There's a little 'Annie' reference for John Taylor, who is not only a huge fan of 'Annie' but also a huge fan of 'Anne Of Green Gables' and 'Anne Of Avonlea'.
Tomorrow's the day!
Icky Thump will be in my hands (or iPod) around lunch time tomorrow and I'm a little excited about it if you haven't noticed. The White Stripes have quickly become one of my top five favorite bands and tomorrow they release their sixth album. (that's pretty crazy considering they've only been around for about 8 years)
I saved some of these videos for the last days of the count down but I went out of town for three days so 'the last days' became one; this one. WS have become pretty well known for their imaginative videos and that's mostly due to the genius of Michel Gondry. Michel Gondry is a weirdo to be honest, the guy is so creative in a child like way. It's like he took all your weird childhood dreams and put them on film exactly the way they looked.
He's directed films like Eternal Sunshine and Science Of Sleep and legendary music videos such as the Foo Fighters' 'Everlong', the Chemical Brothers' 'Star Guitar', Bjork's 'Human Behavior' and the list could go on and on. But this post isn't about him, it's about the White Stripes; I'll do a post about him next month. I mention him b/c he evidently loves the White Stripes b/c he keeps doing these amazing videos w/ them.
This first video is somewhat like a cartoon; it's made frame by frame w/ a picture at a time, the catch is that each 'picture' is made of Legos! To pull this off they filmed the band doing all these things w/ an old digital camera and then blew the frames up really big so that they could see each pixel individually and thus map out the Legos. Everything you see is Legos, pretty crazy...
This was also their 'breakout' video and introduced the band to the world.
The White Stripes - Fell In Love With A Girl
Next we have a video that uses projectors and silk screens to bring a two dimensional version of each frame. They're projecting video of 'what happened' on to Jack walking around in various rooms. This was all done w/o computer effects, so it has a very real look to it and makes no effort to hide the simplicity of the whole thing. Which is one of the main reasons I love Gondry's work so much b/c it all looks like something any Joe Shmoe could have pulled off if they just thought of it.
The White Stripes - Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground
Here's a video that takes the previous 'cartoon' idea into the realm of video. This video takes one second (and shorter) shots of video and puts them together like a cartoon frame by frame. They used over 30 drum sets to make this video and if you watch closely you'll notice that each burst, which happens to the rhythm, only contains the exact pieces of the drum kit that she is playing during that beat of the song. i.e. when the drum beat is 'kick-snare-kick-kick-snare' that's exactly what you see laid out across the frame. And if you're catching onto the theme here: No special fx were used in this, everything you see is actual film.
The White Stripes - Hardest Button To Button
This last Gondry video is pretty trippy, Gondry takes a camera/lens that distorts one side to be small and the other to be large, and vise versa. Then he constructs a sound stage full of props that work into that lens scheme and makes for a really weird ride of sizes shifting and changing. It's a lot like when Alice was following the rabbit into Wonderland.
The White Stripes - Denial Twist
Finally, we have a video that wasn't done by Gondry but it has a really cool kaleidoscope effect that I'm sure he'd find a way to do w/o using any special effects. This video won tons of awards and pushed the White Stripes even further into mainstream popularity. Who hasn't heard this song?
The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army (the audio is a little off)
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