Southam is best known for his work with Alige Films, where he got accepted in August 2012, in which he has been very progressive in the media industry. Southam has been known to have 'an exciting new talent, working in a dizzying variety of styles across live action and animation'. Southam is self-taught and his inventiveness and creativity have caught the eye with a series of diverse promos for the likes of the Walkmen, Alt+J, Chase and Status and Lianne La Havas.
Southam undertook all tasks on all of his videos which he was likely to be known as "a one man band". He included camera, lighting, editing and also is now a director of photography. Southam likes the format of music videos as you can try new techniques and can have real artistic freedom. He is less keen on commercials as they allow for much less freedom. He also uses Vimeo to showcase his videos which this is becoming an increasingly important platform as it is considered to have higher status than YouTube.
Southam had a breakthrough of the song 'Tesselate' by Alt+J in which his budget was £10,000 and was shot in one day. This music video is very different to original music videos because this particular one used many special effects which were made by the program AfterEffects. This music video has been made using a very large group of people. The mise-en-scene of the characters in the video have all been seen to be very young, with an 'urban' look to them. There is very minimal lip synching throughout the whole music video, just a wide variety of shots and movements. Laura Mulvey's theory has been shown throughout the music video of the notion of looking, which is shown due to the girls wearing very short dresses, dancing for the males pleasure. The music video does not suit the genre of song which makes it very contrapuntal and unique. Southam has done this to show creativity and skill as he re-creates a modern, hip-hop version of Italian Renaissance painter Raphael's School Of Athens painting.
Alex Southam's video 'Tesselate' resulted in great news and was asked by Chase and Status to film the music video for 'Lost and Not Found'. The budget of this film was £50,000 and was filmed in Los Angeles ONLY using a steadicam. The audience would only be able to spot 3 edits in this music video as all the rest were taken as whole shots. Southam filmed at 36 frames per second then slowed down to set out a story. he was influenced by Massive Attack's 'Unfinished Sympathy' which also used a steadicam and minimal edits throughout the whole film. This music video tells a story throughout and leads towards a final red herring, similar to his short film. He was very clever in the way he challenged Laura Mulvey's theory of that women do not have agency. The end of the music video it shows the young girl, who was seen to be missing, holding a gun to a police womans head, creating a lot of tension and rolling the story forward. Southam has been very unique within this music video and tends to enjoy making unique music videos and short films.
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