This week’s VIDEO OF THE WEEK is one of my favorite VOTW that we have featured and I’m glad I delayed the release a day to ensure I had the right amount of time to really share this honestly. The Kevan Funk Directed promo for Braids “Taste” highlights a very relevant topic of Body Culture in our society and couldn’t have been achieved in a more genuine way.

The topic of Positive Body Image in the media has been addressed time and again in various forms and is a great cause to get behind in whatever way you can. However often, and in no critique to the style, they are often very forward and ‘preachy’ in their approach. This is important to open the dialogue but I am yet to see Positive Body Images being displayed in the media as an everyday sight that doesn’t need any attention. This is something “Taste” actively achieves in it’s subtlety to the imagery in the video.

The video begins as we see Braids sing along to the song whilst various elements of everyday people are showcased such as their bare backs and limbs. A group of dancers perform in their underwear under the low key lighting of what appears to be a community center, and for the majority of the video we are given these elements to watch and absorb. Then suddenly but almost without impact we are shown images of these everyday men and women in exposed nude shots as they follow the same pattern of staring out into the world with a sense of melancholy and loneliness. The video subtly drives homes these messages without trying to make a big deal of the nudity displayed on screen as it cuts back and forth between the original strands and the new nude strands of the story. Also not to forget the clever use of a more classic 4:3 aspect ratio helps paint these images as portraits rather than frames of a video.

This is a lovely approach to the topic, simply inputting these images for your consideration without attaching a larger meaning other than “these are all people in the world, this is what we all look like, and that’s it”. A great achievement from Funk and a worthy video.