Experimental Film (song)
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"Experimental Film" is a song by They Might Be Giants. It is the first song on their 2004 album The Spine and that album's first single. An animated internet music video was made by their friends the Brothers Chaps and can be found on the Homestar Runner website.
[edit] Subject Matter
The song's lyrics are a satire of avant-garde cinema, and its perceived tendency toward a meaninglessness and pomposity. The "narrator" of the song is an enthusiastic (possibly student) filmmaker who is attempting to make the titular movie. He extols its greatness and makes grandiose statements about his abundance of "face-imploding" ideas, but he hasn't even made it yet - and can't explain what it's supposed to be about.
[edit] Homestar Video
The video itself is a parody of experimental films and is ostensibly "directed" by Strong Sad and The Cheat. Their individual contributions are wildly different: Strong Sad's footage looks like it has been shot on black-and-white film, while The Cheat's portions are animated in his singularly amatureish style. Initially the video just cuts between the two, but they're superimposed and mixed together more and more until the two become indistinguishable. The video is full of references to other experimental films (such as Un chien andalou, Man with the Movie Camera and Fight Club).
In spite of They Might Be Giants originally planning to make a separate video for the "MTV crowd," they have declared the Homestar Runner video to be the song's official music video. It was the first (and so far only) Homestar Runner cartoon to be shown on TV.
[edit] External links
- Experimental Film music video
- Music video information at Homestar Runner Wiki
- Experimental Film at This Might Be A Wiki
