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MUSIC VIDEOS

Stash Media Inc. Editor: Stephen Price Publisher: Greg robins Associate editor: HEATHER GRIEVE Associate publisher: CHRISTINE STEAD Account managers: STACY JAMES FRY, APRIL HARVEY Producer: BRANDON DEMARCO Submissions coordinator: ABBEY KERR Music editor: STEVE MARCHESE Proofing editor: MARILEE BOITSON Preview director/producer: STACY JAMES FRY Preview editor: JEAN-DENIS ROUETTE Montage editor: JEFF ZEMETIS Contributing producer: ERIC ALBA Technical guidance: IAN HASKIN Get your inspiration delivered monthly.

Every issue of Stash DVD magazine is packed with outstanding animation and VFX for design and advertising.

Subscribe now: WWW.STASHMEDIA.TV ISSN 1712-5928 Subscrptions: www.stashmedia.tv.

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Contact: Stash Media Inc. 484-1641 Lonsdale Avenue, North Vancouver, BC V7M 2J5 Canada Legal things: Stash Magazine and Stash DVD are published 12 times per year by Stash Media Inc. All rights reserved and contents copyright Stash Media Inc. No part of this booklet nor the Stash DVD may be copied without express written permission from the publisher.

Printed in Canada.

MUSIC VIDEOS

Music videos are peculiar creatures – two-headed beasts with one head focused on selling a musical act and the other distracted by the artistry of sculpting visuals to audio. This dichotomy is jumbled further by music videos created not just to promote a product but to be the product itself.

While compiling the list of music videos for this special collection, I began to wonder which of these visual treasures were made with which of those two heads. With all the marketing blockbusters and the abstract “art” videos out there, what I wanted to see was a collection of clips that fit into both categories; the chart-topping stars who choose the visually risky route despite their rank in a money-means-everything industry, and the obscure group who launches themselves toward stardom aboard a breakout marketing tool.

Stash owes a lot to both camps, so I’d like to thank all the artists, animators, directors and labels who submit their music videos to us every month. Whether they were forged out of a passion to create something of artistic beauty, or to perpetuate corporate motion, we salute you.

I also need to thank Stash’s very own music editor Steve Marchese for his input in assembling this collection.

If you discover your favorite video didn’t make the cut, I would love to hear from you – but before you jump to your email, I can let you in on a secret; this is only the first in a series of Stash music video collections. Here’s hoping they are all filled with peculiar creatures and two-headed beasts.

Heather Grieve Associate Editor Toronto, February 2008 hg@stashmedia.tv

stash 01.29 “We Will Rock You” Music video 2:39 Record Company: Universal Licensing Music Agency: BETC EURO RSCG Directors/designers: Soandsau Production: Wizz Animation: Invisible www.invisible.fr When an Evian spot, directed

by SoandSau (Jean Christophe Saurel and Sophie Deiss) and fueled by a reworking of Queen’s anthem, caught fire last year the agency and music label pounced.

The resulting full-length video, says the French helming duo, was produced on a ridiculously short schedule but allowed them to develop ideas not possible in the commercial. Wizz and Invisible are based in Paris.

For Wizz: Producer: François Brun For Invisible Animation Super: Alexis Lavillat PM: Adeline Deorsola Animation: Jean-Yves Castillon, David Cez, Nicolas Guilloteau, Gark Compositer: Karl Bourdin Toolkit After Effects

stash 01.30 EMILIE SIMON “FLOWERS” Music video 2:35 Music label: BARCLAY/UNIVERSAL MUSIC FRANCE Directors: No Brain Production: Cosa Animation NO BRAIN www.no.brain.free.fr French animation/direction collective No Brain have built a quick reputation for their mixed techniques and fresh vision that Cosa EP Julien Rigoulot describes as, “an incredible, precious authenticity”. Because of budget concerns, Flowers - originally pitched as a combination of stopmotion and CG - was animated entirelly in 3D except for several seconds of the music box.

For Cosa EP: Julien Rigoulot For No Brain Design: Guillaume Post producer: Niko 3D: Charly, Spawn, Bart, Rémi, Gaelle

2D: Bheu©,, Sylvain, Mat, Binjo, g-Lul Backgrounds: Isa Editor: Delphine Boudon Toolkit 3ds Max, After Effects

stash 03.21 BJORK “OCEANIA” Music video Directors: LYNN FOX Production: COLONEL BLIMP Animation/compositing: LYNN FOX www.lynnfox.co.uk Words seem inadequate to describe Bjork’s music as they do this video, a product of the mercurial singer’s ongoing collaboration with UK directorial collective Lynn Fox who also handled 3D and compositing.

For Colonel Blimp Producer: Anna Brunaro For The Mill Producer: Bumble Davis Telecine: Adam Scott VFX super/Flame: Paul Marangos Flame assistant: Jay Bandlish Toolkit Flame, Spirit

stash 08.19 SUBTLE “FK-9” Music video Record Label: LEX RECORDS Director: SSSR Animation: SSSR/PASSION PICTURES www.passion-pictures.com London-based collective SSSR is comprised of Kristian Hammerstad and Marc Raisbig from Norway and Yu Sato from Japan who all graduated in Graphic Design from Central St Martin’s College of Art in 2004. This video, a nightmarish haze of 2D traditional animation, CG and photography is the trio’s third for Subtle. SSSR is newly signed to Passion Pictures for commercials and videos.

For SSSR Artists: Kristian Hammerstad, Marc Raisbig, Yu Sato

stash 08.20 BECK “E-PRO” Music video Record Label: INTERSCOPE/GEFFEN Director: SHYNOLA Production: THE DIRECTOR’S BUREAU VFX/animation: SHYNOLA www.shynola.com London-based directing team Shynola (Gideon, Jason, Chris and Kenny) send Beck romping through a retro-tech vector underworld that begins when he digs up the grave of his pet dog.

