Can't Stop & Sound of Silence

I think the most ticky part of this pre production for a music video is trying to get an idea of how you're going to edit it and treat it. But with so many examples out there of pretty much every treatment style and editing techniques, it is easy to imagine and apply these different techniques and styles to our own videos.

Examples of completly contrasting music videos with vastly different editing styles and treatments are the video for Red Hot Chili Peppers- "Can't Stop" and Disturbed's cover of "Sound of Silence". Both of these videos compliment the songs the follow incredibly well, which shows the real breadth of treatments and editing styles.

On the rather random, crazy end of the treatment and editing section is "Can't Stop". It features the band in some of the  weirdest and crazy activities and props to carry the incredibly random nature of the song, and the band themsleves. There isn't really any Chronology to the video. Instead it just jumps between shots of the band doing rather weird activities; such as when they are popping in and out of Wheelie Bins, or when Anthony Kiedis (the lead singer) is in that weird body tent. One technique i like is how they use the tunnel at the begining to amplify the build up of the song. This paired with them matching scenes of vocals with the song form a closer link to the source material, which i feel is important for a music video.

On the other end of the spectrum is disturbed's cover of the "Sound of Silence". This song does feature some elements of story telling and chronology, and also links to the source material very well either through close ups of the singer, or what is being displayed on the screen. What I mean by this is that there is often links between the lyrics, instrumental and the video. An example of this is when the singer sings "In restless dreams i walked alone" we see a man walking alone in the video holding a guitar. This links further because it is this line that triggers the guitar to start in the song. Infact, this is where the video gets its sense of story telling from. It chooses to display what is going on in the lyrics on screen. It also links to the music too; such as when the drums come in on the verse starting with "fools said i you do not know" it includes shots of the drummer do his two strokes on the timpani.

Looking at these two videos has given me greater insight in the way that i could treat and edit my video. I'm thinking of leaning more towards "the sound of silence" as it links closer to the mood i'm trying to get across. However, i may go more towards the pace of the "Can't Stop" video in the choruses when the song gets heavier.