49 replies to this topic

[Go5ninKyuuto]

It's great to see this single's doing so well. I really like it.

[Amoz]

3rd week 7th with a total of 18,728.

 

Total after 3 weeks at 623,978.

 

EDIT: 4th week at 26th with a total of 5,133. Total after 4 weeks at 629,111.

[Morning Death]

I can't believe the way Satou Mieko was completely ignored in the Futari Dake no Parade vid. They might as well not had her there altogether, she appears like once and not even on focus.

[hitoyou]

I can't really agree with you on this one. She may not be SKE management's center choice but she is definitely not invisible in that PV. 

 

She has a few close ups and, though in the background, easily visible in the dance shots. I think this is a quite well balanced PV, everyone got different standards and bias though.

[Morning Death]

I can't really agree with you on this one. She may not be SKE management's center choice but she is definitely not invisible in that PV. 

 

She has a few close ups and, though in the background, easily visible in the dance shots. I think this is a quite well balanced PV, everyone got different standards and bias though.

 

I took the liberty of doing some screencaps for the video each time Mieko appears. Here are the most relevant ones:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of those shots barely last for a second and the others two seconds at most before jumping to another dance shot or a zoom to other members. Satou Mieko never gets a proper zoom unlike the other members. And the irrelevant shots are shots like these:

 

 

 

 

I have seen backdancers and filler actors in other music videos that appear more than this member in this video.

 

But I was kind of wrong, it wasn't only Mieko, Uchiyama Mikoto, Katou Tomoko, and Takagi Yumana kind of get the same treatment. But at least, some of them have better dancing positions, closer to the front so I guess that is a plus...?

 

I understand the more popular members need to have more focus, but I think the director should have done more two and three shots with members to allow proper chance for all of them to appear. You could have put these girls mentioned above in one sole shot, it could have worked. Also, they could have had more time if they had taken those slow-mo takes that they did a couple of times.

[hitoyou]

See, she appears more than once 

 

Yeah, all girls should have gotten a close up while singing as this is a PV that was made to promote Team KII. If you don't know anything about Team KII and watch this PV you probably have very slim chances of becoming her fan...

 

Unless

Because this is pretty badass.

 

There aren't much to argue about really, she is easily spotted if you have interest in this girl though. 

[Morning Death]

Oh, you are referring to my first post, the part about me saying that she appears "once"? I wrote "like once" for a reason, that "like" part implies that I "I can't remember if it was just once or a few". She definitely appears more than once like I posted in the pictures above. She appears more than once in shots of varying degrees of irrelevance due to lack of focus and distance from the camera and all this considering the presence of other members that do have close up shots and individual close up shots in contrast to Mieko.

 

Also, when we make this exercise of looking for a member the thing seems to work different, it is easier to spot her. You start shoving members to the side looking for the girl. But this is about the director giving her to us, making space in the video for her so that we have to see her, we become aware of her presence instead of us trying to find it. The director, only gave her the ball-thingy which drew all attention to her for that moment, the rest of the pics are either too far or a shared spots of scarce duration.

 

You know, you can think she appeared enough in the video. It is an opinion and that's fine. I guess it just may be that we have different expectancies of the amount of attention the members deserve within a music video.

[hitoyou]

It is darn difficult to talk about members and what exposure they deserve when we all have different opinions about each group, team and girl. Welcome to the minefield where everyone can't be pleased.

 

I don't think the director usually has unlimited creative freedom when it comes to who will appear where. This little whisper over the shoulder and suggestions that certain members maybe should be seen a tiny bit more during those minutes. Management gives choreographers the task to create a dance out of a hierarchy and the director can't really do much about it. I'm sure everybody got their close ups but they weren't put into use because of these suggestions.

 

This thing to shove girls aside for certain members is something I put into practice quite often not just for this occasion. I can't really watch something over and over again without putting focus on something, I want those details and you can't get them by just looking at the middle of your screen. Sato is one of the girls from SKE that attracts my attention, so I already knew where to find her. 

I'm not sure we should blame the director or even the management for the lack of PV exposure. Sure, management gives certain girls a push now and then, it is up to us to respond to this. If we don't buy it they move on to the next girl and see what happens. If all fans suddenly started to buy all her goods and filled up the HS-lanes she would not be in the back row for long. How idol business usually works. 

 

They might as well not had her there altogther... I don't think this an uncommon thought among fans. I certainly got them.

[Krusha]

I am pretty sure a lot of people hardly knows who she is. And even worse, a lot of people don't really know how vastly talented she is.

She has a great demeanor and personality.
She has a great voice.
She plays the piano.
She composes her own music.
She released an album - music and lyrics composed by herself - before she became an idol.

In short, she is one of those girls in the groups that should be able to do more, but is just shoved in the back. As some sort of extra.

And she definitely doesn't have time, as she's 27...

[Morning Death]

1) It is darn difficult to talk about members and what exposure they deserve when we all have different opinions about each group, team and girl. Welcome to the minefield where everyone can't be pleased.

 

2) I don't think the director usually has unlimited creative freedom when it comes to who will appear where. This little whisper over the shoulder and suggestions that certain members maybe should be seen a tiny bit more during those minutes. Management gives choreographers the task to create a dance out of a hierarchy and the director can't really do much about it. I'm sure everybody got their close ups but they weren't put into use because of these suggestions.

