Some photos of the outbuilding of my house which could make an interesting studio for the performance part of the video.
Photos of the lighting equipment we have.
He started as a member of a Swedish black metal band and directed his first music video in 1988 (Bewitched – Candlemass) and in 1998 he directed his first big hit (Ray of light – Madonna), which won the 1999 grammy award for best short form music video.
Recently he has moved away from music and is starting to make it as a film director, his first film being an independent film called Spun (2002) a film shot in 22 days. His film works are few and far apart so he still makes music videos.
Jonas Akerlunds more recent videos seem to often have a dark subject matter along with dark/low key Mise en scene. He also has a tendency to mix very surreal imagery into scenes with realism. In the smashing pumpkins video Try, try, try the subject matter is the sad truth of the effects of drugs addiction on life and love but an incredibly trippy surreal scene is added in during a drug trip. The video for Sober (P!nk) shows scenes of a party which aren’t particularly unique but the images and scenes of Pink with herself that are put in are surreal in a more subtle way. The video for Paparazzi (Lady Ga Ga) also follows the dark subject matter of murder but instead of adding surreal scenes the scenes are presented in a very surreal way.
Jonas Akerlund seems to use the theme of drug abuse a lot, or as a main focus. In Try, try, try the main theme is drug abuse and he produced a short film based on this video. His other film Spun is also a film that focuses on drugs (Methamphetamine.) Another, more broad theme, is vices, desires (drugs, sexual desires and indulgences). As seen in quite a few of his videos all different sins appear (lust the most common), Paparazzi shows lust, greed, envy and wrath.
In terms of Mise en scene one aspect that seems to appear a lot is the make up on the eyes, the eyes quite often stand out on the female actresses/singer, examples of this are in Papparazzi, Sober, I miss you (Blink 182) and Try, try, try. The eye makeup is often very heavy and on paler women or background it contrasts well and really stands out.
The lipstick style has appeared a few times as well, where the women have had lipstick that is in a very definitive shape that doesn’t match their actual lips.
The lighting is quite often very dark and not very colourful, although in Try, try, try it is just dull colours that become very bright in the drug trip scene. The women in the video are also portrayed as very pale so there is a lot of contrast. In Sober, Pink wear’s white underwear as she isn’t particularly pale. The women are also highly sexualized as is a common theme of music videos, and lesbianism and bisexuality tend to feature heavily.
The video for Try, try, try is very conventional of the music type itself. The music has quite a sad and slow tone and so the shots are quite long and the movement within the scenes is quite slow, it’s not filled with action, the one sort of fight scene is very dreary and they characters move like they are drunk. Toward the end it becomes more tense and speeds up as the music’s beat and style speeds up slightly and this tension build up to the long slow scene at the end as the music fades away. The video also has shots of the lead singer singing to break away from the story, this is another very common convention of music videos. Because he is the main star of the band the video shows only him and the shots are very often close ups to promote him, even images of himself overlap others.
The relationship between the lyrics and visuals is quite subtle, in that the video shows the love between the characters and the lyrics talk about love, but there is a part where the lyrics say ‘try to hold on’ and the male character takes a pill in his hand and holds it.
Although the female character isn’t as strongly sexualized as they usually are in his videos, there is the implication that the girl was selling herself as a prostitute when the car come by them and she gets in. However the sexualisation was not what they were trying to promote in the video so this is most likely why it doesn’t feature heavily.
The makeup on the girl is quite heavy despite they’re very poor circumstances, and at the beginning she is shown applying eyeliner, again showing the focus on Jonas Akerlund’s use of makeup and his focus on eyes. During the scene the girl is imagining the shots cut back to her eyes.
The video for Lady Ga Ga’s Paparazzi shows a lot of relationship between the lyrics and the imagery, for instance saying ‘snap, snap.’ And the camera angle changing to match the beat of it whilst being very short shots makes it look like camera shots. The use of reporters and paparazzi type figures at the end also fits with the whole video.
The whole thing is promoting Lady Ga Ga and so therefore almost the entire video is always her. There are lot’s of close ups featured, as very short constantly changing shots in order to match the way a camera takes photos from lot’s of different angles very quickly.
The entire video is incredibly sexualized, with the scene of what is a sort of orgy, this mirrors the way she is shown to be much less in control of a sexual situation at the beginning, in comparison here she seems very in control as everyone is pleasuring her, catering to her whims (lust), as well as how when she is using crutches she is also in a very skimpy outfit. The way she seems to (as implied) kill all these other women shows her general control and wrath. The theme of voyeurism is also very strong in the way they show Lady Ga Ga being watched and photos taken of her.
The video uses quite bright colouring, which for the whole video is unconventional of Jonas Akerlund. But the surreal and dark tones of the video fits more to his style. There are quite often very short flashes of strange and scary images during the video. Mostly to the corpses of dead women, all killed differently, this makes the video seem much darker compared to the rather upbeat music and brightly coloured scenes.
There is a lot of use of contrast and black and white, with the makeup for one, and in the costumes. Examples are the white and dark blue suit, and the black latex outfit that contrasts with her skin, similar to how her hair, skin and eyes contrast.
At one point the video starts showing flashing images of Dalmations (black and white) this is a tad strange, but after you see a maid walk in to a room wearing black and white showing how she is meant to be nothing but a lowly dog that’s in the way to Lady Ga Ga’s character.
Jonas Akerlund’s use of surreal and dark themes is particularly interesting and his videos are very effective in cause an emotional response in the audience.
