Directors Study - Roman Coppola

I have chosen to study Roman Coppola as a music video director, Coppola was raised in a media saturated setting, he grew up in New York City with both of his parents being heavily involved in the media industry. Roman's father, Francis Ford, who famously directed both; The Godfather I and II, sent Roman to the New York's University Film School when he was growing up. Roman had always been surrounded by the medias influence throughout his childhood.

From watching various music videos from numerous directors I have been picking out ideas that I think would work well in our video, and perhaps ideas that we could adjust to suit our music video. After viewing some of Roman's work I knew I had come across a very unique director whom I could learn a lot from.

Below is a video directed by Coppola - 'Funky SquareDance' by Phoenix"

(I know it's nearly 10 minutes long but I really encourage you to watch the whole video!!!)

From this video I'm sure you are thinking that you have never seen a music video like it. That is why I have chosen to study this, although we cannot really relate to camera shots and lighting effects used by Roman. We can appreciate his pre-production skills, such as the numerous transitions used and the precision of the edits to the audio. (Especially effective from 4:00, onwards)

This video was invited to the permanent collection at the New York, Museum Of Modern Art because of it's unique idea. I especially like the section of this video where he speaks to the audience, the text is directly interacting with the viewers, from 7:10 onwards. He is speaking to the audience and even tells them what he wanted to achieve from the video. This video also falls into the postmodern category because of features such as this, Roman breaks the fourth wall and goes against conventional music videos, he interacts with the audience, talking to them through visual text.

This is one of my favourite music videos, I will be continuing to study and analyse more music videos from various directors. I believe this video is a key example of a successful concept music video, similar to what we hope to achieve.

Thanks for watching, I hope you enjoyed the video. I would appreciate any comments or questions. Thanks

Ian