Walking Down The Street: Variations on a theme (Repost)

(Originally posted in September 2009, this is the blog post of which I am most proud.)

The winner of this years 'Best Breakthrough Video' was somewhat overshadowed by Kanye's comments at this years VMA's. The video for Lesson Learned by 'Matt and Kim' was a worthy winner with a shocking ending so realistic that some have mistakenly believed it to be real.


Matt and Kim - Lesson Learned

While impressive I couldn't help thinking that it was just a variation on a standard music video motif. A quick 'click & run' on YouTube confirmed my suspicions and threw in a few more examples I hadn't seen previously.

Individuals or groups walking down the street to a musical refrain are a familiar sight, it's origins dating back to the great musicals of yesteryear.


Gene Kelly - Singing in the Rain

The modern trend is for the action to occur in one continuous take, or at least create the illusion of it. There are exceptions to this rule which are notable for other techniques.


The Pharcyde - Drop

The single shot format is the norm and it's easy to see how a simple concept can tell a great story.

Massive Attack - Unfinished Sympathy
by chilavert

The focus upon one person can produce powerful results when coupled with the right song. Here The Verve's Richard Ashcroft (who I once met in an Italian airport) shows us how it's done.


The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony

The video may have led to conflicts on the pavements of the nation as copycats tried to emulate the iconic scenes. Some people managed it to do it quite well.

Fat les Vindaloo.flv
by Waddleforever

It's not all confrontational lad culture, there have been some softer songs accompanying the singers march.

Sandi Thom - I wish i was a punk rocker
by FranKc

And some are downright sexy!


Make The Girl Dance - Baby Baby Baby

(As a bonus here's Guitar Hero's take on the previous video)

Walking Down The Street: Variations on a theme

The winner of this years 'Best Breakthrough Video' was somewhat overshadowed by Kanye's comments at this years VMA's. The video for Lesson Learned by 'Matt and Kim' was a worthy winner with a shocking ending so realistic that some have mistakenly believed it to be real.


Matt and Kim - Lesson Learned

While impressive I couldn't help thinking that it was just a variation on a standard music video motif. A quick 'click & run' on YouTube confirmed my suspicions and threw in a few more examples I hadn't seen previously.

Individuals or groups walking down the street to a musical refrain are a familiar sight, it's origins dating back to the great musicals of yesteryear.


Gene Kelly - Singing in the Rain

The modern trend is for the action to occur in one continuous take, or at least create the illusion of it. There are exceptions to this rule which are notable for other techniques.


The Pharcyde - Drop

The single shot format is the norm and it's easy to see how a simple concept can tell a great story.

Massive Attack - Unfinished Sympathy
by chilavert

The focus upon one person can produce powerful results when coupled with the right song. Here The Verve's Richard Ashcroft (who I once met in an Italian airport) shows us how it's done.


The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony

The video may have led to conflicts on the pavements of the nation as copycats tried to emulate the iconic scenes. Some people managed it to do it quite well.

Fat les Vindaloo.flv
by Waddleforever

It's not all confrontational lad culture, there have been some softer songs accompanying the singers march.

Sandi Thom - I wish i was a punk rocker
by FranKc

And some are downright sexy!


Make The Girl Dance - Baby Baby Baby

(As a bonus here's Guitar Hero's take on the previous video)

Speeding through Paris

Running red lights, scattering pigeons & pedestrians, mounting pavements and travelling the wrong way on one way streets... it was certainly a busy morning for Claude Lelouch back in 1976.

His journey through the early morning streets of Paris is one of the most spectacular automotive scenes ever captured on film. A short film called C'était un rendez-vous ("It was a date").

The remarkable footage is not quite as spectacular as it looks or indeed sounds. For starters the engine noise, gear shifting and squealing tyres are later additions and not actual the sounds of the car racing through the near deserted Parisian streets.

The speeds the car reaches have always been a matter of dispute, with Claude Lelouch's claims seemingly disproved by closer examination of the recording. It is the angle at which the footage has been shot which creates the illusion of far greater speeds than those actually achieved. The camera was mounted as shown, placing it level with the front bumper and resulting in close up shots of the tarmac, cobbles and concrete rushing past at apparently breakneck speeds.

The nearly nine minutes of film show a journey across Paris taking in some of it's greatest landmarks, although if you blink you may have missed some of them. Anyone trying a similar stunt these days would invariably suffer severe punishment but perhaps more tellingly it's unlikely that the event could ever be replicated.

Without the closure of roads the journey would now take much longer and be far more dangerous due to the greater number of people and cars occupying the Parisian streets. It is an experiment which I hope not to see performed as the consequences of any bad luck or errors could be grave.

So one man's early morning ride has become an iconic cinematic moment, unsurpassed in the intervening 33 years. It's no surprise then that others have sought to make use of the footage over the years. All attempts at gaining permission were denied, until finally in 2007 the band Snow Patrol were allowed to use a portion of the film as the video for their song "Open Your Eyes".