Duffy "Rain On Your Parade" Dir: Sophie Muller
It was much cooler when the dudes in the background where dancing...and their feet lit on fire.
Duffy needs to get some plastic surgery on her face and lose 10 pounds.
I fear if she lost 10 lbs, there mite be nuffin left o' her to video CaptP Still u jus' reminded me, it's probably about time for my next botox shot!
:P
More dynamic Muller b&w minimalism. Not so keen on the choreographed bits though, Duffy ends up looking a bit stiff.
Small aside: 'big' orchestration, guys in black suits with black ties... I can't help feeling that this video will capably surf the wave of Bond-interest on this the film's opening week. Yes, someone did think of that.
Muller, the most underrated and consistent force in music videos today.
It's interesting how 10 years ago celebrated directors bucked the trends by making videos that were less about cinematic beauty and more about visual gags and anti-video concepts. Today, when everything feels like an elaborate youtube video, Muller feels like a breath of fresh air.
Nice, shatner, nice.
I love Sophie Muller's work. She's one of my favorite directors. I also enjoy Duffy. This, though, was not very good.
It came off a) underbudgeted, b) under-rehearsed, and c) sloppily edited.
From the weak 5th shot (the too-wide and very unaffecting/emotionally dead shot of the drum beat) onwards this video really didn't do it for me. The worst stuff happened around the 2/3rd mark when the dancer/models starting to flub their tricks.
i.e, one of them tries for a back-tuck and lands on his hands, then a few shots later we have two guys attempting ariels and scrubbing their landings...sounds kinda silly for me to bring this up right? But, for me, this is indicative of the lack of care and effort put into this particular project.
That kind of sloppiness, in edit, choreography, and shot selection wouldn't have graced the behind-the-scenes B-roll on most of Sophie's of other videos and here we see it in her final product... :(
K
Just a quick addendum:
One of the major differences that I see in my own middle to low budget level work and the bigger budget stuff is the attention to detail. For instance, what I admire most about commercials is that every shot is basically perfect (sure the creative can be blah but commercials often showcase shot selection and editing to perfection).
With quite a few talented music video directors you get this commercial-level attention to detail and focus on technical perfection. Sophie Muller is one of those directors and my big quibble with her work in this Duffy video is that it lacks that detail and perfection.
K
