In today’s music video of the day, Britney Spears gets to live every film lover’s dream!
Before I selected this video for today’s music video of the day, it had been a while since I had watched it and I have to admit that I had forgotten that this song was actually written for The Smurfs. When the video started, I thought Britney and her children were watching a deliberately cheesy send-up of Harry Potter and I was like, “Well, that’s clever!”
But then Britney got transported into the movie and that’s when I saw all of the little blue people around her feet. Imagine how different this video would have been if Britney had accidentally stepped on the Smurfs and left a trail of blue gore in her wake. Some in the audience would have cheered but I imagine others would have been traumatized. Myself, I don’t know how I would have reacted as I find the Smurfs to be kind of creepy but, at the same time, I wouldn’t want Britney to have a Smurf massacre on her conscience. In the end, we should just be happy that things worked out for the best.
In this song from the soundtrack of the 2002 Spider-Man film, Sum 41 plays upside down, in the best tradition of Spider-Man fans everywhere. Along with keeping an eye out for clips from the film, also watch out for Slayer’s Kerry King, who shows up to remind everyone what rock is all about. As someone who grew up with an MTV that played music, I miss the music videos that always used to be released to promote movies. I always enjoyed the mix of performance footage with the most kinetic scenes from the movie.
This music video was directed by Marc Klasfeld, who has directed music videos for literally everyone. Don’t even think about becoming a rock star if you can’t get Marc Klasfeld to direct at least one music video for you.
Needless to say, I support this message. All rules should be broken.
Also, the top of a school bus apparently makes for a good performance space. Actually, the same thing can probably be said of all buses in general. If you’ll remember the classic film Degrassi Goes Hollywood, Studz ended up performing on top of a bus and really impressing Kevin Smith. As anyone who watched Degrassi can tell you, Studz was actually a pretty sucky band that only had about three songs (one of which was that terrible House Arrest song) so obviously it was not the band’s sound that won Kevin Smith’s attention. Instead, it was all about the fact that they were standing on top of a bus….
At least, that’s the way I remember it. It’s been a while since I watched the movie. They could have been standing on a van, to be honest. Or maybe they were on one of those boats that got jammed up in the Suez Canal last year. I don’t quite remember. I probably need to watch Degrassi Goes Hollywood again, both for the bus performance and the Ellie/Craig scenes. Perhaps that’s what we should all do this week. Canada needs the love, eh?
Anyway, break the rules. I’m going to start by parking wherever I feel like parking. Take that, parking police!
Here’s something energetic to start your day with!
This is yet another video directed by Marc Klasfeld. Over on the imvdb, Klasfeld is credited with directing 107 videos, for everyone from Britney Spears to Katy Perry to Big Time Rush. Basically, if you’re going to make music, you have to have at least one of your videos directed by Marc Klasfeld. That appears to be the law of the land.
Today’s music video of the day is the story of two Swedish woman, one Italian man, and the city of lights. Just Another Night was filmed in Paris and it’s an enjoyable little 3-minute mini-film. Love, sex, betrayal, cool cigarette smoking, and film noir homages are all present in this video and we’re all the better for it.
This was directed by Marc Klasfeld, who has directed videos for — deep breath: Katy Perry, Jay-Z, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Britney Spears, Kid Rock, Michael Bublé, Nelly, Foo Fighters, Kelly Clarkson, Charli XCX, Little Mix, Nick Jonas, Twenty One Pilots, Avril Lavigne, Aerosmith, and Big Time Rush. So, in short, if you need someone to direct your music video, Marc Klasfeld is one of the people that you call. And if you can’t get him to do it, you can always go down to the local community college and get one of the aspiring film students to do it. It all depends on how much money you have to spend, I suppose.
I can never hear MakeDamnSure without thinking about the What’s It Feel Like To Be A Ghost episode of Degrassi.