The weightless and disorienting movements of the singer/ songwriter were created by locking off the camera, suspending him in a harness and then controlling his motions with a team of rugged puppeteers.

For The Director’s Bureau EP: Cayce Cole Producer: Eric Escott DP: Eric Schmidt AD: Mark Snalgrove Puppeteers: William Guyer, Kevin Carlson, Dave Barclay, James Murphy, Michelan Sisti, Greg Ballora Post: The Moving Picture Company

stash 09.20 THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS “BELIEVE” Music video For Factory Films Producer: John Madsen

Record Label: VIRGIN RECORDS

For Framestore CFC VFX super: Ben Cronin CGI super/TD: Andy Boyd 3D animators/TDs: Jamie Isles, Chris Syborn, Nicklas Andersson, Alex Doyle, Howard Sly, Anders Thonell, Don Mahmood, Dean Robinson, Kate Hood, Jake Mengers, Rob Holder Sr Inferno: Ben Cronin Inferno: Chris Redding Post producer: Rebecca Barbour Line producer: Linda Francini

Directors: DOM & NIC

Toolkit Image Based Lighting with Mental Ray, Maya, Inferno

Production: FACTORY FILMS VFX: FRAMESTORE CFC www.framestore-cfc.com During the shoot for the Renault “Hector’s Life” spot (Stash 07), Framestore CFC and directing team Dom & Nic shot tests using Mini DV. Intrigued with the feel and hand held look of the digital footage, the directors chose to use the format for this narrative promo that would have been too expensive in 35mm. With over 30 CG shots to do in a compressed schedule, senior TD Chris Syborn used Maya’s dynamic hair tools to handle the secondary motion required by the robot’s tail of cabling and wires. The final composite was completed in two weeks.

stash 09.28 GORILLAZ “FEEL GOOD INC.” Music video Record label: PARLOPHONE Directors: JAMIE HEWLETT, PETE CANDELAND Production/VFX/animation: PASSION PICTURES www.passion-pictures.com Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett, better known as the animated band Gorillaz, are back with their first album since their multi-million selling 2001 debut. This video for the first single fuses drawn and computer animation, painted backgrounds and treated live action. All the animation was done in-house at Passion Pictures with co-director Candeland helming a team of 35 animators, designers and compositors over a 12-week schedule.

For Passion Pictures EP: Andrew Ruhemann Producers: Emilie Walmsley, Cara Speller 2D animation: Robert Valley, Heath Kenny, Rikke Asbjorn AD: Daniel Cacouault Matte painter: Christobal de Oliveira CG animation: Wesley Coman CG supers: Chris Hemming, Antoine Moulineau Sr compositor: Johnny Still Compositing: Niamh Lines, Cassiano Prado, Ed Salkeld TD: Mark Wilson For Rushes VFX: Duncan Malcolm, Marcus Wood, Brian Carbin Producer: Carl Grinter Toolkit: Toonz, LightWave, Photoshop, After Effects

stash 10.21 AUDIO BULLYS “SHOT YOU DOWN” Music video Record label: VIRGIN RECORDS Director: JONAS ODELL Production: NEXUS, FILMTECKNARNA Animation/VFX: FILMTECKNARNA www.filmtecknarna.com Director Jonas Odell on creating the “Shot You Down” video in which he uses archival clips of Nancy Sinatra performing the original tune: “The way they [Audio Bullys] create a sound collage out of the original song and their own dance beats is quite remarkable.

Skewed, asymmetrical and uncompromising, the track is a piece of art. I felt I wanted to use the same approach visually as the band had musically when they put the track together; to work with visual “samples” and loops, and hopefully to adopt the same kind of irreverent and uncompromising attitude towards the material. It’s neither easy listening nor easy watching, but it should be at all times entertaining. Call me a Video Bully if you want, I don’t care… ”

For Virgin Records Commissioner: Jane Newton For Filmteckarna and Nexus Producers: Lina Stenberg, Julia Parfitt DP: Ben Moulden

stash 11.22 PHEONIX FOUNDATION “HITCHCOCK” Music video Record Label: FESTIVAL MUSHROOM RECORDS Director: REUBEN SUTHERLAND Production: JOYRIDER FILMS VFX: REUBEN SUTHERLAND www.joyriderfilms.co.uk

For Festival Mushroom Records Commissioner: Matt McLeod For Joyrider Films EP: Spencer Friend Director/DOP/VFX: Reuben Sutherland Toolkit After Effects

This mesmerizing clip takes on mythic proportions when you learn it was created by one man using only a digital still camera and After Effects. Director Reuben Sutherland (a Kiwi now living in London) shot the cars and the back plates on location in New Zealand. The photo-realistic Ladas were created via multi-layered stills enabling them to appear 3D, then animated and composited with the back plates in just one layer. All post was completed by Sutherland in After Effects.

stash 12.29 NINE INCH NAILS “ONLY” Music video Record label: I NOTHING Director: DAVID FINCHER Production/animation/VFX: DIGITAL DOMAIN www.d2.com Twenty years ago David Fincher began his directing career helming videos for pop heartthrob Rick Springfield. His work during the late eighties for acts like Paula Abdul, Madonna and Aerosmith lead to his narrative feature film debut with Alien 3 in 1992. This summer, with the help of Digital Domain, he stepped back into the video genre with this piece for NIN; his first collaboration with Trent Reznor since the opening title sequence for Se7en in 1995.

Digital Domain SVP Ed Ulbrich says Fincher has been toying with the pin box animation idea for almost 10 years, waiting for the right project and CG technology to coincide. According to VFX super Eric Barba “Only” contains 76 fully CG shots with ten more containing some live action (including the opening shot featuring his hand).

