Sep 11, 2012
Sep 10, 2012
Psy/Gangnam
Mr. Lefsetz,
I make my living as a director, cinematographer and editor of mid-to-low budget hip-hop videos, and when I first watched this PSY video a few weeks ago, my reaction was simple: perfect. This video is simply perfect.
Now I know that is a bold statement, so allow me to defend my opinion:
The video is what we would call an absurdist piece, a common genre in low-budget modern videos for artists that will never see more than 200,000 hits. Over-the-top vignettes and surrealist settings mixed with pop art characters. There's hundreds of those out there. However, the twist of originality in the PSY video is the high quality of production value.
Don't get it twisted, this is a very high-budget video for the current marketplace, but the big risk is using that big budget and playing the wild card - in this case, exploring the absurdist genre - and not playing it safe with the same stock performance video we've seen with the majority of Top 40 acts, or what we call the "trap video" in the hip-hop world (the artist and their crew in a run-down location looking hard, most likely with automatic firearms).
So that being said, the brilliance lies not solely within the concept of the video, but the gamble of using extensive resources and capital to execute the vision on a grand scale. Which yielded a product that can keep people's attention to the end of the song (less than 7% of music videos watched online are watched to within 15 seconds of the end).
I can go to CalArts and pluck 10 visual arts freshman to come up with a dozen even crazier, more absurd ideas than the scenes in the PSY video, but who the fuck is going to pay for it?? And which label executive - who has to sign the $150,000 check - is going to intellectually understand the concept of an absurdist, nonsensical visual piece that will most likely not lead to record sales?
Bravo for taking artistic risk on a big stage with a big budget. Bravo.
Long time reader,
Ron
P.S.: Many people inaccurately attribute smaller video budgets in the modern era as a result of declining record sales, which is partly true, but in reality the advances in digital video technology in the last 36 months alone have eliminated the need for half of the budget line items on a video made as recently as 7 years ago. Thanks.
I make my living as a director, cinematographer and editor of mid-to-low budget hip-hop videos, and when I first watched this PSY video a few weeks ago, my reaction was simple: perfect. This video is simply perfect.
Now I know that is a bold statement, so allow me to defend my opinion:
The video is what we would call an absurdist piece, a common genre in low-budget modern videos for artists that will never see more than 200,000 hits. Over-the-top vignettes and surrealist settings mixed with pop art characters. There's hundreds of those out there. However, the twist of originality in the PSY video is the high quality of production value.
Don't get it twisted, this is a very high-budget video for the current marketplace, but the big risk is using that big budget and playing the wild card - in this case, exploring the absurdist genre - and not playing it safe with the same stock performance video we've seen with the majority of Top 40 acts, or what we call the "trap video" in the hip-hop world (the artist and their crew in a run-down location looking hard, most likely with automatic firearms).
So that being said, the brilliance lies not solely within the concept of the video, but the gamble of using extensive resources and capital to execute the vision on a grand scale. Which yielded a product that can keep people's attention to the end of the song (less than 7% of music videos watched online are watched to within 15 seconds of the end).
I can go to CalArts and pluck 10 visual arts freshman to come up with a dozen even crazier, more absurd ideas than the scenes in the PSY video, but who the fuck is going to pay for it?? And which label executive - who has to sign the $150,000 check - is going to intellectually understand the concept of an absurdist, nonsensical visual piece that will most likely not lead to record sales?
Bravo for taking artistic risk on a big stage with a big budget. Bravo.
Long time reader,
Ron
P.S.: Many people inaccurately attribute smaller video budgets in the modern era as a result of declining record sales, which is partly true, but in reality the advances in digital video technology in the last 36 months alone have eliminated the need for half of the budget line items on a video made as recently as 7 years ago. Thanks.
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