Benny Benassi - Spaceship : Director Ray Kay

I have some great artists lined up to showcase. But, today a video caught my attention, which I felt needed talking about. Here we have the new video for Benny Benassi. The director of this video is Ray Kay. Ray Kay produces some absolutely stunning fashion photography and music videos for all the big names [seriously too many to mention. Just check his site]. All of his work that I have seen really pushes the fashion style visuals and every still of music video is a fantastic, stylishly composed still and very sexy. So with all this credibility and experience it makes me wonder how a video like this has slipped through. I find it uninspired and clichéd. The theme of the track is 'Spaceship' and visually that message comes across, but the way it's done is just so.. cheesy. We have a space ship that looks like a cross between Star Trek and Tron [just not quite as good as either] floating through the clichéd meteor shower. Once inside the ship we are confronted with the stars of the video, green-screened onto a very nightclub looking dock and showered with jerky, unnatural camera movements. The shots are very rarely creative. Also, for years photographers strived to lose lens-flare from their shots, but digital film has over recent years brought it back. With today's software and used right it can look great! Unfortunately, this video abuses the flare and is a good example of why we should stop using it again. Eventually the video lands on an alien planet, but instead of creativity we are confronted with another uninspired and clichéd mars scene with Kelis [badly] floating through an explosion that seems to have finally arrived from 1980. The only perk's being the 3D particle effects ripping through the skies and the colour change from blues to orange. I don't like to rip on other peoples work, but this video pissed me off. With so many super-talented artists struggling to get noticed, it seems disgusting to me that superstar creatives like Ray Kay can get away with this.



To play fair here is a second video by Ray Kay. The video is for 'Adam Lambert - For your Entertainment' and is brilliant. Great compositions and very stylish. The shots showcase his fashion imagery and the lighting is amazing. The shots are tight. The edits are tight. Overall this is a VERY sexy production! What happened with spaceship?
*apologies for bad video. official video has embedding disabled. link above^

Three Legged Legs

Three Legged Legs are one of my favorite studios. The three creators have an awesome portfolio of work and really show their ability to adapt. What I love about this studio is how they can take a brand and really inject genuine creativity into the subject. Corporate is the last word I would use to describe this studio. Working for huge brands such as: Wrigleys, Zune, Starbucks, AT&T & Sony Viao to name just a few and having produced amazing personal shorts like Humans! & Ricochet, Three Legged Legs continue to push forward in the industry, constantly producing exciting new films. I really urge you to check out these guys website and make sure that you have a good look through as I cant link it all here [but, i want to]. The Chronicles section is worth mentioning also, as it's filled to the brim with pitch work for projects that unfortunately never saw the light of day. They are an inspiration to the industry and deserve huge respect for their work!
My two video choices to showcase [how I managed to get it down to two ill never know] are:


Los Angeles Lets Be Friends.
This video is over excited, bright and colourful. It uses some great animation and motion tracking. Its fun!



Zune | Piece of me Piece of you
Great concept, Great lighting, Great compositing, Great dancing,  Great music. Great, Great, Great! Also, not enough puppets used these days!

Justice - Stress

It's not all about the very latest videos and artwork here at We Take Control. If the content is right, then its going in. This is why todays offering is a video for a music track by Justice, which was released in 2007. The video is directed by Romain Gavras who is making frequent appearances in the media for shock tactics. Stress is not only my favorite video from Romain Gavras , but one of my favorite music videos of all-time. Before you watch the video I need to mention that some people may be offended by it and that it was banned from the tellybox [for all the wrong reasons]. The content [or lack of] has already been documented all over the internet, so i'm not going to dig too deep.


I find this video fascinating. Shot like a documentary and using the good ol' shakey-hand cam we follow a day in the life of a street gang member. The gang seem like they could have been lifted straight from cult film The Warriors and the film seems to reference this on more than one occasion.  The production is absolutely stunning to look at. The de-saturated colour-correction giving a very moody, urban feel throughout. There are also a lot of different shots and compositions used and we are constantly dragged from long chase shots to tight, sometimes unrecognizably close edits. A lot of the transitions use blurred zooms which constantly flicker in and out of focus and the depth of field is used superbly. Then there is the feel of the production. It's uncomfortably realistic to watch. Visceral and primeval acts of violence in a very contemporary setting. It's so close to home that it makes you wonder if your loved ones are really safe out on the streets. Were people actually terrorized for the sake of art? Lastly, I would just like to mention the sound. I'm not here to review music, but the punishing and relentless Justice soundtrack, the ambient sound of the city and the screams of the citizens within it all combine with the visuals to make [in my humble opinion] a truly remarkable piece of art!

enjoy..