Making music look good

So I managed to get on down to GLUG the other week & I wasn’t disappointed. The theme was music videos with top directors from the likes of Partizan, SkinFlicks, and Sony Music showcasing some of their best work. It really made me stop and fully appreciate the creativity and crazy amount of hard work that goes into producing some beautiful mini films that you never fully see or just catch a glimpse of.

Here’s a selection of my best video’s & the odd fact or two:

Phil Tidy who has produced some well known videos for the likes of Lily Allen, The Ting Tings, Dizzee Rascal to name a few, showed this great story of a hypocritical TV presenter in this video for Chase and Status. 

Mike O’Keefe of Sony revealed Jonathan Glazer had a budget of around £100k to produce Jamiroquai’s floor sliding Virtual Insanity. He then went a quarter of a million over budget creating the 3D creature coming out of the sea in the opening sequence of Deeper Underground.

Aside from these facts he showed us the brilliant piece of marketing for the launch of Kasabian's new track 'Underdog'. By recreating Guitar Hero on a massive scale and getting a West London football club to hits the notes at the right time by kicking a football at the relevant colour dot. Hours later of practise, the team manage the full version of the track. You can only imagine their elation.

Directed by Dan Henshaw.

Found Collective have produced some highly creative & powerful films for Pendulum, Depeche Mode and LadyTron. What caught my attention though was this cool viral made for Vodaphone to show The Evolution of the mobile phone. 

Found collective also collaborated on this piece for the Director's showcase in Cannes, making a kinect performance that can only be explained here. The effects produced as you can see are quite intriquing. 

We also got a sneak peak into some of the test video tricks from Henry Schofield of Partizan which was a highlight for me.

And I'd like to leave you with this beautiful film created by an upcoming Mexican Director, Alberto Gomez whose response to Saatchi's 'Hello, Future' music video competition no doubt won him some fans in Cannes where he was announced the Winner. His stylish and beautiful art directed interpretation of Moby's track takes the viewer to another realm.

After - Moby from Alberto Gomez on Vimeo.

What Type Are You?

Beautiful interactive film by Pentagram that explores the personality of typefaces by asking the viewer 'psychological' questions to determine their 'type'.
A Slavic speaking phrenologist asks four questions relating to your personality. The charm lies in the way he delves into your psyche: asking how relaxed you are by likening it to your approach to a box of chocolates. You are then presented with your 'type' and a short film telling you the history an characteristics of that font. I was Archetype Hairline - Modern, a straightforward appearance, with outbreaks of elegance and tiny dots of emotion.

Archetype hairline

Ahem, that's on a quiet day. Really I'm Archetype Doesburg - A brutally fair & assertive typeface, expressing strength of form and firmness of purpose. I'd "wrestle with anyone that says that C's are any less significant than E's". - Damn right!

Archetype Van Doesburg

Mary and Max

I saw a really heartwarming and beautiful animated film at the weekend. Mary and Max is a hour and half long story about two strangers that live on the other side of the globe to eachother, both struggling to get by in the odd world in which we live.
Mary Dinkle, a lonely eight year old living in Melbourne, decides
to pick someone randomly out of the phone book to write to and ask where babies come from. The lucky recipient of her bizarre questions and cherry-flavoured chocolate bar is Max Jerry Horowitz, an anxiety-ridden, forty five year old Jewish New York-en who attends over eaters anonymous once a week. Over time their questions and philosophies about the world see their friendship grow as they do. The film offers a great insight into the odd workings of human society, and lessons of friendship in a humourous and heartfelt way. The scene and characters are lovingly created from plasticine and beautifully directed by Adam Elliot.

Word Association Game, Everyone say Bleurgh!

WORDS from Everynone on Vimeo.

As simple as the Timmy mallet game this film by production studio Everynone is a visual play on words. If I didn't tell you that, you may not get it straight away, but as the film unfolds, the 'aha' moment makes you smile. Nice.