#10 One Shot Music Video

A ‘one shot’ video is a piece of footage that has been filmed from beginning to end on a single camera without any cuts, pauses, stops or final editing. A one shot film can be quite restricted in terms of location, actions and props. The location of the filming is restricted to only one place, but is possible that some scenes are filmed in different locations prior to the final shoot, which can then be played back on a TV screen for example in front of the camera during the shoot.

The director and production team has to be extremely organised to film a one shot video. The camera operator has to know the exact path to follow and the angles etc. with which to film with. The actor also has to be extremely focused during the shoot, he has to be capable of following the plan exactly, knowing for example where and for how long to pause or stop.  The team behind the camera also has to be quick with their positioning of props etc.

There are many music videos that have been made using this ‘long take’ method. Michel Gondry is a director who specialises in making one shot videos. (Please see separate ‘character profile’ post)

The following videos are all examples of a one shot music video:

Snow Patrol – Open Your Eyes:

The band’s music video is an excerpt from the French film C'était un rendez-vous, directed by French filmmaker Claude Lelouch. It was filmed in Paris on an early august morning in 1976, by a gyro-stabilized camera that was attached to the front bumper of Lelouch’s 450SEL 6.9L Mercedes. The camera then recorded the 10.42km (6.5 mi) route driven at a speed of 85mph. The route started at the Porte Dauphine (a Paris Metro Station) progressed through the yard of the Louvre (one of the world’s largest museums) and then ended near to the Basilica of Sacre Coeur (a Roman Catholic Church). Even though Lelouch travelled around Paris at a breakneck speed, he was unable to obtain a permit for any of the roads to be closed, so instead he took the risk to drive around the route with other drivers and pedestrians still present on the roads. He did however take precautions; he had several assistants positioned at blind spots on the course so that they could warn Lelouch if any of the roads were blocked. After the shoot, Lelouch replaced the original soundtrack with the engine noises of a Ferrari to give the impression that the car was travelling at a greater speed.  In order to make the video fit to Snow Patrols track, they only used 5m 15s of the footage, missing out the first 2m 45 of the original video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDXFvtVlYcM and http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0169173/trivia

Green Day – Macy’s Day Parade:

This video was filmed at a secret location somewhere in East California. It is a one shot video that consists of Billie Joe Armstrong arriving in a Jeep and then walking around some sort of scrap yard whilst being followed by the camera. In the middle of the video Billie walks around to the rest of the band performing, before navigating his way back towards his vehicle and driving away from the camera.

Green Day – Redundant:

‘Redundant’ is another example of a one shot video, it is very cleverly a visual representation of the songs meaning and lyrics. The song is about the deterioration of the marriage between Billie and his wife Adrienne. The video is showing how their relationship had fallen into a repetitive pattern and the words ‘I Love You’ had lost all affection and were being said merely as routine. (Info from Warning CD booklet) The first time I watched this video I found the background actions very confusing but after watching the video a couple of times I worked out these repeated routines:

·         A newspaper is thrown into the living room from off-screen.

·         A woman stretches her arms and yawns, collects the paper and leaves past the camera.

·         Someone takes a painting off of a wall and replaces it with a new one; then someone else comes in and replaces that painting with the one that's just been replaced.

·         An old lady walks in and looking confused tries to find her way back out.

·         A young girl walks from the left side of the screen, places a box on the coffee table, and then climbs out of a window.

·         A man in a green jacket walks around, picks up the box from the coffee table and then leaves.

·         An old man in a cowboy hat walks around.

·         A woman in a red dress removes her dress and then walks past the camera in her bra and underwear.

·         A woman with a large pot and a plant walks around.

·         A man and a girl walk towards a couch and begin making out, they then leave the scene through which appears to be a bedroom door.

·         A man is vacuuming.

·         A young girl in a skirt comes in through a window, looks around, and leaves.

U2 – Sweetest Thing:

U2’s music video for their song ‘Sweetest Thing’ (directed by Kevin Godley in 1998) is a perfect example of a video that is seen as being one shot but actually isn’t.  The video consists of three clips, that have been sliced together and hidden by lens flares e.g. at 0.48.

Stereophonics - Traffic:

This song is another example of a video that appears to be one shot. It actually contains several edits and different clips in different locations, but because of the way that its edited, such as the camera zooming into an object of a certain colour and then zooming back out of an object of the same colour and apperaing in a different location with different people,  the mind is tricked into seeing it as one continuos shot. Another clever way they edit itis to speed up the end of a clip and the begining of the next clip, and having switched clips somewhere in the middle, the eye doesnt notice the change.