The hyper-real rendering, which makes it virtually impossible to tell the live action from the 3D shots, was accomplished with the ray tracing, HDR and global illumination abilities of VRay (a plug-in for 3ds Max) and a render farm of up to 800 machines.

The ten-week schedule included only six hours to shoot Reznor’s performance which was captured with DV on greenscreen with red and blue key lights to provide chroma information to help

drive the procedural pin block animation.

The project, which had up to 18 bodies assigned to it, was the first project Fincher has done at DD without storyboards, choosing instead to work out the interaction of Reznor’s performance and the desktop set in previs and the edit.

Check the Behind the Scenes feature on the DVD for more on this project.

For Digital Domain Head of production: Michael Pardee VFX super: Eric Barba VFX producer: Lisa Beroud Digital PM: Chris House Editor: Russ Glasgow CG super: Jay Barton Compositing super: Jonathan Hicks Flame: James Blevins Nuke composite: Greg Teegarden, Janelle Croshaw Color grader: Todd Sarsfield Pre-vis: John Allardice

Digital artists: Chris Norpchen, Piotr Karwas, Richard Morton, John Cooper, Dave Carlson, Patrick Perez, Rob Nederhorst, Jim Gaczkowski, Aaron Powell Tracking: Scott Edelstein Toolkit LightWave, Maya, 3ds Max, V-Ray, Nuke, Flame, Inferno

stash 13.24 SHERYL CROW “GOOD IS GOOD” Music video Record label: INTERSCOPE RECORDS Directors: KYLIE MATULICK, TODD MUELLER Production/design/animation: PSYOP www.psyop.tv Inspired by the beauty of Australia’s Byron Bay beach, New York directors Matulick and Mueller assembled a style frame while still on the road, and as they remark, “Sheryl just loved it”. With Crow available for only two days of shooting, Psyop skipped their usual previs phase working back and forth with editor Brett Nicoletti of wild(child) to lock a cut. Crow was so pleased with the video she retained the team to create the cover art for Wildflower, her CD and DVD released in September.

For Psyop Flame: Eben Mears EPs: Justin Booth-Clibborn, Cath Berclaz Producer: Mariya Shikher Live action producer: Paul Middlemiss Lead 3D/TD: Domel Libid 3D: Chris Bach, Kevin Estey, Alvin Bae, Pakorn Bupphavesa, Laurent Barthelemy, Todd Akita, Vadim Turchin, Maurice Caicedo, Eric Lampi, Gerald Ding, Hay-yeun Lee Junior Flame: Jaime Aguirre, Joe Vitale

Tracking: Joerg Liebold, Chris Hill, Jan Cilliers Designers: Douglas Lee, Daniel Piwowarzik, Babak Radboy 2D: Josh Harvey, BeeJin Tan, Mats Aanderson Roto: Chris Halstead, Adam Van Dine, Ella Boliver, Joshua Bush, Chad Nau, Kirstin Hall, Danielle Leiser, Stefania Gallico Storyboard: Benjamin Chan

For wild(child) Editor: Brett Nicoletti Toolkit Flame, Maya, Photoshop, After Effects

stash 13.26 ALIAS “SIXES LAST” Music video Record label: ANTICON Director: ARVIND PALEP Animation/VFX: 1ST AVE MACHINE www.1stavemachine.com Working from an open brief, NYC’s 1st Ave Machine creates the contents of an alien greenhouse where evolution has been coaxed off course. “[The video] is about how artificiality is creeping into the modern day world,” explains director Arvind Palep, “We were looking at a merge between synthetic biology, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence and what could spawn from them.” The live action was shot on HDV at New York’s botanical gardens with the alien flora added with 3ds Max and rendered in VRay .

For 1st Ave Machine Director: Arvin Palep Producer: Serge Patzak Toolkit 3ds Max, VRay, Sony HDV Camcorder

stash 13.28 FUNKSTÖRUNG “PUNK MOTHERFUCKER” Music video (student film) Director: JAN MATHIAS STEINFORTH www.mateuniverse.de School: HAWK HILDESHEIM, GERMANY www.fh-hildesheim.de Global Student Animation Awards winner of the VFX category and Best of 2005.

While many of the scores across the three GSAA categories where very close, this music video for the German band Funkstörung was given superlative marks by almost every judge with several scoring it a perfect 40 out of 40.

Working with the idea that one cannot run away from oneself, German graphic design student Jan Mathias Steinforth invokes a nightmare worthy of Kafka for the last project of his academic career.

Laboring to stay within the three-month deadline, Steinforth developed and storyboarded the idea, cast the actor, secured the locations, recruited the crew, directed the two-day shoot, designed the featured poster, got the band to do a special

version of the track, animated and composited the VFX and documented the entire process as required by the university.

Steinforth had some very specific ideas about the effect he wanted for the hallucinagenic poster, “The effect had to be automateable and had to be based on live-action source footage. But it couldn’t look like a cheap plug-in, so I did extensive work exploring possibilities to achieve stunning visuals with different programs and approaches. This final approach is done by kind of misusing Maya Fur. I especially like this idea of using a technology in a way it isn´t meant to be used to achieve an interesting effect.”

For !K9 Records Music: Michael Fakesch, Chris DeLuca (Funkstörung) For Mateuniverse Production: Dominika Hasse, Hans-Friedrich Müller Camera: Udo Sauer Best boy: Sven Windszus Cast: Ingmar Skrinjar Toolkit After Effects, Maya

stash 17.20 U-ZIQ “FALL OF ANTIOCH” Music video Record label: PLANETMU VIRGIN RECORDS Directors: STEPHAN BETZ, MEGID HOFF, FLORIAN WITZEL Production/animation/VFX: GEORG-SIMON-OHMFACHHOCHSCHULE NÜRNBERG www.fh-nuernberg.de FRAUNHOFER INSTITUTE www.iis.fraunhofer.de Post: DAS WERK www.das-werk.de Three students from the University of Applied Sciences Nuremberg found their inspiration for this video while listening to the U-ziq track on Windows Media Player with Particle Visualisation: “We were instantly thinking of some kind of pixels falling on urban landscapes.”

