by ·Comments Off on An unmatched mixture of animation styles in one video

How do you make a video for a band that (at that point) doesn’t perform live and doesn’t want to appear on camera? For the song Don’t Answer Me by The Alan Parsons Project, the answer was to create it all with animation, and to throw every style in the book at the project.

This music video took 23 days to film, using 40 animators at the Broadcast Arts studio. (Broadcast Arts later worked on the first season of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, another place to find multiple animation styles under one roof.) Framed as a comic book set in 1930s Florida, The Adventures of Nick and Sugar primarily uses the unusual combination of hand-drawn cells mounted on figures that move through stop-motion animation. There’s even a touch of clay animation thrown in with the moon. The band appears only in drawnings near the end.

Despite what its Wikipedia entry says, this video was not a finalist for MTV Music Video of the Year. It was entered for Most Experimental Video, along with You Might Think, but the winner for that category was Rockit.

We’ll close with a behind-the-scenes look at the making of this video. Enjoy!

by ·Comments Off on Here's another iconic early music video

Here’s another another iconic 80s video that arrived too early for the first MTV Video Music Awards, She Blinded Me With Science by Thomas Dolby. Did you know that the old dude who hollers “Science!” was real-life British TV presenter scientist and all-around good sport, Dr. Magnus Pyke? He was probably as recognizable in the UK as Bill Nye would have been in a US 90s video. (Come to think of it, Nye included a science-themed parody music video in each Science Guy episode; here’s one called Smells Like Air Pressure. But I digress.)

According to a great interview in SongFacts, Dolby said he wrote the song just so he could direct the music video. That site’s got a wealth of fun details about the song. Remember “Mutt” Lange, the guy who wrote Huey Lewis and the News’ first hit? Lange sang backup on Science. You know that line, “Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto, you’re beautiful”? Dolby wrote it just because he wanted to include a beautiful Japanese woman in the video.

Was this the first video where the idea for it came before the song? I don’t know, but it’s fun to watch this catchy, deliberately silly video.

by ·Comments Off on For once, FilmOn wins in court
Closeup of judge mallet on block by digital tablet in courtroom

© Depositphotos / AndreyPopov

This is big enough news to jar me out of my summer break: FilmOn, our longtime video-streaming friend, actually won a decision in court. Last Thursday, US District Court Judge George Wu ruled against the broadcast TV networks that had filed for a summary judgment that FilmOn was ineligible for a compulsory license to retransmit their signals over the internet. Wu denied that motion, writing that FilmOn was “potentially entitled” to such a license.

There’s a whole lot of history in various online companies’ court battles to carry over-the-air TV. Most of those skirmishes and slaughters through the years, from ivi.tv and FilmOn to Aereo, have been detailed on this blog. For the quickest, best summary in one place, you should read TechDirt’s post by Mike Masnick. (My favorite quote: “In the early days, it was little surprise that Aereo won and FilmOn lost (often badly).” Those were such crazy times! But I digress.)

Most stories about Thursday’s court ruling made it sound a lot more important than it was. For example, Deadline Hollywood screamed “Court Says FilmOn Has A Right To License Major Broadcasters’ TV Shows”. But within that story, a quote attributed to Fox had the right perspective: “The court only found that FilmOn could potentially qualify for a compulsory license, and we do not believe that is a possibility. The injunction barring Film On from retransmitting broadcast programming over the internet still remains in place and the full burden of proof still lies with FilmOn.”

For all of us who would like to see more OTA TV streaming, Wu’s ruling is a victory, but only a small one. By rejecting the request for a summary judgment, Wu merely indicated that there is a real question whether FilmOn should qualify for the compulsory copyright license that ivi.tv couldn’t get years ago, noting that the Supreme Court’s Aereo decision may have changed the rules. Further, Wu indicated that he expected an appeal, which was why he left the injunction against FilmOn in place. And it’s possible, as the Los Angeles Times’ Jon Healey suggested, that the decision won’t survive appeal.

The more likely path for FilmOn will be later this year when the FCC is expected to set down rules by which online companies can get the same benefits (and possibly drawbacks) of other video distributors such as cable. Presumably, that would include OTA retransmission consent, which FilmOn would need to negotiate with each OTA station it would carry. It’s too late for Aereo, but it sure would be nice to be able to stream US OTA channels through FilmOn.

by ·Comments Off on Here's the first Video of the Year

As we continue the summer of music videos, let me present the video I promised you last week. At the first MTV Video Music Award show, here’s the video that beat out Rockit, Every Breath You Take, Girls Just Want To Have Fun, and even Thriller, the most expensive music video ever made.

You Might Think by The Cars was not a cheap video to make either; this early computer-enhanced work cost $80,000, more than double a typical 80s video budget. Like the Nintendo Entertainment System, which came out around the same time, You Might Think looks a bit crude now but was state of the art in 1984.

There were some pretty good videos before the VMAs started. My favorite for videos that appeared on MTV too early to qualify for this first award would be The Clash’s Rock the Casbah, but Eddie Money’s I Think I’m In Love had better production values, and I Ran by A Flock of Seagulls is more iconic of that period. (Don’t You Want Me was a gorgeous video, shot on film actually, but I was always disappointed that it didn’t match the vivid word-picture of the song, since I heard that before I saw the video. Shouldn’t it have included a waitress at a cocktail bar? But I digress.) Enjoy!

by ·Comments Off on Lots of unusual packed into one video

As we continue the summer of 80s music videos, let’s check out Rockit by Herbie Hancock. How exactly is this an unusual video? Let me count the ways.

The robot apartment set was designed by Godley & Creme, formerly half of the band 10cc. The video for Rockit was one of two Godley & Creme creations to be nominated for MTV Video of the Year 1984, along with The Police’s Every Breath You Take. Both lost to the video I’ll profile next time.

Rockit was performed by an African-American artist at a time when some MTV executives were afraid of scaring off white suburban viewers. That’s reportedly why Hancock only appears on a television set in the robot apartment.

I can’t be sure what’s cause and effect, but videos with heavy doses of MTV airplay usually made it to the Billboard Top 10. Rockit was featured on MTV but never even made it to the top 40.

Hancock is really a (magnificent, renowned) jazz artist, not a pop star; he has never cracked the Billboard top 40. This may be the only crossover jazz song to get serious MTV airplay.

Finally, the most basic reason this video is unusual is that it’s an instrumental. You can count the significant 80s instrumental music videos on one hand. I can think of Art of Noise, which won for Most Experimental Video for Close (to the Edit), and that’s about it. Leave a comment if you can think of any others.