Introduction

I’ve debated starting this theme for a few weeks, and I ultimately decided I would as it would encourage me to looks for options that actually fit what I’m aiming for. If one pays too much attention to Top 40 type music you tend to see a dearth of creativity in the music video form. The music video is spawned from short films and can be as creative if not more so than their predecessor. Far too often it does just become singing heads. I want to try and buck that trend and find ones both new and old that do something somewhat outside the box, at the very least have some sort of visual narrative. Here we go.

Mammút – Svefnsýkt

Above I refer to “singing heads,” which is a musical equivalent of “talking heads” in a documentary. Essentially the moving image is so dynamic you want more than just speaking to occur either through mise-en-scène or montage. This video has a kinetic edit, uses some superimposition, smoke, and dramatic lighting; along with some creative framing to to take it a notch above singing heads. It then goes further adding a minimalistic story and even more intriguing visuals when the song gets going. A good sign if this is an example of the work done at the Icelandic Film School.