown
Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Next… Don and Harry versus the bright shiny world of consumer culture.