Sam Shinazzi – Video “Bones” – great clip, great review

“Bones“

HHHHAPPY 23 April 2015

Sam Shinazzi calls Sydney home in his new clip for Bones

Sam Shinazzi brings his thoughtful songwriting to life with this contemplative video for his clip Bones. Nice work Brett Knight.

Besides having an awesome name, Sam Shinazzi has been kicking around for a while charming folk with his alternative rock and personal, engaging storytelling. If you want proof check out his latest album Forever and For Now, to put it simply it’s brilliant. He’s a humble guy, so it makes sense that the video for Bones follows suit.

It always feels odd when a music video positions the featured artist in a way that seems to conflict with their nature, so it’s good to see director Brett Knight take a simple approach to the clip and effectively convey Sam and the song in the right light. Brett and Sam have known each other for a long time and that relationship shows in his treatment of the video. The shoot itself took three hours, with Brett photographing Sam once the sun began to set, capturing the themes in a great way.

The video is presented in a still frame format, Sam’s movement’s showing traces of blurs as if he is a man who is at odds with where he is and who he is as a person. His movements come across as rigid, as if he is a robot lost wandering the lonely city streets with the ANZAC bridge looming in the background. It matches well with the sense of abandonment found in the song, the images of Sam shifting about the leafy streets in solitude nailing this concept well. Reflecting on the video Sam said “I think Brett ran with the lyrical and literal theme, and stuck with it the whole way. It also represents a lot of the imagery and themes in our songs – nighttime, bridges and that kind of thing have always been present.”

“As the city slept my mind awoke/ Every sound/ Every note“, is a beautiful and is the best way to describe the vibe of the video. There’s a fear of loneliness, but that loneliness can easily be accessed to inspire something great and in turn abolish those fears of isolation. That calm is established by the opening and closing shots of the water, a calming image if you ever needed one.