Flint (For The Unemployed And Underpaid) - Sufjan Stevens

My first music video and edit ever ! \o/(I know...)
when I first heard this song by Sufjan Stevens, I immidiately thought of these old American videos of the 40s/50s depicting the wonderful world of work and the industry.
I though maybe the speed and tone of these black & white scenes would constrast with the slowness of the mysic and sadness of the lyrics.
So I made this, from bits I took from various films available under Creative Commons on The Internet Archive.
http://www.archive.org

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Flint
• Sufjan
• Stevens
• Work
• Industry
• Unemployed

[Excusemytrench]

It's great to see your comments about your own town. You know, initially I just liked the song because it reminded me of the situation Northern France (the area where I'm from)went through when the factories that supported the place crumbled.

I felt personnally related to it because of this, although Flint seemed a distant reality to me, of course.

Reading your comments makes it much closer. And it's great to think the web enables that (OH NOW! THAT'S NEWS! :p)

[titotitotitozzz]

i liked this alot but it loads really slow (the file is 9.6mb). i wonder if you could compress

it to make it load faster?

[Excusemytrench]

I tried various formats and finally landed on this one a bit at random (teehee), but I'll try to, yes.

[matnsas]

Damn, I was going to make a video like this. But it seems you beat me to it. Good job. I love this song.

[Excusemytrench]

Why "was"? I often keep myself from using an idea I find too close to another one I've already seen used elsewhere. But now I realize I shouldn't. :p

Not to mention the fact I've seen many videos like this in the meantime. God... Don't you think the Internet makes you feel completely unoriginal?

[Excusemytrench]

Thanks! I'm not happy with everything (the titles, for example :p) but all in all, the result is close to what I wanted, so..

[neiltay2002]

Thanks for this. Fantastically appropriate video to accompany the music, Brilliant.

[jabarshi]

Oneohtrix Point Never's song 'Replica' sounds a bit like the opening tune

[justinmarshall36]

Very nice video, goes well with the song. Good job!

[driaslow]

@totalis2: I normally use clustur. com

[TheRui1991]

The most depressing song ever. Mesmerizing...

[BigJohnSawyer]

A lot of those machines look like the ones I was just cutting up at a scrapyard in Flint.

[kaytvset]

Could have used footage of cars being made.

[kenmeyerjr]

I also have to commend the film maker...at 1:57, the music ascends as the vehicle raises the canisters...great attention to detail.

[kenmeyerjr]

One of the most aurally beautiful songs Stevens has done,and that is pretty high praise.

[miawallacexx]

you can set really ANY sufjan song to a black and white film. truly beautiful.

[SurrealistNerd]

Detroit native here, I was really happy when I saw that Sufjan did a tribute album for Michigan. A lot of people are hurting right now and it's amazing that such a great artist like him could interpret what everyone has been feeling and thinking for us Michiganders.

On another note, the video goes really well with the video too. Great work!