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Corey Smithscope (2004)

Scope, a series of five experimental music videos, starts from the end of a story and moves its way back, explaining the plot from minimal and maximal vantage points. Because of this, the storyline seems unexplainable until the final three minutes in "Tiddler". Combining these contrasting points of view to create a sense of confusion, Scope incorporates music to add to the bipolarity of these shots, like going from calm, soothing mathematically precisioned timed music box chimes to raw, random mechanically produced noises, all from album with the same name by composer Nobukazu Takemura (www.thrilljockey.com). Scope's goal is to show another way that a story can be told, and in the end, Scope is definitely not for everyone. However, those who are patient will certainly appreciate its beauty and theory of repititon and synthesizing.


This movie is part of the collection: Open Source Movies

Director: Corey Smith
Producer: Corey Smith
Production Company: none
Sponsor: none
Audio/Visual: Music, Color
Keywords: scope; Corey Smith; Nobukazu Takemura
Contact Information: corey@coreysmithfilms.com http://www.coreysmithfilms.com

Creative Commons license: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs

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Reviewer: Angus Young - - November 26, 2005
Subject: Not much here
I didn't find this film to be anything but a bland, waste of my time. This film really left me pissed off. After watching this, I realized, life is short, do the best you can with your time on Earth, and do yourself a favor: don't watch this film.

Reviewer: Tom Lynder - - November 26, 2005
Subject: Well, here goes...
I am not familiar with any of Nobukazu Takemura's work but I did not let that affect my opinion of the film, nor the overall quality of the equipment used producing this.

Ok. After watching all 40 minutes of this film, I thought to myself, "What just happened?"
Which leads me to ask the question...did this film really need to be that long?

Some may argue that it was that the reason for it being so long was so you could get into the soundtrack and emotion of the movie, but to tell you the truth, I watched this movie twice and regreted watching it both times. I'm sorry but I found no underlying beauty within this film.

The 40 minutes I spent watching this film, both times, made me wonder...can people actually enjoy this? As Corey said in his description, "Scope is definitely not for everyone." I know it wasn't for me.

I say: If you enjoy media that provides entertainment, is emotional, and in the end, provides an overall positive experience, don't look deeper into this film past the first 2 minutes

(if you don't enjoy the first 2 minutes of this film or see anything within them, don't look any further into the film, for the next 38 minutes won't show you anything surprising)

Reviewer: Robbie Blake - - September 29, 2005
Subject: Give it time and you'll realise its beauty
I was attracted by the fact that its soundtrack was Nobukazu Takemura's Scope, one of my all time favourite albums.

The concept and execution of these videos blew me away. Sure the picture quality might not be HD but the genius of this lies in its precise mechanical editing that truly follows the music both in time and structure and in the mood and feeling of it. With each mathematical click comes an image and that image is repeated on that same click, then another click smashes into it and another similar image smashes along side it and eventually a whole symphony of the same type of images corresponds precisely to Nobukazu Takemura's mathematical orchestra of electronic noises. With each noise corresponding to a certain image or movement on the screen, it not only builds up a wall of sounds and images, it also slowly builds up a collage of feelings, of rhythms. In terms of ideas, this is lightyears ahead of all those glossy and expensive videos you seen on MTV.

Then on top of that lies a storyline. Each song tells a very simple story on its own, from the girl with the red balloon letting go of it in the middle of the park to her jumping around the streets and park then onto ducks feeding and playing in the water to Christmas tree lights blinking and they all seem meaningless and have nothing to do with each other but like the music and the editing, they crash together precisely and they come together to reveal a simple yet elegant storyline as a whole come the end.

I highly recommend this to those who not only appreciate Nobukazu Takemura's music but also to those who want to see something different from extremely well edited images to people who want to look at music videos in a completely different light where a single perception completely changes everything.

Credits

Flora Kwong as "girl" in "balloon", "icefall", and "tiddler"

all storyboards, filming, editing, and directing by Corey Smith
http://www.coreysmithfilms.com

Music from the Full length album "Scope"
Nobukazu Takemura
Courtesy of Thrill Jockey
www.thrilljockey.com