Voodoo Shilton is a master guitarist and you'll know it the moment you hear him. He is also an incredibly-talented composer as his ability to imagine the mix of different instruments is extraordinary and is definitely not constrained by a purist view of what is or is not jazz.
Videos I have seen previously of him are highly-studio as he plays in his studio and uses headphones while he records the shoot. It's informative and illustrative of how he does what he does and there is a clear, if somewhat professorial, story in this exact view.
However, is a video a how-to or is it part of the music. I submit the current examples are more the former than the latter and that's specifically what I hope to address.
Previously I've criticized too harshly the Old Guy in a Chair videos, as I've been calling them. There is some reason as this is definitely not the video to shoot to differentiate yourself from a million other guitarists shooting videos of themselves playing a guitar while sitting in a chair. However, as a view of how the musician works the magic, they are reasonably good. I say reasonably good as they usually only use one camera angle and, to my requirements, any video will require three angles to sustain visual interest for the viewer.
The task is to shoot Voodoo's music, the song, more than it is to shoot Voodoo. Narcissism exists but that's not why musicians play. Of course you play and you want people to like it and hopefully like you ... but that's still not the music, it's only one aspect.
Part of Voodoo's vision is in the integration of diverse instruments and voices. I expect to see that reflected in the video for it to be an accurate portrayal or extension of his music. That implies a diverse yet integrated flow of imagery through the course of the story.
It is not my purpose to say what that imagery should be but rather to observe the diversity of his music must also be present in the visual for it to be accurate. A relatively-easy example would be to shoot Voodoo playing in a Spanish cafe at sunset, as I'd described more fully in another article. Additional imagery can be composited such that a semi-transparent Elephant Walk can take place and later be replaced by The Littlest Elephant when it becomes gentle and haunting.
So, what does haunting look like. What does the sound of a melodica look like. What is the feeling from a little elephant who is separated from his mother. What if you are that little elephant. What does that look like in the video and the music.
These are the considerations and they are all frightfully expensive from a financial standpoint and also from a musical standpoint in terms of the time it takes.
One clear consideration is practicality as people are much more likely to watch a video than they are to listen to a track on SoundCloud. If they do the latter, they will probably continue doing something else with their browsers at the same time and you won't get fully-engaged. If they watch you in video, you have their full attention and its your trip. Don't fuck up.
From a practical standpoint and a spammish standpoint, little works better than video.
Keeping clear on Cat's question ... is it music.
I've been chasing it for over forty years and I still can't give you a solid answer as I'm still not entirely clear it's even possible but I definitely will not stop trying.
(Ed: MTV did)
Right you are, matey. My thinking on that crowd is they dissolved into cleverness. Perhaps that's rationalization as they had one hell of a creative team doing exactly the same thing I'm trying to do. The only substantial variable is they were required to make money with it.
My position is that you need musicians making videos and not visual artists. At a minimum, the musician must design the video as there is almost no chance the visual artist will see what you see from the music so the imagery is doomed from the start. You know this already from what people see when they hear it and there is no video.
The musician has to design the video because it's too much musical responsibility to delegate. That's the crux of this.
(Ed: are you just talking to yourself?)
Actually, no. It's astonishing how many people read this stuff. I don't analyze that much and will do it even less as, each time I think I have something figured about readers of the blog, it turns out I was wrong. No need for that.
Videos I have seen previously of him are highly-studio as he plays in his studio and uses headphones while he records the shoot. It's informative and illustrative of how he does what he does and there is a clear, if somewhat professorial, story in this exact view.
However, is a video a how-to or is it part of the music. I submit the current examples are more the former than the latter and that's specifically what I hope to address.
Previously I've criticized too harshly the Old Guy in a Chair videos, as I've been calling them. There is some reason as this is definitely not the video to shoot to differentiate yourself from a million other guitarists shooting videos of themselves playing a guitar while sitting in a chair. However, as a view of how the musician works the magic, they are reasonably good. I say reasonably good as they usually only use one camera angle and, to my requirements, any video will require three angles to sustain visual interest for the viewer.
The task is to shoot Voodoo's music, the song, more than it is to shoot Voodoo. Narcissism exists but that's not why musicians play. Of course you play and you want people to like it and hopefully like you ... but that's still not the music, it's only one aspect.
Part of Voodoo's vision is in the integration of diverse instruments and voices. I expect to see that reflected in the video for it to be an accurate portrayal or extension of his music. That implies a diverse yet integrated flow of imagery through the course of the story.
It is not my purpose to say what that imagery should be but rather to observe the diversity of his music must also be present in the visual for it to be accurate. A relatively-easy example would be to shoot Voodoo playing in a Spanish cafe at sunset, as I'd described more fully in another article. Additional imagery can be composited such that a semi-transparent Elephant Walk can take place and later be replaced by The Littlest Elephant when it becomes gentle and haunting.
So, what does haunting look like. What does the sound of a melodica look like. What is the feeling from a little elephant who is separated from his mother. What if you are that little elephant. What does that look like in the video and the music.
These are the considerations and they are all frightfully expensive from a financial standpoint and also from a musical standpoint in terms of the time it takes.
One clear consideration is practicality as people are much more likely to watch a video than they are to listen to a track on SoundCloud. If they do the latter, they will probably continue doing something else with their browsers at the same time and you won't get fully-engaged. If they watch you in video, you have their full attention and its your trip. Don't fuck up.
From a practical standpoint and a spammish standpoint, little works better than video.
Keeping clear on Cat's question ... is it music.
I've been chasing it for over forty years and I still can't give you a solid answer as I'm still not entirely clear it's even possible but I definitely will not stop trying.
(Ed: MTV did)
Right you are, matey. My thinking on that crowd is they dissolved into cleverness. Perhaps that's rationalization as they had one hell of a creative team doing exactly the same thing I'm trying to do. The only substantial variable is they were required to make money with it.
My position is that you need musicians making videos and not visual artists. At a minimum, the musician must design the video as there is almost no chance the visual artist will see what you see from the music so the imagery is doomed from the start. You know this already from what people see when they hear it and there is no video.
The musician has to design the video because it's too much musical responsibility to delegate. That's the crux of this.
(Ed: are you just talking to yourself?)
Actually, no. It's astonishing how many people read this stuff. I don't analyze that much and will do it even less as, each time I think I have something figured about readers of the blog, it turns out I was wrong. No need for that.
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