Research and Planning- Music video directors. David Fincher.

David Fincher, born August 28th, 1962, is an American film and music video director, who is mostly known for a dark and stylish way of creating both  music videos and films. He directed big budget music videos for artist such as Madonna, Billy Idol, Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones, Nine Inch Nails, Michael Jackson and many more.


I have decided to look at the music video 'Only' by Nine Inch Nails as I am familiar with the video and find it very interesting. Also Nine Inch Nails are put into the category of rock, which ties into my research of my chosen artists as they come from a similar genre. 'Only' was released as the second single from their fourth album 'With Teeth'. 'Only' reached number one on the Billboard Modern Rock Chart and stayed there for seven weeks.

 

 

The video starts with a close-up shot of  stylistic desk, with a laptop, mug, speakers, Newtons Cradle and pin impression box. A hand then comes into frame and clicks the laptop- to start playing the song. The laptop screen lights up with again stylistic patterns. The mise-en-scene for this video is very neutral with everything in colours of grey, black and white and the lighting is coming from a window on the right hand side. The music starts off with a technical base beat. Cuts are quick and clean and are in time with the beat. There are examples of extreme close-ups of the speakers vibrating with the base of the music and a camera pans, moving around the desk to focus on the pin art box. Cuts move to the cup of coffee,which ripples in time with the beat and then to a desk lamp that is turned off. This could hint that it plays a bigger role later on in the video.

 

It then cuts to another extreme close-up of the pin box, where the pins begin to move, also reflecting sounds from the music. The video then takes a CGI  aspect, where the lead singer of Nine Inch Nails appears indented in the pin box. The whole video focuses on him performing the lyrical side of the song using zooms, pans and more extreme close-ups with quick cuts to the other objects on the desk moving and 'coming live', including the desk lamp which turns on. Each object moves in time with the beat and tempo of the song and could be seen to represent each member of the band.

As the song gets 'angrier' the pin box moves as if the figure inside is pushing up against the glass. There are a variety of camera angles and shaky movements, almost to reflect the angrier more intense section of the song, and it seems at on point that the camera has been attached to the Newtons cradle.

 

The song ends with everything slowing down to a stop and then an apple from the desk and spoon from the mug fall over, the only sign that any of the movement of the objects actually happened.