The Good Side of Cordell

Normally I won’t cover the same band back to back on here, but I figured after putting down Allen Cordell in my last post that I might as well let you guys know why I do actually like him.  Also in Cordell’s defense, the “Walk in the Park” video is part of a collection of insane music videos that Beach House threw together to release on DVD with every vinyl purchase of Teen Dream.

With that in mind here comes a piece from Cordell that is pretty easy to appreciate.  It still has a bit too much post work for my liking, but the tone of the whole video does indeed mach the song in which the video is made for.  Yup, I’m talking about Cordell’s video for “Lazuli” by Beach House.

You’ll recognize the work as Cordell’s by taking note of the overtly saturated colors that pop throughout the video. Every color stands out as the art direction of this video is one of it’s highlights.  Also a highlight is Cordell’s use of steadicam that is used to identify an outside world that we are familiar with.  The rest of the shots that occur indoors or in the land of CGI, are all locked down adding composure to the acts of sitting at a bar and having a drink or sitting at home and watching bullshit television.

(Just an example of the insanely awesome art direction here!)

On top of solid production we do get to see Beach House in this video! I personally always like to see the band in the video and when the band is host to Victoria Legrand, I’ll watch the video all day.  All in all Cordell brings us a solid video for “Lazuli.”  Three story lines fall in place and enter a world straight out of Cordell’s mind that is both visually striking and fun to watch along with one of Beach House’s best songs to date.  

Walk in the Dark

Today’s post is going to be a little different than the rest.  The intention of this blog is to bring music videos I find well produced and successful throughout the whole production process into light for you lovely readers.  However, recently I’ve come across a music video so strikingly odd and, what I would consider, terrible in comparison to the song its promoting that I can’t help, but share it with you guys.

Today we are going to look at Beach House’s music video for “Walk in the Park,” which is host to the directing, cinematography, and editing styles of Allen Cordell.  Now this post isn’t here to rag on Cordell at all.  He is a rather successful director for Cause and Effect Productions and has made music videos for Cloud Nothings, Gentleman Drivers, as well as for Beach House’s 2012 hit “Lazuli.”  I am a fan of his other work, but this video just seems to miss the mark.

The video takes a bunch of odd twists ranging from a man with Hypertrichosis taking a walk all the way to this same man pulling a sandwich out of his chest in order to poison his enemies.  Maybe this is a fun concept.  Maybe some people will enjoy the absurdness of what goes down in this video, but bottom line it does not match the song at all.  If I were Victoria Legrand of Beach House I’d be genuinely upset with this project. 

It’s not that the direction is bad or the cinematography for that matter.  Even the editing is well done, but it may be a bit too thoroughly edited.  In fact, the postproduction is just far too much.  People are edited into the foreground, a dog barks over top of the song, and this is all topped off with a “trippy” fake fight sequence that is genuinely awful.  Not to mention none of the actions in this video have anything to do with the lyrics.  Not that this is a necessity for music videos, but the tone of the song and the video don’t even match up. 

Beach House…how I love you, but please don’t let this happen again. Take a look for yourself.

Beach House - Walk in the Park (Official Video) from Allen Cordell on Vimeo.

The Shafer Street Fugitive

So last week in class I was drafted to join team Happy Trees in the promotion of a band native to Athens, The Shafer Street Fugitive.  The band falls in the progressive / hardcore genre, which isn’t a genre I’m necessarily familiar with, but with my background promoting bands for ACRN.com I should be able to contribute nicely.  Our group was happy to find out the band already has a pretty solid fan base on campus and their facebook page is currently sitting at 66 likes.  We’d like to see that number jump up as we start to promote the bands shows through social media.  The band also has a blogspot already so we have another outlet to do some PR through that cannon as well.  Our target audience will be Ohio University students and we don’t see ourselves having to spend money to help the band out, which is always a plus.  Through photography, facebook posts, and blog posts we hope to help The Shaker Street Fugitive gain a solid fan base and hope to see them have some more success on campus and potentially off campus. Be sure to check these guys out!

Also check out this short documentary already made on the band.  Taking advantage of existing publicity never hurt!!!