TOKYO.点 x JEMAPUR + KOSAI SEKINE : MALEDICT CAR PV.01 : THE TREATEMENT
Posted on March 17, 2008
Filed Under Jemapur, Artist |
Jemapur: ‘Maledict Car’ Treatment
14th MARCH 2008
Concept:
When I first listened to the track, it reminded me of geometric and mathematical imagery, and perspective views of Tokyo. So for this music video, I’d like to propose to develop an intricate visual montage or series of patterns of multiple Tokyo cityscapes. The urban swirl of buildings, neon signs, vending machines, expressways, these are all very familiar sights, though I also wanted to include the people and characters who live within this patchwork environment. This idea began to expand and became amplified into a more formal visual pattern like that of a mandala or kaleidoscope.
This led me to decide on a direction and concept for this promo, with the theme of “let’s look behind Tokyo, read between the lines, by developing various visual patterns”. The landscape of the city will be portrayed geometrically. Using simple editing approaches such as inversion, split screen and collage, we look into the varying parts of Tokyo by amplifying and multiplying them. Seeing these visuals, the audience will be impressed by the beauty of the city, though at the same time they may also sense something odd, have a feeling of floating, or perhaps think of ugliness, and be disorientated or confused. Not only shooting the landscape, we’ll also shoot portraits of people who are living in Tokyo. Again we will use similar editing and compositing techniques, though the people featured will add some depth, humanity and character to the visuals.
More specifically, we would plan to shoot different aspects of urban Tokyo at night, making the city look as if its buildings were floating in the air; vending machines were standing in an infinite row; expressways were stretching out everywhere; complex back alleys were planned and arranged in an orderly way; people living there do not seem able to get out of their usual routines. We will show multiple movements of people, from different places at the same time, so that it will appear as if they are synchronized with each other.
This is how I interpreted the visual image of the track that Jemapur mentioned in the interview, which was “Though I opened the door and moved forward, I came back here again. To get away from here, I tried to use my head but couldn’t get out from the loop. Bug.”
I think the concept “developing and presenting the various patterns of Tokyo” is also a key which links to the overall theme of W+K Tokyo Lab’s “TOKYO Ten”. We will focus on parts and elements of the digitalized city. If it were to be multiplied, they would appear like an endless number of dots. Or if it will be shot at the macro level, it also looks like elements or dots. Please imagine, for example, when we approach a large neon sign, we find out clearly that it consists of a number of sequential flashing light bulbs. I would like to include the “circle and dot”, the two symbolical objects, as a motif within the promo. Traffic lights, neon signs and the lights of buildings at night are a few other examples. I would like it if the groups of circles and the layout of the screen at times reminded viewers of the Kabbalah’s “Tree of Life”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_life_(Kabbalah)
Though this treatment is written from a mathematic, or “kabalistic” approach, what I visualize will not only be a flood of images or editing techniques, but also shows the nature of people in this city, which has reached a saturation point of both chaos and order.
In this world, everything has a certain pattern. Do you remember the guy from the film “π”, who’s obsessed with finding an equation of the pattern? Like the film, we try to develop the patterns of Tokyo, where the city and people have already been patterned.
We try to find an equation of Tokyo in this music video…and fail.
In other words, the base of the story will be like this — we start wandering around Tokyo in search of some truth, but it turns out we come back to the starting point finding nothing but a doubt; people in Tokyo live as if they were circling the same position sitting in a “Maledict Car”.
Director: Kosai Sekine
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