Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Yes, it's supposed to look that way...


KANYE WEST "Welcome To Heartbreak" Directed by Nabil from nabil elderkin on Vimeo.

Speaking of compression and other digital video problems, this new vid from Kanye uses these to achieve a pretty innovative effect. I think it makes a statement about our lo-fi digital culture. Whereas we once were obsessed with the pristine (aka film), now the readily available digital youtube content is more than sufficient for our prying eyes.

Kanye West f. Kid CuDi
"Welcome to Heartbreak"

4 comments:

Deemer said...

Holy Smokes, this video is absolutely mind blowing, i have seen nothing like this. I am impressed with Kanye's ability to produce back to back albums with some much variance in music type. This video is also nothing like anything that he has done. The musical theme of this album correlates so perfectly with each of the videos for his songs. If you have seen the Heartless video, you would know that it is nothing like most rap videos where fast cars and stacks of money are the songs visual themes. I am not sure about other videos on 808's & Heartbreak but wow, Very Impressed with Kanye's ability to diversify his art from just music!

Excaliborn7 said...

Agreed. That was mind blowing. Did you know that Kanye went to art school before he became the superstar that he is today. Also have to credit the director, the concept developers behind this, and the technical execution. All top. The effect is cerebral and really painterly. Just beautiful.

Jenn said...

i think the digital distortion of the images really matches well with the digital distortion of his voice. and the echoey quality of his vocals also matches well with the digital artifacts left when a new image takes over. it almost reminds me of kandinsky painting jazz... it is like the literal expression of the music in image form.

Tyler said...

Echoing everyone, this video is indeed mindblowig and sublime. It reveals the creative potential in technological shortcomings (embracing an imperfect tool and medium), but at the same time I'm sure there was an absurd amount of work behind this video to get an authentically deteriorated/compressed look (that also slips into some pretty sophisticated effects). Another great exercise would be to work with compression limitations, or try to mimic it for an intentional impact.