After viewing the trio’s animatic/ ripomatic for the video, the artist and his label agreed to donate the rights to the track. Total production time: 4 months.

Watch Behind the Scenes on the DVD

For Georg-Simon-OhmFachhochschule Nürnberg Directors: Stephan Betz, Megid Hoff, Florian Witzel Set support: Semin Kaynak, |Ingo Walde Conceptual/technical support: Gerhard Walliczek, Jorgen Schopper

For Virgin Records Rights releasing: Bencur Zon For Das Werk Da Vinci: Florian Wold Inferno: Florian Decker, Ute Engel Toolkit Softimage XSI, Da Vinci, Inferno

stash 20.22 COLDER “TO THE MUSIC” Music video Record label: OUTPUT RECORDINGS CD: MATT CLARK Production/design: UNITED VISUAL ARTISTS www.uva.co.uk Based in London, United Visual Artists produce an eclectic range of work mixing elements of animation, live performance, motion-capture, sculpture, design and programming into both fine and applied art. This piece for Parisian electronic act Colder – UVA’s first music video – uses custom software to expand on the aesthetic of broken 3D scanning and motion capture demos of 20 years ago. UVA CD Matt Clark says the striking look was inspired by what he describes as the group’s “interest in the beauty of digital errors.”

stash 21.22 JEREMY WARMSLEY “DIRTY BLUE JEANS” Music video Record label: TRANSGRESSIVE RECORDS Director: BEN ROLLASON Production/VFX: DRAW PICTURES www.drawpictures.co.uk The disquieting angst of the semi-frozen characters in this video is a result of the director’s obsession with blending video frames together – as many as 700 at a time – and the purposely awkward poses he inflicts on his actors. Director Rollason, who says he “wanted to create a kind of paranoiac sense of having fallen out of the world,” opted for a green screen shoot after discovering a rear projection system would cost more than the £5K he had for the entire video.

For Transgressive Records Commissioner: Tim Dellow, Toby L For Draw Pictures Producer: Will Misselbrook PM: Andy Bell 1st assistant director: Adam Morris 2nd assistant director: Ian Hughes DOP: Stein Stie Focus puller: Karl Hui Camera assist: Raquel Mayumi AD: Aimee Paton Art assist: Leah Production runners: Eduardo Twouse, Louis Gill Hair/make-up/styling: Anastasia Pappas Backdrop photography: Johanna Ruebel Additional backdrop photography: Sarah Severson, Ben Rollason Editor/VFX: Ben Rollason Toolkit Sony Digital Betacam, After Effects

stash 22.17 GNARLS BARKLEY “CRAZY” Music video Record label: DOWNTOWN RECORDS, WARNER MUSIC Director: ROBERT HALES Production: HSI For HSI Director: Robert Hales Line producer: Coleen Haynes DP: Damien Avecedo Editor: Ken Mauwe For Bl:nd CD: Vanessa Marzaroli EP: Santino Sladavic Line producer: Susan Harris Designers: Christine Kim, Bryan Louie, Atsusuhi Ishisuka, Lawrence Wyatt, Vanessa Marzaroli, Po Thientuma Animators: Atsushi Ishisuka, Lawrence Wyatt, David Yan, Trevor Shepard, Andre Salyer, Jesse Franklin, Benji Schuup, Bill Sneed, John Robson Flame: Joel Ashman Mattes: Owen Hammer Tools After Effects, 3ds Max, Final Cut Pro HD

Design/VFX: BL:ND www.blind.com Director Robert Hales’ pitch for Crazy was based on the song’s title and he won the gig because Cee-Lo, a member of the Gnarls Barkley duo, underwent an actual Rorschach test when he was a child. With only 14 days to complete the project, Bl:nd CD Vanessa Marzaroli says she and her crew of nine designer/ animators, “worked up until the very last minute.” The video is one of the most seen of all time with over four million views on YouTube in its first month. Crazy was also the first song to hit the top of the UK charts from download sales alone.

stash 24.17 THOM YORKE “HARROWDOWN HILL” Music video Record label: XL RECORDINGS Director: CHEL WHITE Production/animation: BENT IMAGE LAB www.bentimagelab.com Director Chel White curates a series of disparate filmmaking techniques – including digitally simulated swing tilt lens cinematography, structuralist stop motion, high-speed underwater footage, time lapse, and a customfiltered film transfer process – into an enigmatic and emotional clip for the first single from Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke’s debut solo album. From the first listen White says he saw the song in different chapters, each with a distinct visual approach, “I was concerned that one single technique for the entire four and a half minutes would not only get a little tiresome, but wouldn’t do justice to what I saw as the evolving nature of the song.”

For XL Recordings Video commissioner: Dilly Gent

For Bent Image Lab EPs: David Cress, Chel White, Ray DiCarlo Eagle animation: David Russo Time-lapse photography: Mark Eifert Editor: Kelly McClean Small-gantics development: Jim Clark Small-gantics leader: Jalal Jemison Underwater DP: Christopher Pearson

Digital colorists: Jim Barrett, Jake Buff, Orland Nutt Producers: Tsui Ling Toomer, Isham Martin Assistant editor: Ryan Jeffery Small-gantics team: Carlos Stevens, Loren Judah, Jonny Hamilton, Brian Kinkley, Steve Blazer, Alan Winston CG flock of birds: Fred Ruff Stock footage research: Zach Lewis Assistant director: Laura McGie

stash 24.27 THE HORRORS “SHEENA IS A PARASITE” Music video Record label: LOOG/POLYDOR Director: CHRIS CUNNINGHAM VFX: GOLDEN SQUARE www.goldensq.com

