Editor's Note: For our end of the year wrap up, we asked a few music video directors, directors of photography, and fans to compile their own top 10 lists. This list was compiled by music video director Isaac Ravishankara.
It's obviously impossible to limit a list all of my favorite videos from the past year down to 10, so I tried to do my best to curate 10 videos I was hugely inspired by, listed in release order. I landed at 11, and grouped them out of order a bit. Sorry! All of the videos below really just made me FEEL something. Happy. Sad. Scared. Inspired.
I think a brief explanation is in order in order -
The single-take version of Stay is my favorite video of the year, and I dont think it was even supposed to be a video - just one take from the shoot. But man, it gives me the chills every time, just going a journey with this womans thoughts. And then the polar opposite, technique-wise, but cutting to the same core was Daniels emotional video for Cry Like a Ghost. Also, I have a soft spot for father-stories, and none of them in recent memory has been as strong as Sam Browns Strong. I cried when I first saw it. At a coffee shop in Echo Park. Gross.
Hiro Murais Hive video and Michael Ragens Evil Friends video are like the ATL Twins of posse-cut-music-videos. And Michael Ragen helped shoot AG Rojas "Modern Jesus, which is just an awe-inspiring trip across an America I never knew about. These all gave me the willies about American youth, in the best way possible.
Isaiah Serets Cool Song #2 video, Daniel Kragh-Jacobsens All I Know, and So Strange from David Altobelli and Taylor Cohen were some of my absolute favorite narrative videos this year. Each one building a world and telling a story within it that really tugs your heart. All of them have to deal with trying to mend a broken love. And Im a sucker, and a sap, it seems.
In the end, I always really just want to be dancing. And like the emotive one-take feels of Rihanna and Passion Pit at the beginning of the year, this year for me ended with long single takes of just pure dancing. Jake Schreiers Like a Dream is really, really wonderful. And if that amazing field was in the middle of LA, it could exist as a piece of the tour-de-force 24-hour video for Happy from We Are From LA (I tried it, trust me).
The best music videos are ones that transcend the medium, reach out, grab your heart, and make you FEEL something lasting. Right?
1. Rihanna - Stay (Single Take Version)
11. Pharrell Williams - Happy (24-Hour Version)
Full 24 Hour Interactive Video
4 minute cut:
Director
| We Are From L.A |
Director of Photography
| Alexis Zabe |
Production Company
| Iconoclast |
Directorial
| Yoann Lemoine, Creative Director |
