Description: Aluminum Studios creates music videos using footage from a wide variety of anime series including Sailormoon, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Serial Experiments Lain, Perfect Blue, and the first Pokemon movie. The studio draws on music as diverse as Sting and Nine Ince Nails. This is one of few music video studios that focuses on theme more often than series. As a result several of the music videos are multi-series. Even when Aluminum uses footage entirely from one series or movie, the music video is theme oriented.

Review:Aluminum Studios is my favorite music video creator. While not all of my favorite music videos are made by Aluminum, I love every Aluminum video that I have seen. The three sailor senshi tribute videos ("Dreams of Red," "Venus in a Bottle," and "Blue Mercury") all capture the essence of the character featured. Rather than simply taking a random assortment of screenshots and putting them to music, Aluminum clearly puts great thought into selected certain scenes for particular videos in order to convey a messsage. In order to communicate the mood or theme of the video, Aluminum alters some of the footage. Thus is "Blue Monday" (which I affectionately call "the slapping video") some of the footage is rendered negative or into a white on black line drawing to illustrate the harshness of anger and violence. The editing in Aluminum's music videos is superb. Rather than simply flashing one scene after another, the scenes are often blended or overlayed. Thus the music video becomes more than simply a fun companion to the series or movie, but a work of art in its own right.

Ratings: Design: 10 Editing: 10

Things to note: Because of the variety of anime series that Aluminum works with and the complexity of the themes, some of these videos are not suited for children.

More information, including where to get these music videos, can be found at www.aluminumstudios.com.

home           reviews