Accompanying the first track of the anticipated collaboration, Soused, between avant-garde crooner Scott Walker and sludgy noisemeisters Sunn O))) is an arresting short film by French director and choreographer Gisèle Vienne. Walker’s music — with or without Sunn O))) — is the stuff of waking nightmares, and Vienne’s dream-like film matches it fuzzed-out chord by fuzzed-out chord. A house in the mountains, a blonde-tressed woman moving in slow-motion epilepsy; a teenage boy (her son?) locked in tremulous horror; a car crash?; and a sudden appearance by French novelist, theater artist and dominatrix Catherine Robbe-Grillet… it’s eerie, disquieting, and, with its […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 23, 2014This video has already blown up everywhere, and if you’re like me, you might have ignored the countless posts and recommendations filling up your Facebook walls. Mistake. It really is something, spectacularly choreographed by Ryan Heffington and directed by Sia herself and Daniel Askill. The video features 11-year-old Maddie Ziegler, found on the reality show Dance Moms, in a wig referencing the singer but also, you can’t help but flash on, Daryl Hannah’s Bladerunner character. Ziegler’s dancing is thrilling, and the song itself is a monster, with its big chorus and Sia’s vocal pyrotechnics kicking in unexpectedly and breaktakingly early. […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 10, 2014Screenings have just kicked off in Manhattan for the Tribeca Film Festival, but as always not all the films are showing in theaters–and there’s more available online this year than ever before. Here’s a quick guide to what you can see and how to see it. Streaming select titles: Four feature films and four shorts will be online after their initial theatrical screenings this week and next; they’ll also be eligible for an audience choice award with prize money totaling $15,000. All of Tribeca’s online material discussed below, including these eight films, is available at http://tribecafilm.com/online. The short films include: * Love in […]
by Randy Astle on Apr 19, 2014For the video to their single “We Are Explorers,” Cut Copy paired with the Tokyo-New York creative lab Party to relate the tale of a couple of 3-D printed night owls. Cinematographer Sesse Lind shot roughly 200 figurines, printed from a yellow, UV-reactive filament, under black light flashlights, only at night, to achieve the desired effects. The result is downsized nocturnal epic whose scale belies its ambitions. To accompany the release, the creative team packaged a BitTorrent Bundle that includes the musical track, the video and the 3-D printing files, so that fans can craft and upload their own versions. With the […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Feb 25, 2014Director Matthew Riggieri and d.p. Michael Patrick O’Leary set a camera in concrete to film the music video for Bosley’s “Just Like You.” Then, they left it there for nine months, and built an outhouse on top of it, so that no one could steal it. With its quick cuts, the result isn’t a time lapse per se, but it does give you some idea of the changing seasons.
by Sarah Salovaara on Feb 24, 2014If you want a quick crash course in music video today — its looks, styles, and assorted tropes — you could do a lot worse than spend seven minutes watching this stream from Beyoncé’s YouTube channel, which begins with the first 30 seconds of every video made for the singer’s surprise, self-titled release. (It just appeared on iTunes last night with no advance publicity.) Living up to her workaholic reputation, Beyoncé has made what look to be lavishly produced, cinematically striking and conceptually varied videos for every song on what she calls her “visual album.” A track list with directors […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 13, 2013Credit Bob Dylan and a 48-year-old song for the best music video of the moment. In “Like a Rolling Stone,” Dylan and co. create a channel-hopping interactive experience in which no two viewings are the same. Click through 16 different channels to watch various TV presenters, reality-show folk, celebrities and, oh yeah, Dylan himself, lip-sync to the song. From the press release: Nearly a half-century later, a groundbreaking interactive project has been created for the song, allowing fans to experience the classic recording in unprecedented ways. Celebrities and reality stars are featured throughout the various channels including cameos by Drew […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 19, 2013Here’s Mark Romanek’s first music video in a decade or so, a capturing of Jay Z’s recent performance art event at Pace Gallery, where he performed the single “Picasso Baby” for six hours straight. Shot by 25 New Face Jody Lee Lipes (Martha Marcy May Marlene), it features an all-star cast of participatory spectators, including, first and foremost, artist Marina Abramovic, whose own The Artist is Present performance it was clearly inspired by. Others include Judd Apatow, Adam Driver, Jim Jarmusch, Marilyn Minter, Rose Lee Goldberg, Fab Five Freddy, Rosie Perez (dancing!), George Condo, Jemima Kirke, Alan Cumming and Radical […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 3, 2013Filmmaker Braden King has made a hauntingly beautiful, web-only “interactive music video” for “Stitches,” the new single from Califone. In real time, the video pulls and sequences images from a curated selection of Tumblrs, sidescrolling them across your monitor in sync to the song’s elegant melancholy. Black-and-white photos and animated GIFs drift by, and by highlighting one with your cursor color bleeds back in. Click and the image flips over, allowing you to write a caption that is then sent to the band (and included on the “Stitches” home page) or, if you want, reblogged. Califone’s Tim Rutili and King are […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 31, 2013David Lynch may be mostly retired from filmmaking these days, but here he is in Paul Sharits/Tony Conrad mode with a music video that comes with an epilepsy warning. If you are non-epileptic, turn the speakers up, the lights down and enjoy David Lynch’s video for Nine Inch Nails’ “Come Back Haunted.”
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 28, 2013