It would seem that V2 Music artist The White Stripes have taken Bjork’s place as Michel Gondry’s muse. “Denial Twist” marks the fourth video that the director and band have collaborated on. Leaving in their wake a pile of Legos and 20-some odd drum kits, they now tackle the Conan O’Brien Show. This may seem an odd setting for video- maybe even a bit like shameless plug for The Late Show- but in fact, Gondry is reconstructing a day out of a week in the White Stripe’s life. Many readers may remember when their album ‘Elephant’ was released, the Stripes played Conan five consecutive nights to promote the record.
Gondry has taken this and applied his classic signatures to it: recursion, the one-take on a perspective-distorted set, and the injection of some autobiography. In the video, Jack and Meg are oddly distorted and elongated while Conan is Conan, but with his head grafted onto a dwarf. While you can instantly tell you are watching a Gondry video here, it’s still visually fresh and innovative. There is something uncanny and disturbing about the effects. The integration of two-dimensional imagery from the show’s broadcast with Gondry’s 3-D set leaves the brain swimming from all the spatial and temporal displacement.
There is a lot of talking and extraneous sound in this video, which either says something for the daring of the label’s marketing or the clout that the band and director have when making creative decisions. At one point, The band sits with Conan to talk and they bring him out a giant plaster replica of the host’s head. In fact, this head was actually made by Gondry as a gift for Conan; he thought it would be humorous to integrate this into the video. Indeed it does heighten the surreal self-referential nature of the clip and draws his creative hand into the fold of the rip in space-time where the fictional video and the actual event are twisted together.
The video mirrors how that week must have gone for the band; like it may never end. The Stripes drive home to watch their performance on the show after the taping and find that their TV has bad reception. Frustrated, Meg kicks the set, accidentally putting her foot through it and crushing the piano that Jack plays on the Conan show. This of course, is something that happens in the beginning of the video with no apparent reason or explanation, and as the video comes full circle, is finally revealed. Conan arrives at the apartment to watch the show and laments how big and square his head is.
Gondry delivers another great video that will hopefully become part of a second volume of Director’s Cut dvds.
Watch The White Stripes “The Denial Twist” Music Video:
Artist: White Stripes Song: The Denial Twist Label: V2 Music Director: Michel Gondry Production Co.: Partizan
Thoughts of a Falling Glass Man is the third promo by Sherbet’s Adam Aiken and Shelley Revill. Commissioned by Benbecula Records for the eclectic music maestro Lawry Joseph Tilbury aka Birdengine, it took the pair just three and half weeks to complete.
With the use of found objects and peculiar sound samples, Birdengine’s music is truly unique and the video set’s out to mirror this using patched together hand made imagery as well as found objects to create the look.
The video shows a world made up of clockwork creatures living in harmony. After surviving an attack they set about mending their ailing creator and bring him slowly back to life.
Adam and Shelley’s previous efforts have included videos for 4AD’s The Mountains Goats and the last ever video for The Delgados from Chemikal Underground Records.
Artist: Birdengine Title: Thoughts of A Falling Glass Man Directors: Adam Aiken and Shelley Revill Record Label:Benbecula Production:Sherbet
Mega-talented director, Joe Lynch, has a proven track record of working with high-end bands such as 311, Sugarcult, and Coal Chamber. Once the creator of the show, Uranium , he now has directed two videos for one of the top metal bands of the year, DevilDriver. From the fast-paced shots of “Nothing’s Wrong?” to the psychedelic 70′s look of “Hold Back the Day,” Lynch has ascended all expectation for the average metal video.
MVWire: What is the story behind the making of the first DevilDriver music video?
Joe Lynch: I met Dez Fafara, former vocalist of Coal Chamber, back in 2002. My last shoot before moving out to LA was going to be Coal chamber and I had been a fan for a couple of years. I told the bookers that if I was going to do the show, there were two bands they would have to get me: Static X and Coal Chamber. So, we did an interview with the latter. At the time, Coal Chamber was literally falling apart before my eyes. During the interview in New York City, they were openly fighting. Things were pretty volatile to begin with, and it was weird because here was a band I really loved, and they were fighting right in front of me. Since it was my last shoot, I might as well make something good out of it. I told Dez about the footage and asked if he would mind if I just cut something together. So, he told me to go ahead and do whatever. He wasn’t too enthused, you know, because I’m sure he got offers like that all the time. He gave me his number and told me that he was working on this other project, and if I wanted to be involved, that would be great. So, on the way to LA, I was literally on my laptop cutting the music video. Roadrunner liked it, though they had no clue what they’d use it for, since the album was kind of dead. I told them, “Do what you will with it.”
