Case Study - Jamie Thraves

Jamie Thraves was a director, made short films at University, using his award-winning short films as a 'calling card' to get a 'foot in the door' with the video production company Factory Films.

He began his music video by shooting three very low budget music videos, costing about £5,000 each.

Being a music video director could be seen as a precarious existence where their livelihood is dependent on commission gotten from the music videos he/she makes; Thraves submitted treatments for his two best known videos and each was accepted by the production companies he sent them to.

He has a unique talent of making his videos look like short films due to the storylines that were incorparated into them.

One of his most popular music videos was for the song "Just" by Radiohead. He directed and filmed the entire video in just three days, using a budget of £100,000.  

The music video which was shot near Liverpool Street Station, features Radiohead performing in an apartment while in front the apartment they are performing in, a man is lying down on the pavement. People around the man start to wonder what is going on and start gathering around him, even the band are looking at this man and the crowd which have surrounded him.  Through the use of subtitles, we can see a conversation between the man and the crowd surrounding him, the crowd extremely curious about the reason he is lying there. After much fierce questioning, the man begins to tell them the reason why he is there, he starts pleading for divine forgiveness and intervention for him and the crowd, and tells them the actual reason. However, the subtitles stop as the man says the reason, leaving it to the viewer’s interpretation. After he says the reason, the pavement is then shown to be covered with the crowd of people, all lying down just like the man. Thraves uses the code of enigma very well in the video, as the main reason people are continuing to watch the video is so that they can find out the reason the initial man and crowd were laying on that pavement and therefore solve the enigma posed in the video. This could be classed as a contradicting music video under Goodwin’s theory, as the lyrics do not match what is going on within the music video.

Another well known music video for the song "The Scientist" by Coldplay. He also directed and filmed the entire video in three days, instead using a budget of £200,000.

This music video was rather noted for its use of reverse narration and employing reverse video. In order for to make it seem that Chris Martin, the lead singer, appear to sing the lyrics in the reversed footage, he had to learn the song backwards. The video opens with Martin singing while he is lying on a mattress outside.  A cyclist cycles past in reverse and Martin leaps up from the mattress. He begins walking in reverse through the city, crossing a railway line and heads out into the woods, picking up a suit jacket he must have dropped as he’s walking. After walking in reverse he arrives what we can assume is his car, he gets in and briefly passes out.  A woman, who was at first lying unresponsive on the ground in front of the car, is shown flying back in through the shattered windshield of the car. The car begins to roll back up a hill in the woods and through a broken fence, which fixes itself as the car passes back through it. As the video closes, the couple is shown driving back up the road. It is then revealed to the viewer what had happened to Martin and the woman, she had removed her seat belt, in order to put her jacket on, just before the car accident, causing her death.

Jamie's Top Tips
Jamie believes that the best music videos depict the lyrics but try not to be too literal with them, he believes you go with the emotion behind the lyrics aswell.