Director/editor: Chris Cunningham Producer: James Wilson For Golden Sqaure Inferno: Rachel Mills Toolkit Inferno

Seven years after his landmark work for Bjork on “All is Full of Love”, director Chris Cunningham returns to music videos with this low-budget effort for a band he found on MySpace. The majority of the piece, which features an unbelievably intense performance

by Samantha Morton, visceral explosions and gag-inducing facial prosthetics, was shot in studio on DV CAM with additional elements shot later by the director at home to fit into his edit. “The post work involved multi-layer composites, seamless transitions between takes and cleaning up backgrounds,” says producer James Wilson. “One of the challenges of working on the video was the frame accuracy of the visual/audio synchronization. This predetermined the necessity to use multiple takes for the shots to sync perfectly.”

stash 24.28 MADONNA “GET TOGETHER” Music video Record label: WARNER BROS. Director: LOGAN Design/animation LOGAN www.hellologan.com It took six weeks of work by what co-director Ben Conrad calls an “endless army of animators” to create this visually chewy piece of eye candy. All the work was done in-house at Logan’s Venice studio and began with the extraction of Madonna’s performance out of existing concert footage then converting those frames to hi-con images and colorizing them.

Meanwhile, the 3D team was constructing an array of growing, pulsing, melting, psycho-surreal 3D environments. The treated concert clips were then tracked into those environments. As complex and engaging as the video is, Conrad is upfront about the fact the challenge on this project was to dress up a club track and went with a treatment that felt appropriate – citing erotic comic artists like Italian Milo Manara as influences. One of the pitch frames that won Logan the job is at the bottom of the page.

For Warner Bros.

Commissioner: Lydia Sarn

stash 24.31 THE WHITE STRIPES “THE DENIAL TWIST” Music video Record label: XL RECORDINGS Director: MICHEL GONDRY Production: PARTIZAN Post: THE MILL NY www.the-mill.com

For Partizan Producer: Julie Fong Director: Michel Gondry For The Mill CD: Angus Kneale Lead Flame: Angus Kneale, Richard de Carteret Flame: Tara DeMarco, David Parker, Westley Sarokin, Jamie Scott Flame assist: Jeanette Williford, Anu Nagaraj, Greg Gilpatrick

Smoke: Jeff Robbins Post producer: Melanie Wickham 3D producer: Asher Edwards Telecine: Tom Poole Telecine producer: Angela Botta CGI: Doug Luka, Arlene Persaud, Sam Kim, Wyatt Savarese Shoot super: Aron Hjartarson, Westley Sarokin Toolkit Flame, Spirit, Combustion, Shake, Maya, 3DE, Photoshop

For the optically warped fourth music video collaboration between director Michel Gondry and Detroit rock duo The White Stripes, the team at the Mill NY had more than their hands full. To work with the anamorphically adjusted set where props, furniture, and backgrounds were all half or double their normal height, Flame artists Angus Kneale and Richard de Carteret digitally expanded and compressed the rooms and characters to give the correct distortion, while the CG team was kept busy with extensive tracking, 3D reconstruction and match moving to the single steadycam shot. According to Kneale the entire project was worth it just “to be a part of another one of Michel’s simple, yet ingenious ideas”.

stash 26.08 CONSTANTINES “WORKING FULL-TIME” Music video Record label: SUBPOP / THREE GUT RECORDS Director: DREW LIGHTFOOT Production: THE REVOLVER FILM COMPANY For what may be the world’s first MV featuring performance footage of stop-motion rocks, Toronto animator/director Drew Lightfoot shot the band against white on DV to generate strong silhouettes and had two weeks to animate them.

For The Revolver Film Company Animators: Dale Hayward, Drew Lightfoot Editor: Jaron Albertin DP: Jeremy Benning Producer: Nick Sorbara EP: Jannie McInnes Corporate evil: Stewart Jones Toolkit Canon Super 8mm, Nikon D70, After Effects, Final Cut Pro

Watch Behind the Scenes material on the DVD.

stash 27.09 I LOVE YOU BUT I’VE CHOSEN DARKNESS “THE OWL” Music video Designer/director/animator: Emmanuel Ho Special thanks: Chris Abbey, Susan Brennan, Yussef Cole, Todd Fuller, Micah Hahn, Nathan Neely, Jaan Shenberger Toolkit After Effects, Photoshop, Blender

Record label: SECRETLY CANADIAN Director: EMMANUEL HO Animation: EMMANUEL HO www.emmanuelho.com Working alone and with an open brief, Canadian designer/animator/ director Emmanuel Ho creates a tense, emotional mini-masterwork for the band I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness and their label Secretly Canadian. Bold compositions, a restricted palette and sharp editing all contribute to the power of this comment on blind faith and cruelty. “The entire project was fairly difficult to pull off in almost too many ways to mention,” reveals Ho. “I ran into a lot of dead ends.

Thankfully the band and label were not pressuring me in any specific direction which allowed for experimentation and finessing.”

The clip opens the show for the band’s 2006 European tour.

Schedule: one month.

stash 27.17 GNARLS BARKLEY “GONE DADDY GONE” Music video Record label: DOWNTOWN RECORDS, WARNER MUSIC Director: CHRIS MILK Production: @RADICAL MEDIA Animation: SABOTAGE DEF2SHOOT www.def2shoot.com LA-based director Chris Milk (chrismilk.com), who has built a client list including Kanye West, Chemical Brothers, Courtney Love, Modest Mouse, Jet and Audioslave in his three-year MV career, takes this cover of the Violent Femmes track “Gone Daddy Gone” in a direction the band probably never anticipated. With the help of a dozen artists in the CG/VFX department of Def2shoot in Paris, Milk, who admits to feature film aspirations, creates an aura of over-the-top cuteness tempered with an unexpected creep factor that gets under your skin and stays there.