Meanwhile, Coal Chamber falls apart and I get a call from Dez within two weeks of my coming to LA. He says to come up to Santa Barbara, that he had a new band called DevilDriver, (named after the bells rung when the Devil is coming), and he wanted me to do something with them. Over the next six or seven months, they were recording, I would pop into the studio once in a while and shoot stills, and ended up making a photo-EPK. When it came time to Devildriver’s first video, Dez suggested to Roadrunner that I write on it, but they ended up going with Paul Brown, who had a bigger track record. About six months later, around April of last year, Dez calls me and says Roadrunner had given him an ultimatum: either he could put the money that he had left in his budget for Ozz Fest, and I’d do their music video on my own, or I could do a music video with Roadrunner and no Ozz Fest . Dez made the right decision to go with Ozz Fest , because without that exposure, there probably wouldn’t be a new album, and they wouldn’t be as strong as they are today. The fans saw that they were the real thing and not just some band riding on the success of a previous band.
Dez wanted to do the next video, even though he didn’t have the money. With DVX 100 cameras and 24P cameras, all I needed was the right concept or video strategy, and it could have a film look. The result was “Nothing’s Wrong?.” There’s probably 900 shots in the two minutes and forty seconds of that video. It was cutting so fast, it would make Michael Bay vomit! But that was the intensity that I wanted, plus I didn’t want to show the band in your typical light. So, in the video, you have the band just hanging out, joking around and making music. It was simple, effective, and it worked. We got the lights from the manager; I brought in the posters myself. The only thing I paid for was the gummy worms to keep everyone going. Roadrunner thought the video was awesome.
MVWire: “Hold Back the Day” was a great performance video with some nice effects. What was the idea behind the visuals?
JL: For “Hold Back the Day,” we wanted to do something different yet classic. Dez had shared in my belief that videos had been getting too dark and morbid. I like taking an idea and pushing it to places where a metal video would not go. Why not put the band into evil dead movies? Why not put the band back into the seventies? So, Dez and I bounced off ideas and we get to thinking about music videos we liked back in the day. We were thinking of Black Sabbath, Jimmy Hendrix and then it suddenly dawned on us that there was something you never saw in a metal video: color. Why haven’t we seen a lot of color?!? It would be great since he and Ozzy have a good personal friendship, so in a way, it would be a nice tip of the hat to the master. To my surprise, Roadrunner accepted the idea. I was skeptical because this was going to be a very effects-heavy video, and honestly didn’t have a lot of experience in that area.
I had a really good producer, who helped get Brass Knuckles involved, and had previously worked with Rory O’Donnell, an effects artist. So, I called him up, told him my idea, and asked how we could make it happen. In response, he formed Brainfart Digital , where he created all the digital side effects for the video. He was also on-hand at the shoot to supervise. We literally had eight hours of shooting altogether. It took probably four or five hours to pre-light, and we only had the warehouse until seven as a result of the meager budget. Thinking back on it now, we were about a month at post, and I’m not used to that at all. Because it was such a skeleton crew, everyone had a job to do; everyone felt like they were important and that they contributed to the video.
As we got into the video, the “retro” element was still missing. I thought it needed that “Pink Flloyd light show” kind of look. So, I finally stumbled upon Steve, who runs a company in San Francisco called Liquid Lights . I asked him if he would be interested in creating a tapestry of colors, shapes and lava-lamp effects. He agreed, and created four specific passes of lava-lamp effects and that alone made the outcome unbelievable. It was like we had really traveled back to the seventies!
My DP, Brett, suggested that we shoot HD on this one, over film or 24P DVX. Cost efficient-wise, the DVX would’ve been fine, but I couldn’t have the halo effect on everybody; I couldn’t have it looking like somebody in a garage did it.
The band needed to look like they were part of the environment shown on the green-screen behind them. Everytime the camera moved, the backgrounds had to be manipulated as well. Shooting the video on the HD Varicam was unbelievable because it enables you to make really awesome slow-motion effects. When you’re watching a band with that kind of energy, seeing them counteract and interplay in slow motion it’s a beautiful thing. I couldn’t believe this was in camera, instead of taking it to post and putting it through three or four different types of programs.
I cut the offline version myself, which was all of the performance on my Final Cut Pro system, and handed it off to Rory and the digital guys, and then I waited. Once Brainfart Digital and Liquid Lights were done with their elements, then we brought it into Brass Knuckles , who basically just cleaned it up. They added the movements in the background and basically keyed in all the shots. One thing I didn’t really take into account, since it was my first effects video, was how hard it was going to be for these guys to key out every single shot of the band. If you watch the video, the band is headbanging at a mile a minute and really just going all out. Brass Knuckles basically did a six-day job for us in three and at half the cost, it came out absolutely amazing. The video was on MTV in a week!
Credits:
DevilDriver “Nothing’s Wrong?”
