[No comment.]

(Via Cannes à la Flip.)

As time has shown, this blog is (currently) mostly about sharing and commenting on brilliant web videos. And nothing wrong about that, yet I’m still planning on writing more about my own work. But, tonight I was not in the mood for talking about myself, so what better than making a discovery.

This fantastic 2 minute short film, Tokyo Glow, is more than worth your time. It’s worth a bit of a study. If a visual trip through Tokyo isn’t candy enough, director Jonathan Bensimon‘s rotoscoped vision is like a translucent dream. A tiny story gives the images legs, but this one is all about taking in what your eyes can capture. Putting the glowing lights of Tokyo in front of the camera lens isn’t a original choice per se, but here they’ve got the discipline to contrast that milieu with an element that breaks out of its frame. The idea works perfectly, letting loose a flux of motion. Watch it below, or in HD:

Production-wise, Tokyo Glow is a hybrid; short fiction on the brink of being a commercial – defined as a branded short film by Short of the Week, who deserves credit for making me aware of this film. So, Tokyo Glow was funded by a company (in this case shoe designer The Generic Man), but created by seemingly independent filmmakers (from production company Industry Films, a Canadian firm). Director Bensimon has experience from building videos from still images, and the company write a little bit on their site about the challenges in making the film’s visuals come to life:

To achieve the striking effect of the “illuminated man,” an original light suit was constructed using hundreds of feet of high-voltage LED rope lights and a translucent nylon outer shell. The production had its set of additional challenges, not the least of which was avoiding the Yakuza – Tokyo’s notorious mafia – while shooting extensively in their territory without permission.

Whatever way it was made, I dig Tokyo Glow. And obviously, it’ll added to that long list of compelling reasons to visit the capital of Japan.

This is probably the most explosive, colorful and bad-ass opening credits I’ve ever seen – for Gaspar Noé’s Enter the Void. Wonderful typography going bananas, crazy music track from Thomas Bangalter (of Daft Punk fame) and an intro to a film that most certainly is just as insane. Sadly, I’ve not seen these credits projected in a big screen cinema with loudspeakers, but that time must come. Here they are, in Flash video embedded from French site DailyMotion. (Via Antville)

Can. Not. Wait. What do you think?

I love mashups. Love ‘em. The new meaning derived from clever juxtaposition of images (often well-known ones) is intoxicating to me. It’s a rising genre within the arena of short web videos, and demands a variety of abilities ranging from insane editing skills, good taste, knowledge of film history and more. As both an avid film buff and film editor, I feel I should make one myself, but I’m hesitating – simply because the best ones are so damn fantastic.

Which brings me to the mashup posted today at TickleBooth, created by Goodiebag.tv, and probably the very best one I’ve seen this fall. Not only does it feature New York, a city so many brilliant filmmakers’ve caressed with their cameras, but this clip – appropriately titled Hollywood vs. New York – is also an homage to a genre I love: The Disaster Film. Though, no video mashup with a New York theme can be successful without referencing Woody Allen, so Goodiebag’s choice of music makes me particularly happy. Get ready for a load of awesome:

In case anyone has a particular recommendation I should seek out this weekend; please let me know, I’d appreciate it – either here or on Twitter. I might just look it up.

A silly, but fun music video for French duo Justice and their collaboration with Lenny Kravitz on “Let Love Rule”. Directed by Keith Schofield, this video turns the end credits of a fake 80s action-movie into the driving concept. Truly successful only when the most campy, it is nevertheless a satisfying piece with a lot of meta-fun for film nerds. Watch it in QuickTime.

I’m almost proud that most of these examples are picked from films I haven’t seen. My main prejudice against the horror genre is the cheap use of tricks, and here they’re under a scrutinizing light. Any other examples of script or image clichés that have been over-used in films? I vote for a revealing montage of all the unnecessary use of “Poetic close-up of hand touching wheat or grass while walking in a field“.

It’s a few seconds more than 1 minute long. An immersive piece of montage:

This is not going to be a long piece – but I want to write a passage about this: The use of subjective point-of-view. I discovered a new music video, which uses this technique, that is worth watching. I found this one through TickleBooth, so kudos to those guys (a brilliant site for discovering web video gems). Anyway, this is a video for the band Cinnamon Chasers and their song “Luv Deluxe”. The band was not familiar to me before this, and the music isn’t actually that great. But the filmmaker, Saman Keshavarz, has in his video brought back this particular visual storytelling choice that is both fun and fascinating to watch, when utilized in a good way. (Video examples embedded after the jump…)

Here’s what the Cinnamon Chasers and Keshavarz have cooked up:

I liked the video a lot, and the choice they made to re-tell and rewind their story twice works well, at least as long as the song is quite boring. This video also brought to mind a novel memory of mine from the decade that defined my pop-culture consciousness: The 90s. The breakthrough video for this kind of POV-use is (of course) Smack My Bitch Up by The Prodigy, directed by Swedish filmmaker Jonas Åkerlund. It is a stunning piece of work, if not also one of the most provocative and shocking (in a good way) music videos of the 90s. Behold a music video masterpiece, NSFW: