Case Study 3: Alex Southam

Alex Southam has worked for Agile Films who describe him on their website as "an exciting new talent... entirely self-taught" with a series of diverse promos for the likes of Walkmen, Alt+J and Lianne La Havas. At the beginning of his career, Southam undertook all the tasks on his videos from the cinematography to the lighting and even the editing. He now uses a Director of Photography.

Southam likes the format of music videos as opposed to commercials as he believes there is more "real artistic freedom" in music videos. He finds that commercials are too restricted creatively. Vimeo is his preferred platform for showcasing his videos – this is becoming an increasingly important website as it is considered to have "higher status" than YouTube.

An entire portfolio of his work can be seen here:

http://cargocollective.com/oofvideo/about-oof-video

Alt-J - Tessellate

His breakthrough came with the video Tesselate for Alt-J with a budget of £10,000, one day to shoot with a large cast. In editing, Southam added special effects using AfterEffects. It appears as if the cast were stood in front of a green screen in their separate groups. Then after Southam has put the various shots of the groups into what appears to be one long continuous shot using Steadicam. The music video and the lyrics are very conceptual which makes it difficult to draw parallels between the two in terms of whether the video is illustrative or represents disjuncture. However it does strongly remind me of Kanye West's music video for "Power" (2010) in which he is represented as a god-like figure surrounded by a Renaissance style cast dressed as gods, goddesses and mythical creatures. Southam may have possibly used this as influence - the model that appears several times in Tessellate as more than one character could represent the god-like figure of Alt-J's music video. Both music videos appear to symbolise power; while Kanye's video is mostly illustrative, I feel that Alt-J's video is simply more conceptual and Southam is taking the opportunity to showcase his diverse creative talents.



Kanye West - POWER



Chase & Status - Lost and Not Found

In 2013, Southam worked with Chase & Status for Lost and Not Found with a £50,000 budget. It was filmed in Los Angeles using Steadicam where 36 frames per second was filmed and then later slowed down in editing. It was influenced by Massive Attack’s "Unfinished Sympathy" (1991) in terms of the Steadicam filming in one long take. He also wanted to go for an early 1990s VHS video look, achieved naturally in "Unfinished Sympathy". In Lost and Not Found there are only three shots in the whole video. The music video does illustrate the lyrics to some extent as there is the main storyline of the fugitive on the loose. But again, I feel that Southam's creativity is the main focus - it could act as an entirely different text from the song altogether. Instead of a music video, it could be a short film.

Influenced by: Massive Attack - Unfinished Sympathy