Star Guitar - The Chemical Brothers Video Analysis

The immediately obvious aspect of the Star Guitar video and the bit that makes it stand out as being a unique experimental video is the coordination of the objects appearing to the music. The choice of music to do this effect to is very good here, since it starts off slowly looking like a completely normal train journey due to the lack of layers in the song at that point, tricking the audience into thinking that's all it is, but as the music builds the synced music to objects effect becomes subtly clear.

..before transitioning into a plethora of repeated objects

Here it starts off as an average expected train situation..

One of the ways in which the main beat aspect is helped by the rest of the visuals is how in a few of the locations a reflection from the window of the inside of the carriage can be seen. This gives across a sense of realism and reminds the viewer that this is a train journey not just a random series of locations and objects. This touch helps emphasise the surreal repeating objects even more since it juxtaposes the ordinary with the extraordinary, a very nice touch in reminding the audience of the situation while not detracting from the main focus of the video.

Reflection of inside the carriage can be seen at the top left.

Another thing that adds to the simplicity of the piece is the fact the whole thing is shot through one single camera angle, stably mounted. The cleverness and technical skill comes from the editing of the piece, something that experimental films generally harness well. Since we are moving through such a distance we are constantly engaged by the new layered sounds and their corresponding objects. The layered feel also gives the video a great sense of depth to it, you can explore the whole frame, since each scene is around long enough for the viewer to see each landmark repeated all the way into the distance.

I also like the way it seems to smoothly transition through the different locations the train journey passes by, the effect of blocking the camera then removing it to show a completely different environment is nicely done.

Towards the end I feel the effect is worn off slightly, and it isn't as well synced and obvious, the scenes become a bit too cluttered and I don't feel like it builds to the crescendo I feel it should. The effects in the part going past the river in particular don't run as smoothly as the rest of it and the scenes look very constructed with CGI rather than authentic looking locations, this is probably due to the fact it has water in this section and it would be much harder to animate the water on top of the repeated visuals.

Despite not liking the effects as much in this river part it shows the depth of the frame quite nicely.

Another part I think doesn't particularly works is when it momentarily transitions into night time, but only for about ten seconds then transfers back to daytime footage. This to me came across more as something to try and cover the fact that the video wasn't particularly interesting at this point, so Michel Gondry kept the viewers engaged by changing to night time. This seems like a clever thing to do to keep people interested but I found it to be an annoying change with no real visual or artistic merit to it.

Overall though what I like most is the simplicity of the piece, by just making it seem as one long continuous piece there is a very smooth feel to the video. What I'm going to take most from it to use in our experimental video I think will be to sync up the video with the soundtrack, so there is a form of visual and audio harmony. Here obviously since it is a video that is made to help the audio it is near essential for it to fit together but in our piece I want the sounds and the images to work together as if they were made for each other instead of just separate bits slapped together.

I think this would benefit our video a lot since we will probably only have static/slow moving shots which alone could look a bit dull, but by coordinating them with the sound it will mean the hearing and seeing of the viewer will be at the same time and therefore will engulf both their senses simultaneously and subsequently make it a much more engaging film to watch.