Low videoclip, good videoclip
Future Starts Slow by The Kills video appreciation
This is one of my favorites band in the entire world. The Kills is a good mix between women power and rock and roll. I really admire Alison Mosshart and I’d love to have the half of fierceness and personality she has. And this is the first song of Blood Pressures, the fourth studio album, with an interesting video for explain something is hard: live videos or what is called, low clips.
This is Future Starts Slow by The Kills
What exactly is a low clip?
Almost all low clips are made for third of fourth single on an artist’s album. In this case is the fourth and low clips are thought with the idea to promote the artist who is on tour and with that, spend less money: is less expensive do a low clip to a promotional video with scenarios, clothes and actors. But for that is a risk, found a good live clip, a good low clip is a treasure.
The director has the best credentials ever. Philip Andelman is graduated for NYU’s Tisch School of Arts and works with Partizan, one of the two big TV commercial and videoclip producers in the world -Do you remember I talked about this in Shady Love appreciation?-. My admiration for work with Annie Leibovitz and take seriously the idea to make a low clip: the description in YouTube says Aldeman followed The Kills on the entire tour for make this video.
Fluid and melancholic cinematography
The most well made thing in video is cinematography: everything is very fluid, very consistent even the band is in different places. The reason is that blue light what flooded all video, what I think is a post-production effect, really well made. That blue light generating an unique atmosphere, a little melancholic, but a perfect combination with the darkness in the song.
You can think the entire tour they were at London or Bogota: rainy and cloudy, what combine perfectly with Mosshart clothes. Thanks to art direction for not try to change anything, specially about her, because she has tremendous personality what is always exposed in her style. For that, even the exterior shots are amazing. The Kills are in a city without people, a city for them. The open shots, like in the plain, express the most hard of be on tour, and combined with concert shots is a strong message for fans: ‘we are here for you’.
Capturing the entire movement what a rock band has
The Kills… Think on the name, that is even a good clue about the band. They are a little dark, but have moves. As Alison Mosshart hair: dark, messy, but with good moves and totally rock and roll. That is the video, a good piece of rock. And in this case, the combination of all of this with a cute couple, what they are. You can see in the intimate shots -in particular I love the beds shot-, they are a strong couple and we can see how they live.
Again, a success low clip is hard. And a awful low clip is the common -like Running by No Doubt, what a awful video!- because isn’t easy capture the effervescent moment of live concert. For that, maybe I don’t expect this video will be a video ‘for remember’, and they know it. But why don’t do a rock video, a simple good video? I love this video only for this.
The only thing I can recriminate to this video is it’s very similar to other video of the same album: Satellite, by Sophie Muller. I don’t know if this is good or bad, because you can think they follow the same esthetics. If you know this previous video, you can feel the director isn’t original, and Muller is better, far away.
Now, in this era when musicians don’t make money with albums, they make money in concerts, is important transmit that live sensation. Maybe, I’d want a big production for this song, my favorite for Blood Pressures, but is a good low clip. Also I’d love to add something, I could see a streaming for The Kills live concert, and nothing in this video is fake: that, that is really powerful.
