So who’s to blame, for my addiction? The man with the vision - director, or the singers who specifically stipulate that they should be featured in the video themselves, with the models. And a good number of them lack the most basic of attributes, not of looks or acting, keeping it blunt – let’s just say, most can’t sing!
Not everything, however, is hilariously bad. There are a decent
number of watch-able, interesting music videos around, but the problem is you have to look for them and wait patiently, which to be honest is not one of my virtues.
Low budget usually gets the main brunt of the blame, which is true to some extent, but an hour or two into a video marathon and you start having déjà vus as the same story unfolds in loop. Being in love; not being in love; being treated badly; being treated bad but coming back stronger. Surely, you have to be seven or have an IQ of seven to find this interesting.
Whatever happened to screenplay or script, the backbone of any video project?
Videos like Jindabaad’s “Rewind” and Narbis & the Anarchies’s “Ekka Trial” are a testament that videos don’t always have to tread the same old beaten path, or need a budget well above five digits.
Jindabaad’s video was done using DSLR cameras in High Definition (HD) and was low budget, if not cheap, compared to those from hi-fi production houses, most of which are not even registered. “Ekka Trial” on the other hand was a pleasant surprise. Deploying 2D- animation and stop-motion, the video is a harbinger of things to come in the visual department, kudos to the team of Cosmo Chronics.
Off to some more nitpicking; we land on redundancy - same face syndrome! A case of nepotism or is there a lack of talented actors? I remember watching ‘Miss K’ in a couple of music videos, back to back. From video to video she jumped roles from a teenager with pig tails to a courtesan, a gullible housewife to a meandering spirit with all too obvious glycerin tears. Surely for a first timer, the video in sequence might appear as a musical of a schizo on a character rampage.
It’s not like there’s a dearth of professional actors and dancers, but then in an industry infested with wannabe models and actors ready to provide their services for free, shelling money on professionals takes second fiddle.
The main problem with most Nepali music videos is that the majority lack seriousness; tossed off as an afterthought with a ridiculous absence of imagination and quality control.
Most are there for the sake of pushing songs on TV. This year alone, video after video were churned out in an effort to just get the “music out.”
Surely all that senseless mechanical reproduction is bound to degrade the aura of an art form that music videos are associated with.
The outburst of music videos means that the few good ones will be overshadowed by the mediocre, if not by the downright silly.
And lest you forget, music videos can be a catalyst in record sales and directly influence the votes garnered by artists across various shows; which eventually trickles down to award shows, influencing the nominations itself.
There’s a direct correlation between a well executed video and a song’s mainstream popularity. Hemanta Rana’s “Laijja Re” was one of the most requested songs in 2010.
Aesthetically shot, the video featured a de-glamorized Jharna Bajracharya in what could be her best performance to date. Which resulted in massive air-play and a plethora of awards in Rana’s kitty.
Music videos have come a long way since it was first aired on MTV in the 1980s. With the popularity of video streaming sites like YouTube, videos are proving to be a principal instrument behind an artist’s popularity, giving them international exposure as well.
Nabin K. Bhattarai’s video for “Timi Lai Mann Parauchu” was made and uploaded from Baltimore, USA. Arjun Subedi’s creation enjoyed clicks of more than 55,414 in less than a month. The after-effect came swift; requests started flooding across TV and radio-land, locally.
What with technology becoming more affordable, HD becoming standard in point-and-shoots, and the limitless creativity that Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) and animation offers, the alchemy of video-graphy holds great promise in the coming days and Nepal is no exception.
There haven’t been many shining examples this year, but few that dared to break away from the norm, will make you believe that there is hope.
Following is a list of music videos that might not exactly be considered masterpieces in themselves, but they deserve a pat on the back for fine execuion and for attempting to deviate from the expected:
Jindabaad - Rewind
Hemant Rana - Laijja Re
Narbis and the Anarchies - Ekka Trial
The Vibez - Tehi Pal
Nabin K. Bhattarai - Timi Lai Mann Parauchu
Astha Tamang Maskey - Sabai Thikai Huncha
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