That’s the episode where aspiring rock star Craig Manning (played by Jake Epstein) returns to Toronto after being on tour and we discover that he’s picked up a nasty cocaine habit. Despite being coked out of his mind, Craig still gets a chance to perform during a Taking Back Sunday show. However, no sooner does Craig get on stage and start to sing then he suddenly gets the worst nosebleed in the history of nosebleeds.
AGCK!
Needless to say, the members of Taking Back Sunday are not impressed.
Of course, before everything went so terribly wrong, Craig had bragged to Taking Back Sunday’s Adam Lazzara about how he performed a “stripped down, acoustic” version of MakeDamnSure in his set. “I’d like to hear that,” Adam replied.
YOU BLEW IT, CRAIG!
Oh well. Fear not. By the time Craig returned for Degrassi Goes Hollywood, he was clean of the drugs and hopefully, he got back together with Ellie.
(Actually, as much as I love Ellie, Craig’s soulmate really was Ashley. Ellie should never have let Sean break up with her…)
(Okay, sorry, I’m getting lost in a Degrassi tangent here…FOCUS, LISA, FOCUS!)
As for the video for MakeDamnSure, it features the band performing in a wind tunnel. There’s a lot of scary and sad imagery but fear not, things work out for the best. It turns out that some people do give a damn.
We’ve reached the end of February, and the last version of Movies by Alien Ant Farm. This is the one most people know. Unfortunately, I sat down late to write this, so let’s keep it simple.
The music video starts off with lead-singer Dryden Mitchell apparently confused by a hotdog jumping around onscreen next to a bun when his just sits in his hand.
It must be because that’s not supposed to happen without John Travolta around to sing about Olivia Newton-John.
Grease (1978, dir. Randal Kleiser)
He decides to jump into the screen in order to work in a reference to Last Action Hero (1993). The rest of the band decides to follow suit, and are instantly replaced by every alt-rock band from the time-period.
Once inside, they notice that the movie magic is now dead.
Now they remind us of how big a fan they are of Michael Jackson–in case we didn’t get that from them covering Smooth Criminal–by referencing Captain EO (1986).
However, their reference to Captain EO also features the Italian evil-eye thing that ignorant people think has something to do with Satan, and it pisses of the local Sammi Curr.
Trick Or Treat (1986, dir. Charles Martin Smith)
It doesn’t matter that he now dresses more like Axl Rose. Sammi thinks that he is the only rocker that has the right to reach into or out of a screen. He did it in Trick Or Treat to kill Ozzy Osbourne.
Trick Or Treat (1986, dir. Charles Martin Smith)
Luckily the band turns into the Ghostbusters in order to deal with Sammi Curr. I’m sure it was also a way of taking a shot at critics of their brand of hard rock/heavy metal.
The band performs as themselves for awhile, and brings more stuff out of the screen to remind us of the early-80s 3D craze before turning into Oompa Loompas.
Veruca Salt is the audience. She is promptly turned into a giant blue M&M.
Now the band goes into Karate Kid mode, but Mitchell is down!
That’s no problem though because Pat Morita shows up to heal him through the power of movie magic.
This causes them to flash to an Asian guy in the audience before moving on.
The video decides it’s time to go into the 90s with Edward Scissorhands (1990) .
Edward spots a guy sporting an afro in the audience and decides to update him for the times by giving him the Coolio.
It also spells out AAF just in case we forgot what band we were watching. At this point, the audience decides it’s time for them all to jump into the screen.
That is except for the usher…
who disappears in the far shot…
but reappears when the camera cuts back to the front of the theater.
The music video was directed by Marc Klasfeld who you might know from any number of places, including:
Friday Night (T.G.I.F.) by Katy Perry
He’s directed over 100 of them. He also shot around 20 of them.
Emilie Sennebogen produced the video. I can only find two music video credits for Sennebogen.
Scott Free was the stylist on the video. He appears to have done around 10 music videos.
Jeff Judd worked on make-up. I can only find two music video credits for him.
Ben Oswald was the production manager. He’s worked as a producer, production manager, and as an associate producer on music videos.
Through the Shattered Lens 