Video Militia

Bon Homme walks into the office of a major label, video commissioner with some music video ideas.  They're repeatedly shot down, one excuse after another until the video turns into a full on homage to the biggest names in music video directing, with a particularly Charlie Kaufman moment at the end.  Stick with it, it's very enjoyable if you are unfortunate enough to have been on the receiving end of the music video "industry".... aka Amateur Hour aka Shysterville.

Director: William Stahl
Producer: Michael Vogt
Cinematographer: Thomas A.
Rep: Colonel Blimp

West Side Story of freakish bodybuilders and trannys meets Benny Benassi's "Satisfaction".

Director Chris Marrs Piliero discusses The Black Keys "Tighten up" with contributor Alanedit.


VM: How did the Genesis for the Video come along?

CMP: Well I figured the band would be open to a non-traditional approach to a video and having little kids do the singing isn't something I've seen before.  I'm a big fan of movies like The Goonies, Monster Squad, and Sand Lot.  Movies that give kids cool roles that adults can enjoy watching just as much as kids.  And having never done a video project with kids before, I thought it would be a rad ambitious concept to try to knock out in a 1 day shoot.  Now The Goonies and Monster Squad have way more complex storylines than my video, so Sand Lot is probably a more reasonable reference film.  It's the essence of the characters that I tried to grab for my video.  So yeah, this is kind of my first attempt at an homage to that genre and I'm pretty stoked with how it turned out.  I've seen videos with little kids that I didn't give a shit about.  An elephant herd could come stomping through the shot and smash the kids and I would either not care or I would be happy to see their demise.  I wanted people to watch this video and think to themselves, "Those little kids are really cool... and I don't want to see them get smashed by a random herd of elephants." 

(FOR MORE OF THIS INTERVIEW CLICK READ MORE)

Some really great illustrations by Monika Rohner. We would write a description for this video but her own introduction sets this one up best:

It's the story of a girl who lives in a big city. She's tired of the concrete jungle around her and follows the moon into a colourful land with no shadows. Her alter ego is a tiny girl with a radio. And sometimes the two girls meet each other.

A guy with a bow and crossbow returns to the post-apocalyptic landscape of his childhood home. Set in the future this music video has hints of Robert Rodriguez's Machete or Grindhouse and was shot in an amazing location, all on the Nikon D90. We'll ask the directors for more details about the location and post an update in the comments section.

This has to be one of the better viewer submissions this year.  Directing team DANIELS creates an isolated, self-aware look at the freakish expression of closet dancers -- those sing in the shower types.  The video is shot on the Canon 5D and Canon 7D with a playful set of After Effects mixed in.

Beer fueled, 8-Bit, Gameboy party for Wichita's POWERLIFTER.

A man witnesses a car crash, perhaps his own death, and enters a confusing limbo world of grief and sorrow.