I am going to seek out the best football compilations; for the game, a team or for a player, along with football adverts or any other video about football and post one here each week.
The first is the winner of a "soccer clips" competition in 2009 and is made by someone known as "RHD". It's breathtaking, have a look:
After a brief intro it begins with the soundtrack to the 1997 Sky Sports advert with Sean Bean, If there's anything closer to poetry in football, I'm yet to find it. Call me a philistine, but the words spoken by Sean Bean in that advert sound better to me than those of any acclaimed poet; Wilfred Owen, Robert Burns, Siegfried Sassoon and William Shakespeare have nothing on the words spoken in that advert and at the start of this video.
The music then moves into some piano track that becomes faster and adds a dance beat before sounding a little like metal. Its a bit intense - a bit over emotional - but that seems to be why the video is trying to do so it works. Its definitely far better than the Cascada-esque soundtracks that plague youtube's collection of football compilations. Finally, the third stage of the soundtrack uses the famous speech from the 1976 film "Network", excellently delivered by Peter Finch. RHD mixes this, again, with piano music which becomes more aggressive sounding until its some form of piano-metal. The soundtrack may be excellent, but I can't help feeling that the best of it is borrowed. The first part is exactly the same as the Sky advert it was taken from and the last part centres around a speech stolen from a film. Nonetheless, it works and the images and video clips have been carefully selected to both match the content and rhythm of the soundtrack.
Visually, the video takes us through countless clips of celebrating, scoring and collapsing in despair. It shows us most of footballs famous faces, and we see brief glimpses of memorable scenes such as Drogba's post match hissy-fit against Barcelona in last season Champion's League and Vladimir Smicer's goal in Istanbul. Many of the clips, however, are indecipherable. The visual effect and speed of flickering images means that all one sees is Ronaldinho's face - someones foot - Christiano Ronaldo - ball - cheering fans - ball hitting net. It may be visually interesting, but the occasions where you can tell what you're watching are rare. On one occasion a quote is seen but I'm yet to meet anyone capable of reading it without pausing. Incidentally, it is George Boateng: "His tricks annoy people. One day someone will hurt Christiano". Yup - that piece of wisdom was really worth pausing for!
Single words flash up on the screen equally quickly, often stating an emotion associated with football. Towards the end of the piece they string together sentences complaining about the greed in football:
"As we use all of our money for the teams and players we support and love, over and over again they betray you in hope of more money for the ugly, for the new power in the beautiful game"
The images then shows players who have left their clubs for the big money move: Owen, Ronaldo, Alonso, Beckham and Kaka. As the feel of the video gets more angry the words on the screen ask "what the fuck?" before suggesting that we have all become infected. Deep, eh?
That's what makes this video so good, It may have lots of stylised clips and a cool soundtrack but its rare to find such a well put together message on a football video. A more common message would be "I like Rooney". It emotionally charges the viewer by reminding them how much football means to them at the beginning then rips this up by exposing the darker sides to the game.
No comments:
Post a Comment