Today we have the nicest australian singer and songwriter: her name is Lisa Mitchell and she is only 22 yo (OMG, we are same age!) , but her songs are really delicious.
Neopolitan Dreams is a single from the 2008 album Welcome to the Afternoon and its music video took our attention for the simple technique used: it is a one-shot.
This kind of technique is not so common in music videos, because usually the director wants to capture the user’s attention with a lot of images and fast and rhythmic editing.
For making a one-shot there are two ways: stable camera and moving camera. Obviously the second one is more interesting because everything changes. And moving the camera means that you can use a dolly or a steadycam carried by its cameraman.
Vanessa Caswill, the director (you absolutely have to take a look to her website, it’s so nice), chose steadycam and the cameraman is walking backwards. In front of him Lisa acts and sings, following his steps.
Everything begins with a nice movement of camera: the camera watches up to the sky (the trees seem to draw a heart) and then it turns around itself and down till it meets Lisa.
Lisa is holding a Polaroid and is taking a picture (the light of the flash tells us that a photo has been taken) and suddenly the polaroid comes out from the camera. In this way our path begins and Lisa is walking in this green wood where strange, colorful and nice things happens (cupcakes on a table, houses, human sunflowers and so on).
In the end Lisa set down and took out the polaroid; finally we are able to see what she had photographed: a walking man seen from behind (so he was right behind the camera).
One-shot makes this music video so special and also this thing: the whole video lasts the time that a polaroid takes to develop.
Love the site, but i think there might be a slight bit of trickery in the Polaroid shot with her grabbing a new photo from underneath the table of cupcakes. But just found this blog today, and thus far diggin it. keep it up!
Hei MIkey!
Probably you’re right!
When she’s sitting at the table in the end of the video we can see her putting down the clothes peg. I paid attention to the movements of her hands, and I don’t think there’s a trick in that moment. But the video is about 3 minutes, so maybe it’s a very short time for a polaroid to develop (is about 4 minutes). The trick cold probably be just few seconds after: when she stays with both hands under the table and the sunflowers are singing and dancing behind her.
We’re glad you found us!
Come back soon: there’s a new video every single day :)
[...] and I’m sure that he didn’t regret this choice. I guess he took inspiration from Lisa Mitchell‘s video “Neopolitan Dreams”. You know, is difficult to find polaroids [...]