Beyoncé, Netflix, and Dragons

Thirty planned minutes of aimless web surfing turned into an interesting find.

Youtube is an endless sea of videos with endless paths.

I realized I have not watched many music videos lately which lead me to search blindly in that category. The top music videos of 2018 and previous years loaded. I clicked on Beyoncé’s Lemonade track “Hold Up”. This music video threw me down the rabbit hole of Beyoncé’s visual album. I have seen these videos before when they first came out. However, this time I really watched them and paid close attention to the details. The editing and style of the the entire cluster of videos she produced stunned me.

They were flat out gorgeous.

Everything about the visual aspects played into the emotion Beyoncé wanted to portray. I personally think it made the songs even more powerful.

I had to find out who made this art. So, I searched for the directors credited for making her music videos.

The directors listed were countless artists with many accolades.

The first director was Jonas Åkerlund. I found no surprise when I read he was the mind behind “Hold Up”. He has been an icon in the music video world ever since his work on Madonna’s “Ray of Light” won a Grammy back in 1999. This Swedish director has since worked with artists from Lady Gaga to Paul McCartney. He is someone I would love to meet one day and watch how he works. I have always been interested in music videos and believe they are the art of this generation.

The next director credited for the making of “SandCastles” was Mark Romanek. Romanek has been credited for making the iconic music videos of our generation. From Nine Inch Nails to Taylor Swift, he has filmed it all.

There were many other wonderful artists who created the music videos for her other songs that helped gain the attention and praise for her album.

However, I wanted to dive deeper into more information about Jonas Åkerlund.

I found out he directed Polar. The movie is out now on Netflix and is in my queue to watch soon. I had not heard much about this movie until I saw a preview for it on Netflix.

This got me to thinking about Netflix in general. So, my mind drifted for a little and decided to do some ‘research’ which, really only meant a homework break.

Thirty minutes later I was back searching the web.

This time wishing the new season of Game of Thrones would premiere sooner rather than later. I am not going to lie, I took another ‘study break’ to watch an episode or two.

Man. That is a good show.

I wondered how much the final season cost to film. So, there goes my next search.

“How much did the final season of Game of Thrones cost to film?”

YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE how much.

$15 million (or more) an EPISODE.

That is a goal of mine in life. To have that type of budget for filming. Do you know how many dragons I would put in my projects?

A lot. The answer would be a lot.