Toolkit 3ds Max, After Effects, Flame, Avid

stash 28.15 THE SOFTLIGHTES “HEART MADE OF SOUND” Music video Record label: MODULAR RECORDINGS Director: KRIS MOYES kmoyes.com Post: FRAME SET AND MATCH www.fsm.com.au Sydney-based Kris Moyes, an art grad who started helming music videos 12 months ago, is making a name for himself as a fearlessly experimental director. This overly ambitious stop-motion piece from The Softlightes first album (released January ‘07) burned through 164 set-ups (and an art director) in 14 straight shoot days.

Did he sleep at all? “Yes, I slept very well. I’m pretty organized so we were only shooting nine-hour days.” Post took another week.

For Frame Set and Match Producer: Bec Cubitt Flame: Phil Stuart-Jones HD colorist: Tristan La Fontaine

Toolkit Canon EOS 1DS Mark II, Fkane

Director/producer/DOP/editor: Kris Moyes ADs: Kris Moyes, Jonathan Zawada Camera operator: Sam Hendel Props buyers: Cameron Peters, Sharon McDonald

stash 28.16 SUBTLE “THE MERCURY CRAZE” Music video Record label: LEX RECORDS Director: SSSR Animation/design: PASSION PICTURES www.passion-pictures.com “The Mercury Craze”, a moody mix of 2D traditional animation, CG and photography, is the fourth collaboration between Oakland’s Subtle sextet and the Norwegian/ Japanese directing trio SSSR. Sian Rees of Passion Pictures says the video’s enigmatic narrative simply follows the lyrics of the song. “It describes a series of situations as the richest people in the world try to get hold of our hero’s blood to heal their sick children. His rare blood is abused and our hero becomes just another rich fool by the end.

It’s a poem about the notion of selling your soul – if you sell off part of yourself to everyone, then one day what will you have left?”

SSSR’s three previous promos for Subtle were released as a DVD called “Wishingbone” and won best music video at the British Animation Awards 2006.

For Lex Records Managing director: Tom Brown Label manager: William Skeaping For Passion Pictures SSSR: Kristian Hammerstad, Marc Raisbig, Yu Sato Toolkit After Effects, boujou, Cinema 4D, Final Cut Pro, Maya, Photoshop, 3D Studio Max

stash 29.09 SKANK “ONESONG” Music video Director: LOBO Production: THE EBELING GROUP Animation/VFX: LOBO www.lobo.cx In 1994 an escapee from MTV Brasil’s On-Air Graphics department named Mateus de Paula Santos founded Lobo with two friends. Twelve years later their adventures in relaxed inventiveness continue with this delightful integration of 3D and live action for popular Brazilian pop/ rock/reggae band Skank.

For Lobo EP: Luiz Carlos Reis Director: Mateus de Paula Santos

stash 29.16 COLDCUT “SOUND MIRRORS” Music video Record label: NINJA TUNE Director: UP THE RESOLUTION Animation/design: UP THE RESOLUTION www.uptheresolution.co.uk “This wasn’t the usual pitch/fight for a promo,” says Andrew Griffin of UTR about landing the video for the title track from Coldcut’s first album in eight years. “But instead we were invited by [Ninja Tune commissioner] Vez to work on our own interpretation of the track.

As a result, the brief was entirely open (subject to them liking it!).

The concept was to show an ambiguous organism that evolves with the music, travelling to the eponymous Sound Mirrors where it then blossoms.” The finished clip is a mix of 2D, 3D and heavily manipulated live action. Due to the low budget the promo was created in downtime between other jobs over the course of a year, which Griffin estimates as six to eight weeks of actual production time.

For Ninja Tune Commissioner: Vez For Up The Resolution Director/producer/animation/ design: Up The Resolution Toolkit After Effects, Maya, Photoshop, Illustrator

stash 29.22 THE KNIFE “LIKE A PEN” Music video Record label: MUTE RECORDS Director: ANDREAS NILSSON Animation/design: ANDREAS NILSSON www.silverbullit.se/andreas “Like A Pen” marks the fourth video by Andreas Nilsson for Swedish synth pop group The Knife. A long time collaborator and friend of the band, Nilsson is also the art director of the audiovisual component for their live performances. He admits his creative approach to this video, for which he created all the graphic components, was to “keep a sense of logic in something unlogical.”

Schedule: three weeks.

Director/animator: Andreas Nilsson B-Camera: Marcus Dimbodius Costume design: Britta Törner Animation assistant: Kristofer Nilsson Toolkit After Effects, Photoshop, Sketchup, Nikon d200

stash 29.25 “LOOK HERE KID” Music video (spec) Director: WES RICHARDSON Animation: WES RICHARDSON http://lookherekid.com “Look Here Kid” is NYC-based Wes Richardson’s little experiment with 3D and live action. The challenge was choosing where to add the graphic and 3D elements. “My solution lay within creating elements that mirror my personality and interests and placing them into the video where they best complimented the dancing. I developed a logo minimally representing the letter ‘L’ ( for lookherekid.com) which became the backbone for most of the graphics in the piece.”

Richardson directed, composed, animated and stars in the film. His mother, Carol, ran the one-woman hair and makeup department.

