Jamie Thraves - Case Study 1

Jamie Thraves

Case Study

Jamie Thraves started creating music videos while he was studying at university. He then used an award winning short film that he had made himself and called it a "calling card" in order for him to get recognised in the video production company. His intial three videos that he made costed around £5,000 each in terms of shooting it. There is a process in order for a director to be selected to produce a music video. It is very similar to a competition because usually between 5 and 10 directors will opt in for the role of the director in the music video then they will need to pitch their idea to the person who is known as the commissioner. At this point, the directors who have pitched their ideas are not paid for doing so and then the director who appears to have the best idea and fits the scenario the best will be selected to proceed with making the music video and only then will the selected director will be paid for his and idea and sometimes given funds to proceed with the making of the music video. The business for directors is very fragile and sensitive because although 10 directors will have the chance to get the job, there will only really be one person who will get the job. So that essentially is how it works. Thraves has applied for various different jobs and has been successful. One of his videos that has been selected was from Radiohead - Just. Thraves was given a budget of £100,000 and the video was shot in three days. The video for this song is incredibly skillful, interesting and rather ambiguous. In the video there is a man who is just laying down so nonchalantly in the middle of the street throughout the song and passers-by are seeking to understand what is wrong and help him. The video also offers us text which cooperates well with the music. Just as we get to the end we think we are going to find out why he is lying on the floor but then we dont't this could therefore be the reason why the song is called 'Just'. The video is well chereographed and very effective.

The other video that Jamie Thraves was successfully able to create was for Coldplay, for their song called 'The Scientist' which happens to actually be my favourite music video. It is an incredible song and the video just makes it even more better. It is very unique as the whole video starts from the end and goes back to the start. It is incredibly clever and Chris Martin often says in the song "let's go back to the start" so this again cooperates extremely well with the song. Thraves was given a budget of £200,000 to produce this video and once again it was shot in three days. However with this song there was more difficulty as Chris Martin (lead singer of Coldplay) had to learn to sing the song backwards so that the lip synching works well with the video. All of the videos that Thraves has made has allowed him to gain status in the music business and he has made three titles called 'The Low Down', 'The Cry Of The Owl' and 'Treacle Jr'. Thraves uses two well known techniques when creating a music video, he uses the lyrics and tries to link them to the video as much as possible and uses the emotions of the lyrics and displays it in the video.