Vincent Moon
Vincent Moon (real name Mathieu Saura, (Paris, august 25 1979) ) is an independent filmmaker from Paris mainly known for his field work music videos of indie rock related musicians as well as some notable mainstream artists like Tom Jones, R.E.M. and Arcade Fire. Besides making music videos he also makes other types of films like experimental films and documentaries.
Overview
Chryde, founder of the website La Blogothèque, wanted to shake things up and find another way to share music and Vincent Moon wanted to film music differently. Chryde offered Moon to go and film musicians in Paris. The so called Take-Away Shows (or the French title Les Concerts a Emporter) exist since April 2006. The large amount of clips is the result of a very fast filmed process with mostly one take recordings in a way comparable to the Dogma 95 concept. Comparable with the field recordings of Alan Lomax or the Peel Sessions of John Peel, Moon has set up a large collection of unique single take recordings enhanced with artistic filmed video footage. The fast filming process he uses is a form of guerrilla filmmaking. The sessions are usually two or three tracks filmed improvised in an unusual environment and as such they often had a rough and ready, demo-like feel, somewhere between a live performance and a finished music video. These live, unusually staged performances differ from the artifice of traditional music videos in favor of single-take, organic and primarily acoustic sessions.
The first Take-Away Show was with The Spinto Band. Under the name The Take-Away Shows Moon made over 90 music video clip sessions, most of the time two or three songs, among with many bands including Bloc Party, Seasick Steve, Fleet Foxes, The Wombats, dEUS, An Pierle, Bon Iver, Black Lips, Yeasayer, Liars, R.E.M, Arcade Fire, O'Death, The Ex, De Kift, Stephen Malkmus, Scout Niblett, Caribou, Vic Chesnutt, Architecture in Helsinki, The National, The Young Gods, The Shins, Andrew Bird, The Kooks, Okkervil River, Xiu Xiu, Sufjan Stevens, and Beirut.
In 2008 the multi-platform video entertainment network Crackle, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, incorporated the Take-Away Shows in their programming.
R.E.M.'s Supernatural Superserious Music Video
Michael Stipe became aware of the works of Moon and as a fan he asked him to make a video for his band. For the R.E.M. song Supernatural Superserious Moon shot a series of 12 clips published on a special website for free download as well as on youtube. The music video was shot in various locations around New York City. On February 12, 2008 the website supernaturalsuperserious.com was launched, containing ten takes of the video available for download in high definition as well as a YouTube page for users to upload their own versions of the video. Afterwards Moon also directed the music video of the single Until the Day Is Done.
Visual Style
Vincent Moon often adopts a very warm color balance in his videos, with an enhanced contrast, leading to a largely yellow and black color palette.. Rather than using titles embedded in the video he generally uses intertitles with white text on a black background whilst the sound from the video continues.
Other works
Besides the Take-Away Shows and other music videos he also publishes experimental movies like Instant Stuff and the documentary Changes in Rhythm. The latter is a documentary about the investments of Coca-Cola in Africa and musicians from Tanzania. He also shot a documentary about the September 2008 NYC All Tomorrow's Parties Festival.
The Take-Away Shows
See List of Take-Away Shows for complete overview of all sessions.
Other films
- Instant Stuff
- Changes in Rhythm, documentary
- A Skin, a Night, documentary about the National
External links
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