Cheap, Single Shot, Many Shot Music Video: DZ – The Mess Up

This is getting close to the absolute minimum possible for a cheap, fast music video.

2 guys, a camera, a strobe light, and a bottle of Jägermeister.

This contains all of the elements that make the quick, single shot video effective: It’s a unique concept, it’s fast and cheap to make, it will grab your attention and evoke a strong reaction, and it’s very personal. The video is for local Brisbane band DZ, who are grabbing some mindshare and attention despite being yet to release an album.

I spend a large portion of every day watching music videos, and this is the first one to have really captured my imagination since the beautifully animated, high budget “Wood” by McBess. To me, these wildly disparate works of art are both equally valid, and equally effective as music videos. However, the fact that The Mess Up took, conservatively, less than 0.5% of the time to create, means that the artists are free to create more work, and influence more potential fans (also check out their live video, including a fantastic cover of Justice – Phantom Pt. II).

There is still plenty of scope in our industry for detailed, careful, high-budget work, but if it doesn’t have that spark of originality, then you might as well drink a bottle of Jager and throw up on the floor.