Bio...
Born September 18th, 1959 in Chicago.
American film director, now moving on to theatrical production.
Stanley Kubrick’s ‘2001: A Space Odessey’ was Romanek’s inspiration for becoming a director.
He graduated from college in New York with a degree in cinema and photography.
After spending a few years writing screen plays, he decided to focus on music videos.
He has worked with many top-selling recording artists, such as Madonna and Johnny Cash, and has been credited with making relatively mediocre stars famous.
In 2002 he wrote and directed his second full length feature film - ‘One Hour Photo’ starring Robin Williams.
His background of feature cinema is a strong influence which is why most of his videos are so theatrical in their presence; most notably in their use of exaggerated lighting.
‘Something I learned late on in my career is that when things seem like they’re going wrong, they may actually be going right...’
Michael and Janet Jackson - Scream; this video earnt him his first grammy for ‘best short form video’. It cost $7 million to make and is cited as one of the most expensive music videos.
Audioslave - Cochise; was so loud during the night shoot that local police received hundreds of calls from residents who feared it was a terrorist attack.
Johnny Cash - Hurt; (Nine Inch Nails cover) was hailed as the most personal/moving music video of all time and won Romanek his third grammy award
Johnny Cash - Hurt (Analysis)
Type Of Video: Largely a stage performance based piece with loose strands of narrative embedded, creating a small documentary style summary of Cash’s life.
Setting: The House of Cash which is not artificially moderated in any way; the rooms are shot how they were found. The utter state of disrepair brings another level of sorrow to the video as the unrehearsed nature makes it all the more poignant.
Lighting: Harsh lighting, often focusing on one side of Cash’s face was used throughout the video. Romanek stressed that he wanted to capture Cash ‘as he was; a beautiful old man’ and was reluctant to cosmetically enhance the images in any way. This lack of a theatrically constructed light again links to the documentary style of the video.
Camera Work: The bricolage of archive footage intertwining with originally shot film is effective in creating a layered, textured quality to the product. Although a notable number of the ‘new‘ images focus on the environment, there are also moments of intense direct address. By limiting the number, Romanek is successful in evoking an emotional response from the audience as they are unable to become ‘immune‘ to the powerful poignancy of the lyrics.
Main theme of Video/Symbolic Elements: All the techniques used by Romanek were to capture the Legend in a more vulnerable, deeply personal form. (a far cry from Cash’s earlier representations) The song discusses the concept of mortality and the fact that even the best must die in the end. Romanek puts emphasis on this by inserting cutaways to images of the crucifixion of Jesus.
This is particularly relevant theme as ‘Hurt’ was the last video ever made for Cash. He died just one year later after battling with a form of Parkinson’s disease since 1997.
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Can't Stop (Analysis - Goodwin)
Genre Characteristics: The video is performance orientated which is conventional of Rock music.
Relationship between the Music and Visuals: Illustrative; although on the surface it seems to be just a random combination of images, the cutting and speed of the shots fit the beat of the song well.
Relationship between the Lyrics and Visuals: Contradicting; there is no connection between the lyrics we hear and the images we see on screen. Instead, the purpose of the ‘zany’, ‘unorthodox’ nature was to construct a specific public image for the band.
Demand of Close Ups/Motifs by the Record Label: There doesn’t seem to be a key detectable motif for the band, although there is a heavily fixed focus on the band members throughout the video.
Notion of Looking: The whole video plays upon the concept of contemporary sculpture and the aesthetic of art galleries/exhibitions. There is also a particular set which is made entirely of mirrors, therefore introducing a theme of perspective.
Intertextuality: The entire video-we discover at the end-was inspired by the ‘One Minute Sculpture’ series by Edwin Wurm. In these works, Wurm poses himself or his models in unexpected relationships with everyday objects close to hand, prompting the viewer to question the very definition of sculpture.
When watching the video, it is possible to identify direct replications of Wurm’s work (shown below).
Overall, our group has really enjoyed looking at Mark Romanek and analysing his work. His style is definitely one we hope to reflect most when it comes to filming our own music video.
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