Kanye West - All Of The Lights

• This is slightly a little bit off topic from the music video but i still think this is quite a interesting and valid post.
• The music video for Kanye West's song 'All Of The Lights' was released the other day (February 19th 2011) and as I was watching it for the first time i thought of quite a few valid points that could be taken from it to do with music videos in general and also the music video for 'Confessions' that i'm currently working on. 

• The video is directed by Hype Williams who is an American music video and film director who is very successful and produces mainly rap and hip-hop videos. He also wrote West's short film 'Runaway' has also been a huge success and boosted Kanye's career even further. Many critics thought that Kanye West's career was over after the events at the 2009 MTV Music Video Awards but his latest album 'My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy' (released in November 2010) has proved them wrong and it has been a massive success and West has risen back up in peoples estimations.

• Personally i think the form and structure of the song 'All Of The Lights' is similar to 'Confessions' in the way it builds up and the big crescendo towards the chorus and the way that the pace flows really well throughout the whole song and the difference of the beginning to the end of the song. 

• Carol Vernallis talks about this in her book "Experiencing Music Video". She looks at the way certain things happen at different points in the video and the structure of the song reflecting the structure of the music video. Vernallis also talks about how there is a rhythm to the video that is created through what is on screen and using different shots and also how it's edited in the post production.

• I think Kanye West uses the theory that Carol talks about really well in this video. From start to finish it flows really well and what is on screen visually reflects what is happening in the music and it builds up to the crescendo at appropriate moments. The chorus is very different to what the verse is like and this is also very well reflecting through the music video.

• Hype Williams has used a flashing effect in the video which I think works really well and makes very good use of cutting to the beat which is very effective. Me and Mary have decided to use fast paced editing within our video especially during the fast moving chorus'. During the editing stage we were a little bit sceptical about using it and questioned whether people would or would not like it but when I saw this video I thought it would work and I actually think it's really effective in reflecting the nature of the song and also creating shot variation so it's more interesting for people to watch.

• A layering effect has also been used as well which we are using within our video. This creates a good intertextual link to our video and it's good to see that the effect can be used across generes even though they are totally different songs musically.

• In places i think it can be a slightly bit inappropriate with Rihanna not wearing much clothing but this is used so it appeals to a male audience using the male gaze theory and it is fairly stereotypical for a music video of that genre. There is a very big use of strobing all the way throughout the video which i think works quite well because it helps it to make the video flow and it also matches the pace of the music. At the beginning of the video there is a warning for people with photosensitive epilepsy because of this, and the video has had to be banned from airing on some TV channels worldwide. 
• It seems whatever West does he always seems to cause controversy and disorder in some way but I guess that's how you become 'individual' and get recognised for being different and making people think.