Smashing Pumpkins - Ava Adore
This was the lead single from the Pumpkins' "techno" album. They fired their drummer, replaced him with a machine and announced to the critics that they were now an electro outfit. Just in case some people hadn't got the message, they then released this video, which features no instruments, no live performance and only a half-hearted attempt to lip-sync. Filmed in one continuous take, the video sees the nearly-unrecognisable band dance through a series of cliched music video settings peopled with extras who might be mannequins and mannequins that might be extras. The camera repeatedly swings round to show the track and crew, emphasising that the video is a technological illusion, while the band often miss cues or disappear and reappear from shots at random as the music carries on without them. While the one-shot conceit and the sets themselves are impressive and Romanek plays interesting in-camera tricks with time and space, what I really like about this video is that it is such a blatant, knowing exercise in rebranding.
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2 comments:
good context or yr reading of the video but I'm not sure that what you describe is what actually happens (there are no relexive shots revealing camera and crew other than a porno set) though the general thrust of multiple brands or images is right...
There's a bit at 1:28 (you can just make out the edge of the set) and more obviously at 02:36 that reveals the set in its falsehood. I like the way that the film appers to be sped up/slowed down but the lip-syncing sometimes stays in time, and the infinity effect in the cinema at the end of the video, the constant remediation within a remediated form.
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