Kinga Burza

Im going to talk about Kinga Burza as a music video director and how she could be very influencial in our own work. Okay so here's a brief biography, Burza was born in Australia before moving to London in 2005. Shortly after, she signed with film company 'Partizan' of Michel Gondry fame in 2006. Whilst at university, Burza began to teach herself by making amateur films of her boyfriend (Sydney musician Jack Ladder) and other friends she had with bands.

Since being in the UK, she has created music videos for artists such as; Kate Nash, Ladyhawke, Katy Perry, Calvin Harris, La Roux and Noisettes. All of which I would say have elements of originality and huge creativity, and I feel that Burza portrays this in their music videos with kitsch costumes/sets and playing with animation and frame compostion.

Burza directed Kate Nash's 'Pumpkin Soup' in 2007, I like the way she plays with kitsch elements in all of her videos for example in this video I have taken this still from the line, "You're chatting to me like we connect" I particularly like the concept of them both sitting on the oversized telephone rather than something simple like a shot of a basic phone call conversation.

Another example of Burza playing with the surreal ideas of oversized objects is shown in the picture below of the exaggerated love heart sweets, once again it's a recurring theme in her work, especially with Kate Nash.


I've been looking at a few of the Kate Nash videos by Kinga Burza, in the video for 'Mouthwash' i really like this shot of Kate in the mirror singing the opening line, "This is my face. Covered in freckles..." I like the relationship between lyrics and visuals as she sings to herself in the mirror, and we can see this due to the positioning of the shot.


The final video I looked at for Kate Nash was 'Caroline's a victim'. The stills below show Kate putting the cassette into the player at the start, and pressing the stop button at the end. I like this idea because it's almost as though this is just a girl in her bedroom having a sing a long listening to her favourite song :) It is also marks the start and end of the song very clearly but once again with a kitsch twist of the retro cassette player.



We are hoping to get layering into our music video via experimenting with final cut express, I think this shot in the bedroom has worked effectively with the layering, to show Kate three times over, each time playing a different instrument. When we try this out we will have to make sure the camera is perfectly still so we get the perfect shot!!


I love this close up from 'Caroline's a victim' as she walks across the bedroom floor, it's simple but adds variety within shot types, which is important in any pacey up-beat music video! Once again keeping with the kitsch elements by having 'Caroline' in cloloured tights and colourful mise en scene surrounding her.

These are just a few inital videos by Burza that stick out to me for inspiration when looking at ideas and concepts for our own video. I have mostly looked at her work with Kate Nash, because we also are creating a video by a stong independant female musician (Santigold) with exciting artistic visions! :)