Director: Joe Lynch Producer: Dez Fafara, Joe Lynch DP: Joe Lynch, Briana Mackay, Chris Wicke Editor: Joe Lynch Production Design: DevilDriver Comissioner: Lynda Kusnetz, Roadrunner Production Company: mintflavored
DevilDriver “Hold Back The Day”
Director: Joe Lynch Producer: Jason Faries DP: Brett Juskalian Editor: Joe Lynch Additional Editing: Rory O’ Donnell Production Design: Voislav Adronescu FX: Brainfart Digital & liquidlights.com Online Edit: Brass Knuckles Comissioner: Dave Rath, Roadrunner Production Company: mintflavored Executive Producer: Joe Lynch
The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater Presents; Film Comment Selects: An Evening with Anton Corbijn, Jonathan Glazer, Mark Romanek, and Stéphane Sednaoui – with Special Guest Michel Gondry.
In 2003 the newly formed Director’s Label released three DVD collections dedicated to the work of Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, and Chris Cunningham. The discs contain music videos, short films, documentaries, commercials, video installations, and other rarities. Newsweek promptly proclaimed the titles, “some of the best cinema made in the last decade.” The New York Times hailed the artists as “directors who transcend music.” And rabid fans sent the lavishly designed DVDs into certified gold and platinum orbits.
On Tuesday, September 13, at 7pm, the editors of the Film Society’s Film Comment magazine, Palm Pictures, and the Director’s Label will present a special event celebrating the release of the next volumes in the monographic series by four of today’s most innovative filmmakers: Anton Corbijn, Jonathan Glazer, Mark Romanek, and Stéphane Sednaoui.
FILM COMMENT SELECTS: AN EVENING WITH ANTON CORBIJN, JONATHAN GLAZER, MARK ROMANEK, AND STEPHANE SEDNAOUI will sample highlights including rare director’s cuts and previously unseen content, such as Sednaoui’s short film inspired by Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side”; Romanekian, featuring Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, and Robin Williams; and an excerpt from NotNa, Lance Bang’s new documentary on Corbijn. Both Romanek and Glazer have already ventured into features (Romanek directed One Hour Photo and Glazer Sexy Beast and Birth), Corbijn is working on his first feature (based on the life and death of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis), and we assume there will be an announcement any day now from Sednaoui.
Following the night’s screening, all four directors will be present onstage for a roundtable Q&A. And as if that wasn’t enough: The inimitable Michel Gondry will be on hand to MC the event.
GENERAL INFORMATION Special ticket prices for this event are $12 FSLC members and affiliates, $15 general public. The Walter Reade Theater is located at 165 W. 65th St., plaza level. Tickets are available at www.filmlinc.com or at the box office. There is a $1.25 surcharge per ticket bought online. For information, call (212) 875-5600.
The two Chrises (Chris Mills / Chris Grismer) at Spy Entertainment bring us a new video for what is sure to be one of the next big bands by the end of the year. It’s Motion City Soundtrack-another band that puts keyboards back into rock and gets the listener dancing again. Not so much in that Franz Ferdinand, Gang of Four way, but more like The Cars. The buzzy synth is very infectious and the influence of Ric Okasek can certainly be heard.
That’s probably why the video for “Everything Is Alright” works so well. It has the fun and whimsy of a Cars video from the 80s. With the handheld camera moves and the cartoon-like effects, it pulls you into the fun of a good pop song. The video starts with
waiting room patients and a nurse mouthing the lyrics to the song. While they all sing the same thing, each one puts it into a different context. The girl is singing along with a walkman,
a schizophrenic talks to himself, and the nurse asks lead singer Justin Pierre if “everything is alright.”
Obviously everything isn’t, despite his assurance. After going through the motions of lip-synching a pre-scripted response, he dizzily stumbles down a claustrophobic hall to a psychotherapist. It’s the good old-fashioned Freud-with-a couch kind of
psychotherapist too. In the true spirit of an 80′s pop video, the singer’s performance is staged as a confessional (think Tommy Tutones’s ’867-5309′ video). The video gets Gondryesque when
the shelf behind him pulls away to reveal a small box of a set that is Justin’s brain. It’s a really great set; it’s neon pink with lights and flat paintings on the sides to represent the brain’s
interior. The band plays inside, like they are an internalized monologue bemoaning his crippling obsessive-compulsions. They are the voices in his head perhaps. The boxy stage integrates
perfectly with Mills’ signature flat-panel/3D animations.
Eventually, a nurse comes in and she and the doctor try to coerce Justin into some anger therapy. He seems to empathize with the catatonic dummy sitting next to him, and rather than pommel it with the Nerf bat, resigns himself to collapsing motionless beside it. Maybe he escapes into peace and quiet, but everyone who sees this video will have this catchy song and its Moog synth hooks in their head all day.
This collaboration between Mills (Modest Mouse) and Grismer (Stars) brings the best of what both can offer to the table. Seconds anyone?
