Slightly off topic, but..

..I thought I would post up this music video. It is again from the artist NiVo from Goin' Through and he is joined by friends and members of his record label bringing the bad state of Greek political afairs into their music. This music video makes a statement of how British and other global media view the state of Greek politics in the wrong way and mocks the government themselves as merely playing childish games. The video also has elements of governmental scandals thats have taken place in the past (i.e. sexism in the workplace, politicians in strip clubs, politicians lying on television etc). However, I believe that some of the strongest scenes in the video are of the gang singing the song about the poor state of politics in front of the Greek Parliament building in Athens. I just thought this was a great video and inspires me to do a good job in my own project, and I am a great admirer of NiVo for having the courage to create media like this. He deserves a lot of respect!

Documentary Theme Music

Kaneis Lathos - Maro Litra featuring TNS

Another quick post today. I have decided to use the above peice of music as the theme of my documentary. It is modern, it has a good beat, it is Greek but apart from all of that it also has quite a dark edge to it. This is the sort of feeling I want to give the documentary. The music is special as it can be seen at face value as quite an upbeat song, but when used in different ways it can also bring in other emotions that correspond with images onscreen. This is why I believe it is the perfect peice to use. The title 'Kaneis Lathos' translates as 'Make no mistakes' which is quite relevent to the message being put across by the people towards the Greek government; to make no more mistakes otherwise change will come.

Music Video Thoughts - Two

'Boro Kai Ego' by Goin' Through feat. NEVMA

This is another one of my favourite music videos. It is a completely different style of music to the last one posted and is a much more modern video, and I feel it shows a lot more advanced techniques than before. The main thing I love about this video would again be the mise en scene, with such a bright and fast tempo song being accompanied by a similar video full of life and tempo itself. Another thing I love about this video is the snazzy, artistic way in which it has been made with the majority of the background of the video being made up of computer animated effects, with the foreground being made realistic by keeping the artists as real people. It seems like these are the kind of effects I may be able to play around with in After Effects this year and through being quite an artistic person myself, the appeal is quite strong. Obviously it would be stupid to expect to produce anything this advanced at this early stage, but it is worth taking inspiration from and discussing at the very least.

I may well post other videos and songs up by Goin' Through as they have many interesting ways of producing videos down to some of the political and contreversial natures of their songs. In a lot of ways the main singer, NiVo is the Greek equivalent of Eminem through the messages he portrays in his songs, and with the current political crisis in Greece, it makes things all the more interesting in regards to his music videos.

Music Video Thoughts - One

'Heria Psila' by Mihalis Hatzigiannis

This has been one of my favourite music videos for a long time now, and it isn't just because I love the song. I find this video very visually pleasing purely down to how simple and yet effective it is. The plain black and white backgrounds I feel contrast beautifully with the costumes that the singer wears onscreen and make I feel make the video easy to watch. The majority of the video is in black and white (a technique I previously said I admired during the AS project)  and although there are flashes of colour towards the end, so the video does not get boring, the colour schemes I feel are generally very plain but effective. The song is quite a soft one and I think the mise en scene used enhances this. Although soft, the song is also quite fast paced, something which is matched by the video as the shots appear at a similar pace to the music and use a variety of different camera shots, although predominantly they show the same kind of scene. It is this simplicity that I really love about this video and it makes it a real joy to watch every time I see it.

The video sort of reminds me of Beryonce's video for 'Single Ladies' in regards to its mise en scene and formatting, which was released in 2008 and won three MTV awards for best Choreography, best editing and video of the year. The video also won video of the year in the 2009 BET and MOBO awards proving just how popular it was. Purely the fact that Hatzigiannis' video reminds me of it must mean it cannot be a bad video by any stretch of the imagination. I have included Beyonce's video below as a comparison.

'Single Ladies' by Beyonce