Because no one else will!
TikiKiti is all about you because that’s how we started out — as independent film producers with a love for the music video. In the right hands, the music video is a short film with a pop song as the soundtrack. The music video seems to be the assignment of choice for most media classes from high school to college — students love it. It was watching these student videos how started out. Now those same students have grown up and still making music videos.
Forget what you think you know about the modern music video. And definitely forget anything about MTV. I suspect most of those reading this don’t even remembers MTV or ever watched it. Run by big companies that doled out cash to musicians luckily enough to get a contract. When they did, they owned you and everything you made — forever.
I know musician who had a big hit album back in the 90’s and made a shit-ton of money. He told me recently he would love to have that again. He keeps putting out music, but doesn’t quite grasp the modern concept of being an independent musician and filmmaker in today’s world.
There is plenty of advice from industry types and self-help gurus who want to sell you something. These professionals, such as Damian Keyes, promises to launch your career as a musician. Keyes and all the others “experts” tell you to forget about the music video. But he and others seems to have overlooked the tens of thousands of fan-made and unofficial music videos on Youtube®. There’s no denying how difficult it is for a video producers or musicians to get enough subscribers to make YouTube® work for them.
So what's next?
Well, for starters we have last week’s TikiKiti Top-10. Done by some of the best filmmakers and animators we’ve found — on YouTube®. Because no one else is looking the way we are.
The music video is seeing a renaissance of sorts and it started with the AI music video. Here is a way for someone to produce a quality music video at little cost. (Note: I say "little" because it does take time. And your time is valuable.)
The quality we are seeing in recent videos is not limited to the AI video. It has spread out to all parts of the industry. Recently, we found Isaac Garcia, a young filmmaker from Los Angeles. What caught our eye was his video of street people in the area. He said, “These are the faces of the night.” Except it was shot in the daytime. And that is his point. These people exist and his video shows some very noble people living their lives one day at a time.
Isaac returns again this week with another superb video. This one goes back to his roots with a rap video for a Som and his song “Sad Truth.” Stripped down to its basics, Isaac rebuilds the rap video from the ground up, concentrating on what's important — the words. What he ends up with is a beautiful and emotional video.
Last week we saw Kevin Bodin showing his new video. This one for Manu Lanvin and the Devil Blues. It plays more like a Harley Davidson commercial with a delta blues soundtrack. And it is good! Sometimes we need others to remind us of what is important — like hard rockin’ blues and Harleys. Rock is not dead! If you think it is, your’e not paying attention. (See our interview with PaulG and the Invisible Twangonauts if you need more proof.)
The list goes on.
When you’re exhausted from playing a gig or filming a video, then go home and start plugging away at your social media accounts; just remember that TikiKiti is here to promote your goals as filmmaker and musician. Because no one else will.
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From Poland the #1 video is from Blnk studio. Blnk is one of the many artists we follow who do it all themselves. I’ve said it here before that now a musician can write the music, professionally record it, upload it so it can be streamed and purchased, and market their music through social media, and with a video. All from the comfort of their garage that was converted to a recording studio. Blnk is one of the artists we go to in order understand how the AI software has been advancing. And they have never disappointed us. (Stay tuned to this space for more about Blnk.)
Their video tells its own story.
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We have some guidelines we go by when looking at music video. One of the most important is length. A music video has to be at least 2 minutes long. But I had to ignore that rule after seeing this video by KingWillonius to "Tough Love" by Diddy. Coming in at 1:10 I would normally go right past this video. Instead I watched it. It is captivating. It is worth every one of the 70 seconds in length. Just a stunning production. Note to KingWillonius: Please do a video to the entire song. We want to see more of your work. You have style.
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Here is another video that starts in one place and leads to someplace very different. This is "Aged Regrets" by Stephen Mann. He shows us what we will really miss when we don't have Earth around anymore. It'll be the little things we miss. He says, "What's freedom worth without a plate of cheese." Really. Is leaving Earth really worth it?
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Obt is new to us. Coming from Japan, we hope to see more of their videos. Here is "Lunchbox" by Obt. It seems this original video that was processed through AI software, making the video smoother and the performance more compelling. This is so well done.
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Monyo Project is from Hungary and one of a handful of AI artists & musicians we follow because we know they are determined to push the boundaries of the AI applications. We need to ask them, what comes first, the music or the idea for the animation. Sometimes it seem like a painting by Dali comes to life. Here is "Sláger" by Monyo Project.
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A note in the description about this video reads, "This music video is dedicated to everyone currently in or recovering from an abusive and toxic workplace. There is hope and you can recover." Another song from the heart and an animation that reflects the lyrics very well.
Novit Terminus and his song "No Said the Dean" brings it all together nicely with the fingers pointing just where he wants them to point.
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This week shows us another video by Isaac Garcia. This is Som and his song "Sad Truth." Here is a rap stripped down to its most basic parts and rebuilt from the ground up. It's just us the viewer with Som and his song. Without all the distractions we usually see, we tend to listen to the words. Mr. Garcia knew this when he made the video. Another video of his shot during the day — bringing it all into the light.
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We see so many videos in other languages we stopped running of the close caption button long ago. With the good video the visuals help us catch on. This animation makes captions redundant. Shimon Shubayev FKA Tzemer is a singer, songwriter and music producer from Israel, the song details say it all — the song is "Hates Breakups" from album "I Don't Understand Love."
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Here is "Clowns & Crowns" by Bashiri Je Jones. He pulls no punches with this animation to his song. He says, "A bleak vision of our modern world and where we are headed. The divide grows wide. The middle is disappearing."
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Many of the videos we are showing this week start one place and end up someplace very different, — except for this first video. In this video, produced by Shaheen, we know where we are going. On this trip we go to the top of the world. From India and The.Shein we go on a trip with music by DJ Agnivesh, and sung by Sathyajith Zbull & Sradha Prasannan.
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