TONIGHT music channel MTV Europe is holding its glitzy annual awards ceremony in Liverpool. But 27 years after its inception, the 24-hour channel that turned music videos into an art form barely shows them any more. These days MTV is given over to celebrities and reality shows. Coupled with the fashion for live music programmes such as ‘Later ‘with Jools Holland and the death of ‘Top of the Pops,’ the pop video has been exiled to the internet.
But in the free-for-all shop window of YouTube, viewers are as often nostalgically chuckling over the big-haired, badly produced video gems from their youth as they are watching the latest releases.
So how has the switch from the small screen to tiny screen changed music videos? Ever since Michael Jackson’s Thriller, getting your video banned has been an easy way to increase its audience. This has certainly worked for French director Romain Gavras. His controversial video for the single ‘Stress’ by the electro duo ‘Justice’ was named best international video at last month’s UK Music Video Awards, but it’s a million miles from the big budget, mini-movie aesthetic of the 1980s. The frenetically shot film, made with a hand-held camera, looks more like an amateur (if expertly shot) documentary, following a gang of hooded youths on a violent rampage around a faceless estate. In France, it was accused of fuelling racism and glamourising violence and was banned by several channels, yet the internet gave it an international profile.
Despite his success, the 27-year-old son of Greek film director Costa Gavras believes that the golden age of video directing is over. He believes the music industry rather than YouTube is responsible for the decline.
The British video director of the year, 30-year-old Londoner Nima Nourizadeh, confirms that record companies have slashed the amount of money they spend on videos but she still thinks that the form is a creative hotbed for young directors. Acclaimed for his work with bands like ‘Hot Chip’ and ‘Santogold’,Nourizadeh says there are increasing constraints on directors, “When I started making videos about four years ago that was the end of the big money. You are expected to make films on lower and lower budgets.” Digital technology and the internet have enabled anyone with a computer and a digital camera to make a video for very little cost — not necessarily a bad thing, he thinks.
“You can shoot anything and make it look good, and on YouTube, low-fi stuff can sometimes look better than something much more expensive.” His video for ‘Flight of the Conchords Ladies of the World’ morphed the heads of the two Kiwi comedians onto the bodies of expert roller skaters, an effect that was more convincing reduced to a 12cm x 9cm screen.
Australian born Kinga Burza, 27, is one of the few female directors in the industry. She has won awards for her work with Katy Perry, Kate Nash and James Blunt and what makes her work stand out is the way it straddles the big screen/small screen divide: playful and funny enough to feel at home among the slapstick home videos of YouTube but dynamic enough for MTV. She made chart-topper Katy Perry pillow-fight on a bed with her girlfriends and turned Kate Nash’s bitter lyrics on the single ‘Foundations’ into a comic riff that was much more whimsical and affectionate than the song itself.
Burza thinks YouTube has changed the aesthetic of low-budget videos more than those for big bands.
“The format forces you to be creative —it challenges you to come up with bigger ideas rather than just throwing money at it. But fashions come and go with videos all the time.” Ultimately she believes that YouTube is keeping the art form alive.
© The Daily Telegraph