Research a director: Marc Klasfeld

Marc Klasfeld is an American music video director and has over two hundred music videos  to his name. He has worked with many globally recognised artists from the likes of Katy Perry, Jay-Z, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sum 41, Avril Lavigne and many more. Marc is some what of a superstar himself with multiple MTV awards and nominations throughout his career. He also directs and produces commercials for American TV advertising which have also brought him success.

I have picked two videos that he has produced to talk about: 




I picked 'In too deep' by Sum 41 as I  like both the song and the music video. The video is memorable because of its comic value that is typical of Sum 41 videos. Putting what look like nerdy punks against jocks in a diving competition makes for a great and funny narrative. The video puts forward that the underdogs are better to watch win and nerds fighting back against bully's. The atmosphere of the video is very American college pool party and all about having fun which creates aspiration for the audience to be there as part of the crowd.

The performance in my mind couldn't have taken place in a better location. There is irony song being called 'In too deep' and the performance taking place at the bottom of a dried out swimming pool with a crowd of adolescents encroaching around. It also makes for a great atmospheric feel with great weather also emitting a sense happiness and fun throughout. In terms of the dives the director couldn't have been more creative and hilarious at the same time which is a real selling point to the video. The video has an effect of no matter what mood your in it will still give you a lift.



I picked this video by Flo Rida mainly because of some of the incorporated lighting effects and also much of the dancing that takes place in the video. Although about a third of the shots are derived from the film Step Up 3 (the song being made for the film) the actual shots for the music video try to blend in. If you hadn't seen the film before then you may not know the shots are from the film. The lighting is consistent with a scanning white/blue plasma travelling across the screen throughout the video. When the pace of the music is slow there are fades in the editing and when the beat kicks in then it is cut to the beat which is a common music video technique which could be bought to mind when editing our own video.

Marc Klasfeld's work may help to give our group a good idea on how to produce our own video this a large variety of genres and artists videos to his name and consistently producing new and unique videos for world renowned artists. Our group I think can take a lot of inspiration from Marc's diverse work and possibly pick good parts to use in our video. For example some of the editing and effects can be taken into mind for our video that were used in the Flo Rida video as heavy use of lighting and colouration has been proposed as part of my groups initial idea.