 

This thing to shove girls aside for certain members is something I put into practice quite often not just for this occasion. I can't really watch something over and over again without putting focus on something, I want those details and you can't get them by just looking at the middle of your screen. Sato is one of the girls from SKE that attracts my attention, so I already knew where to find her. 

I'm not sure we should blame the director or even the management for the lack of PV exposure. Sure, management gives certain girls a push now and then, it is up to us to respond to this. If we don't buy it they move on to the next girl and see what happens. If all fans suddenly started to buy all her goods and filled up the HS-lanes she would not be in the back row for long. How idol business usually works. 

 

They might as well not had her there altogther... I don't think this an uncommon thought among fans. I certainly got them.

 

1) Like I said, whether the exposure Mieko got was enough or not is left to opinions, yes. But there is a fact, and that fact is that Mieko, along with the members I mentioned, did not have those proper close-ups that the other members had.

 

I want to point out though, the members that got the most exposure in this video are actually the ones I hold in higher esteem. The post I put up there which you approached and turned into this argument, was not the result of me crying because one of my favorite members didn't get enough exposure, because I want her to have more exposure or I think she deserves more screentime than the rest of the members. I said that because I think that Mieko, along the other members, as members of SKE deserve more exposure than what they got in this video, simply because they are actual members that deserve their space and they have fans, regardless of quantity, and those fans deserve a chance to enjoy their favorite members.

 

I am not sure if you implied the above, you may have not, that is possible, possibly likely. Just clarifying.

 

Like Krusha says, Mieko is kept on the shadows and I kind of get the reason why. Being this far into the game and possibly not getting much votes up to this point may lead management to undermine her importance. That may have lead to what we have in this video. If we believe management capable of such a thing, we could even ask ourselves if with things like this management is even trying to lead Mieko to question her importance and chances within SKE, possibly to give her spot to a member that could garner more support from fans. Hopefully this is not part of a plan with such intent behind.

 

2) Actually, I partly agree here and I would like to point out that I kind of messed up what I meant by referring to the "director" as the one in control of what goes in or out in a video. I wrote a post regarding this same issue with some members that had a similar situation where they were barely seen within the Sayonara Crawl video, I think I put those thoughts there in the thread for that single, back some months ago.

 

I have that same feeling, I bet that close-up shots with those girls were taken but somewhere down the road they may have been taken out. It is obvious that what we get in the end within a music video or even a film is not all that was captured during filming.

 

I think that management is more than likely to point out the members they want to be featured the most, otherwise you wouldn't have members centering videos for singles that go in line with popularity and management push. But - and here is where I think I entwined the "director" term with something else - who is the person that edits the videos, chooses which takes are going to go into the video, etc? I doubt that they send someone from management to supervise the editing of a video. It could be possible though. Or perhaps whoever is in charge of the video is given a hierarchy list of members and the amount of importance they should have within the video.

 

My guess is that the editing of a video could go two ways:

 

1) Considering the members management wants exposed and the amount of exposure expected of them, the video is edited and then shown to someone in management for approval. I would like to point out that there is a precedent of Akimoto not knowing, or claiming of not knowing, how the Nogizaka46 video for Oide Shampoo would turn out, as he assured during the little backlash after a scene from that video in which members raise their skirts and show their underwear. Maybe it is a different situation for AKB/Sister groups? Who knows.

 

2) If we consider the possibility of management sending someone to supervise, I question how much power this person would have in the editing. He/she may just say: "I want this member to be shown more." etc.

 

So, here is the situation where I think I got this idea of "director" confused with something else. When I meant "director", I wasn't necessarily thinking about the one that captures the footage and sets the scenes within the video, I was thinking of "director" more in line to that person who sets, for example a TV program, and gives order to how the final product will play out. You may have seen them in TV Variety, giving orders and stuff. I failed to produce this idea properly and confused things.

 

Now, it is quite likely that the director (the one that makes the filming) makes function of editor or maybe not. I was watching for example, the ending credits of the Koi Suru Fortune Cookie video and you can see that there is a lot of staff in charge of different positions in the creation of the video which leads me to believe that the task may be quite divided between different people with some kind of responsibility entrusted on them. I don't have certainty of what functions each of those staff members mentioned there in the video have so I cannot elaborate, just speculate.

 

So that is why I used the "director" term, as some sort of umbrella term to say: he or those that have the saying to exercise judgement in the editing as to leave someone out or in within a video.

 

My opinion is that someone from management sees the final product, but he/she is not actually active in the process of editing, at least not to the extent of picking each scene one by one. That task is likely left in charge on one of the staff members in charge of editing, whoever he/she is.

 

So yeah, I feel that whoever edits the video does follow some guidelines from management, but then management does not have complete control of each scene shown within the video so that responsibility must fall into the one(s) who edit the video. Unless we remit to the idea above, the conspiracy theory that management can pass a straight order of lowering for example Mieko's screentime.

 

 

I am pretty sure a lot of people hardly knows who she is. And even worse, a lot of people don't really know how vastly talented she is.

She has a great demeanor and personality.
She has a great voice.
She plays the piano.
She composes her own music.
She released an album - music and lyrics composed by herself - before she became an idol.

In short, she is one of those girls in the groups that should be able to do more, but is just shoved in the back. As some sort of extra.

And she definitely doesn't have time, as she's 27...

 

And allow me to add another good point of her:

 

She is very caring of her fans. Some days ago she finished a series of videos in which she answered fan letters. That is something very special to do for your fans.