Director/editor/animation/dancer: Wes Richardson Hair/makeup: my mom Carol Music by “The Roots” Toolkit After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Cinema 4D, Photoshop, Illustrator

stash 30.08 CLARK “HERR BARR” Music video Record label: WARP RECORDS Director: R JAMES HEALEY Production: COLONEL BLIMP Animation/VFX: R JAMES HEALY

Writer/director/editing/ compositing: R James Healy 3D: R James Healy, Hege Berg, Duncan Robson Programming: Graham Jack Pearl scripting: Katherine Roberts

UK director/animator R James Healy has spent plenty of time in the 3D animation trenches of London at Glassworks, MPC, and currently, at Framestore CFC. He recently took three months off to complete this mesmerizing work for Warp Records and subsequently took top honors at the 2006 Radar Festival. “The look of this piece is a continuation of previous experiments, manipulating images by sampling,” reveals Healy. “The technique is largely influenced by the Vorticist paintings of David Bomberg, specifically, ‘In the Hold’. Bomberg drew a grid over his canvas then fragmented the picture into geometric shapes whilst retaining the dynamic of the original scene.”

stash 30.19 U2 “WINDOWS IN THE SKIES” Music video Record label: INTERSCOPE RECORDS Agency: MODERNISTA! Director: GARY KOEPKE Post/VFX: THE MILL NY www.the-mill.com After a monumental search through hundreds of hours of archival footage and the tedious matching of dozens of lips to snippets of lyrics, Modernista!

CD/director Gary Koepke and his editing team began collaborating with the Mill NY to finesse the illusion of famous vocalists singing U2’s Windows in the Sky. They used time warps, speed changes and, in a few cases, complex mouth manipulations to hit the required sync.

For Modernista!

Creatives: Gary Koepke, Nathan Naylor DOB: Charles Wolford Associate producer: Joyce Chen Editors: David Brodie, Max Koepke Assistant editor: Julian Wadsworth PA: Alejandra Ravassa

For The Mill NY CD: Angus Kneale Producers: Dan Williams, Verity Grantham Lead Flame: Dan Williams Flame: Dirk Greene, Richard de Carteret, Westley Sarokin, Gavin Wellsman, Mark French,

Aska Otake, Cole Schreiber Smoke: Jeff Robins, Tristian Wade Combustion: Jeanette Willford, Anu Nagaraj, Winston Lee Art support: Gigi Ng, Mary Casey 3D animators: Ben Smith, Pete Hamilton, Kevin Ives, Jin Choi, Emily Meger, Wyatt Savarese

stash 32.16 FAITHLESS “MUSIC MATTERS” Music video Record label: COLUMBIA RECORDS Director: LUIS NIETO Production: PARANOID US Animation: MIKROS IMAGE www.mikrosimage.fr

For Paranoid US EPs: Claude Letessier, Phillip Detchmendy Director: Luis Nieto For Mikros Image President: Maurice Prost Toolkit After Effects

Colombia native Luis Nieto studied visual communication and worked as an art director for several agencies before moving to France where he went back to school and shifted his focus to film direction.

His inventive and shockingly hilarious student film Carlitopolis (www.carlitopolis.com), better known as the mouse in a box project, won him wide recognition and representation with Paranoid US. This new video for UK hip hop/dance group Faithless (who were not available for a shoot) was created in just seven days and five nights at Mikros Image in Paris.

According to Paranoid EP Claude Letessier, the brief from the label for the video was simply, “Make it cool”.

stash 32.26 TRANS AM “TESCO V. SAINSBURYS” Music video Record label: THRILL JOCKEY RECORDS Director: LUNG Animation: LUNG London director Chris Harris, aka LUNG, says he didn’t want this promo for US trio Trans Am to be obviously recognizable as a music video. “I wanted the final product to be something you could stop anywhere and take a frame and it could stand up as an interesting image. The idea was to offset Trans Am’s aggressive track with a series of relentless four second segments, with no obvious style links and the concept coming from the continuation, i.e. the object enters left side and exits right, to form a barrage of ill eye assault.

As the track is pretty relentless in its linear style, I wanted to create rules linking the visual to the audio in concept alone, not stylistically.

I had the flu while I did it. I make no apologies, I think it helped.”

Schedule: one week, plus a day for editing.

Director/animator: LUNG Catering: The soft mechanics league Toolkit Final Cut Pro, After Effects, “Casio Elixim bottom of the range don’tknow-what cos I put a sticker over the serial code.”

stash 33.01 For Chased by Cowboys Director: Pleix Producer: Katharina Nicol For Mac Guff VFX director: Sebastien Rey EP: Jacques Bled Producer: Thomas Jacquet Creative team: Amelie Guyot, Guillaume Glachant, Laurent Pancaccini, Damien Viatte, Jeremy Delchiapo, Niklaus Bruneau Motion capture: Quantic Dream Toolkit Proprietary software: Trukor, Symbor

GROOVE ARMADA “GET DOWN” Music video Record label: SONY BMG Director: PLEIX Production: CHASED BY COWBOYS VFX: MAC GUFF www.macguff.fr There are only a handful of high-end VFX studios that have managed to stay vital for a single decade let alone two, and with this project for French directing collective Pleix the Paris studio of Mac Guff (they also have an LA office) demonstrate maturity has not slowed them down or dulled their sense of humor. Using their own software – Trukor for compositing and Symbor for rendering – the Paris studio render, multiply and integrate these motion-captured CG bunnies into 90 shots so well many in the industry (including the editor of this magazine) had believed the effect was achieved with a few excellent bunny suits and crowd replication.

Schedule: one day mocap, one day shoot, four weeks post.

stash 34.20 Justice “D.A.N.C.E.” Music video Record labels: Ed Banger Records Because Music Director: Jonas&François Production: El Niño @ 75 Animation: El Niño @ 75 www.elnino.tv This music video for French electronic duo Justice might have died a predictable, gimmicky death well before the thirty second mark but the young directing team of Jonas&François keep the surprises/sec high and prove themselves not just hip but also technically adept. Once the tracking was perfected, the duo found their carefully crafted animations were lost among the turbulent movements of the band members – so the choice to go black and white not only looks cool, it also keeps your attention on the t-shirts. Schedule: three weeks.

For El Niño @ 75 Director: Jonas&François Illustrations: So Me Animation: Jonas&François Producer: Greg Panteix Toolkit Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effects

stash 34.21 The Fratellis “Ole Black ‘N’ Blue Eyes” Music video Record label: Univesal Island Records Directors: Jon Yeo, John Sunter Production: Weilands For Universal Island Records Commissioner: Dave Graham For Weilands Directors: Jon Yeo, John Sunter Producer: Rhun Francis PA: Lauren Dark For The Mill Producer: Gilbert James Colorist: James Bamford Lead animators: François Roisin, Jules Jenaud Animators: Grant Walker, Clement Bolla, Matthieu Bessudo, Lucas Vigroux, Richard Costin, Douglas Laissance, Nora O’Sullivan Smoke: James Pratt Compositing: David Wahlberg, Mark Payne Animation editor: Daniel Budin Toolkit Flash, Photoshop, After Effects, XSI, Combustion, Final Cut Pro, Spirit

Animation: The Mill www.the-mill.com The brief was simple enough – create a promo with the The Fratellis band members as animated characters – the real challenge, according to codirector Jon Yeo was to find “a talented team with enough resources, who were willing to take on the job for the budget and timescale.” Turns out that team was hiding at The Mill in London – 10 animators including two out of three members of directing team Bif (François Roisin, Jules Jenaud).

As for Tina, the burly bank-robber in drag, Yeo and Sunter drew inspiration from Pete Fowler’s Monsterism illustrations and from Mongo the loveable oaf from Blazing Saddles.

Watch Behind the Scenes on the DVD.

stash 35.15 Justin Timberlake “LoveStoned” Music video Record label: Jive Records Director: Robert Hales Production: HSI Animation: Bl:nd Subvert www.blind.com www.subvert.us For their fifth collaboration ­– and their follow-up to 2006’s phenomenon “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley – HSI director Robert Hales and Santa Monica studio Bl:nd were asked to, “present a physical representation of Justin and his music directly interacting,” says Bl:nd CD Vanessa Marzaroli. “After the project was green lit, it was a whirlwind from supervising the shoot in Manchester, England straight into two weeks of production. The design and construction of the 3D environments, tracking and compositing in the latter part of the video were handled by Venice, CA, studio Subvert.

For HSI Director: Robert Hales EP: Coleen Haynes Post producer: Oualid Mouaness Editor: Ken Mowe DP: Jake Polonsky For Bl:nd CD: Vanessa Marzaroli EP: David Kleinman Producer: Claudina Mercado Designers/animators: Yan Ng, Maithy Tran, Craig Tollifson, Christian DeCastro, Jesse Franklin, Angie Tien, Lawrence Wyatt,

Sakona Kong, Gabriel Pulecio, Paul Lee Design exploration: Lauren Indovina, Christine Kim, Lawrence Wyatt, Christian DeCastro, Angela Zhu Keying/post assistant: Lin Wilde Prod coordinator: Vincent D’Angelo Flame: Alan Latteri

For Subvert Designer, VFX super, modeling, tracking, lighting, compositing: Dylan Nathan Post super, keying/roto, color correction, modeling: Eva Flodstrom Animator, modeling: Paul Nilsson EPs: Christopher Buckley, Michele Maples (Continuum Content) Toolkit After Effects, 3ds Max, Maya, Shake, Flame, Photoshop

stash 36.17 Fujiya & Miyagi “Ankle Injury” Music video Record label: Groenland Records Client: Martine McDonaghy @ Management Director: Wade Shotter Production: Factory Films Animation: Yukfoo www.yukfoo.net For Factory Films Director: Wade Shotter Producer: Paul Fennelly DP: Sam Brown For Yukfoo: Team: Alan Dickson, Julian Stokoe, Glen Real, Dan Sumich, Kristin Sagli, Tom Gravestock, Karl Wills, Hamish Beachman, Alex Dron, Thelonios Veltman For Digital Distortion Animator: Dan Sollis Toolkit After Effects, Photoshop

Former freelance illustrator and agency creative turned director Wade Shotter gives us the 411 on his intricate ode to pixilation: “There were no instructions from the client, which can be a good or a bad thing but in this case it was good. Most of it was created frame by frame in Photoshop. Initially I was going to shoot everything in camera, but the timeline and budget didn’t allow this. So I did the next best thing, which was to animate the clip with photographs of dice. Three animators, including myself, created the whole project in two months.”

stash 36.19 Liars “Plaster Casts of Everything” Music video Record label: Mute Records Director: Patrick Daughters Production: The Directors Bureau VFX: Method www.methodstudios.com Method, Santa Monica’s innovative VFX masters, take a vivid and jagged step off their familiar path of high-end spot work with this video for director Patrick Daughters of The Director’s Bureau. Recalling a mutational mix of Chris Cunningham and David Lynch, the spot uses intricate compositing and 2D light effects to rouse a disturbing comic creepiness that hurls the track high above the usual video channel clutter. Schedule: Shot June 24th, delivered July 20th.

For The Directors Bureau Director: Patrick Daughters Head of music videos: Lana Kim DP: Shawn Kim Producer: Anne Johnson

For Method Lead 2D VFX: Katrina Salicrup 2D VFX: Jake Montgomery, Kyle Obley, Ryan Raith, Sarah Eim, Zach Lo EP: Neysa Horsburgh HOP: Sue Troyan Producer : Sabrina Elizondo For Final Cut Editor: Mike Colao

Inspiration. Everywhere.

MUNICH BANGKOK

JAKARTA

KUALA LUMPUR

CAPETOWN NEW DELHI

ISTANBUL

MINNEAPOLIS

SANTA MONICA

SINGAPORE

BANGKOK

SAN DIEGO

HONG KONG

TOKYO SHENZHEN

TORONTO

VANCOUVER

NEW YORK

CARACAS

BELO HORIZONTE

LIMA LONDON

PARIS

TEL AVIV

GHENT

HAMBURG

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