Director of Photography

Ben Magahy

Simon Owens directs an unconventional love story for London-based electronic duo Technology + Teamwork.&nbsp;And if you've never seen a love story between two trashbags, you're in for a treat...Owens' idea is essentially a simple one, executed to perfection:&nbsp;a pair of red plastic bin bags lipsyncing convincingly to&nbsp;what the director describes as "a horror version banger of an Eastern European Eurovision pop song."Shot in a realistic, 'warts and all' way - with the bin bags situated in all the places you would usually find them -&nbsp;the visual feels gritty yet charming, and strangely fitting to the track."On first listen I genuinely found the opening vocal shocking," says Owens."It could be a pitched-down Taylor Dayne&nbsp;singing a Hall and Oates&nbsp;tune over Belgian Techno. I had to make a video for this tune."But what? Two bin bags, one in love with another, no matter what, run over, hospitalised, and lip-syncing. Natch."Natch indeed.&nbsp;

United Kingdom

SIMON OWENS

Nahal Ashrafii

Julian Eguiguren

Jack McGinity

CHEAT

Jeremy Fusco

Oliver Smart

Valerie Voronkina

Electronic

Technology + Teamwork 'You Saw Something In Me' by Simon Owens

Technology + Teamwork - "You Saw Something In Me"

Simon Owens toys with the X and Y axes in his new video for Alexis Taylor, with the&nbsp;Hot Chip frontman&nbsp;apparently scaling&nbsp;walls&nbsp;with the biggest rope you have ever seen.Echoing the myth of Sisyphus, and employing a technique possibly last seen in the Batman TV series back in the 1960s - namely, tilting the camera 90 degrees - Alexis 'pulls' himself up different vertical structures&nbsp;and through spaces using a giant, thickly braided&nbsp;ship’s mooring rope.[imgtoken data:1]He also travels through intensely colourful doors travelling from external to internal locations and back again.As with their previous collaborations, such as <a href="https://www.promonews.tv/videos/2018/04/04/alexis-taylor-oh-baby-simon-owens/52469" target="_blank">Oh Baby</a>, Simon Owens uses irreverent, perception-challenging&nbsp;methods to present Taylor's&nbsp;serious ruminations on life in the House Of The Truth.&nbsp;It's&nbsp;that unfeasibly large rope that really gets you...[imgtoken data:2]

Jay Notley

Bruce Magahy

Sian Murphy

Daydreamervfx

Daydreamer Vfx

Verdigris Management

Cristian Ionut Necula

Alternative

Alexis Taylor 'House Of The Truth' by Simon Owens

Alex Southam directs an intense dance promo&nbsp;for Public Service Broadcasting's Blue Heaven.&nbsp;The video features multidisciplinary artist Celine Fortenbacher, who hides under the guise of darkness, blending into a cold, dank industrial space before bursting out of the shadows and&nbsp;into choreographed dance.[imgtoken data:1]Transforming into a confident, mesmerising performer in her&nbsp;imagination the video takes a turn for the fantastical, as the space is flooded with blue lights and strobes. This momentarily giving the character star quality under the watchful eye of a CCTV camera.Alex Southam's direction draws you into the world of the Fortenbacher character, her transformation into a&nbsp;vibrant alter-ego - inspired by legendary German movie star Marlene Dietrich -&nbsp;and the conversation that ensues between the different parts of the personality, assisted by a superbly kinetic edit by Rich Woolway.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Alex Southam

Polly Millner

Sam Holmes

Ben Keswick

Ben Worthington

Emily Davis

Georgios Trochopulous

Chloe Amber Rose

Rich Woolway

Homespun

Nick Dalby

OB Management

Sean Mayo

PIAS

Theo Hue Williams

Art Rock

Public Service Broadcasting ft Andreya Casablanca 'Blue Heaven' by Alex Southam

Public-Service-Broadcasting--'Blue-Heaven-'-by-Alex-Southam

Having made her <a href="https://www.promonews.tv/videos/2020/12/16/phoebe-bridgers-savior-complex-phoebe-waller-bridge/68562" target="_blank">music video directing debut</a> recently,&nbsp;Phoebe Waller-Bridge now co-stars in the latest Harry Styles extravaganza, directed by&nbsp;Ben Turner &amp; Gabe Turner, following up their recent video for Golden.&nbsp;&nbsp;The Treat People With Kindness promo&nbsp;is an old-fashioned&nbsp;song-and-dance spectacular where Harry and Phoebe wear matching Gucci jumpers, and dance together, eventually - and the Fleabag star makes some of her trademark knowing looks to camera. Will she ever be an occasion when she's not required to do that?

Ben Turner

Gabe Turner

Carly Shackleton

Bryan Younce

Bex Hampson

James Amos

Sally Lock

Paul Roberts

Harry Lambert

Malcolm Edwards

Carol Dotti

Lydia Barnes

Patrick Jack

Claudia Wass

Harry Styles 'Treat People With Kindness' by Ben Turner & Gabe Turner

Harry Styles - Treat People With Kindness (Official Video)

Huse Monfaradi directs a splendidly vibrant, and wittily retro&nbsp;live visual for Declan McKenna's Be An Astronaut.&nbsp;With a single line of silver glitter drawn on his face, the indie-rock prodigy sets aside the more heavy surrealism seen in his official videos, and goes all-in with a dynamic live performance of old school glam rock.&nbsp;Paying homage to iconic artists in the genre - particularly Hunky Dory-era Bowie and early Elton&nbsp;-&nbsp;the&nbsp;track is visualised through a lively and unabashed performance from McKenna, backed up by a handful of equally animated, and appropriately&nbsp;styled&nbsp;musicians.&nbsp;The location is excellent too, toeing the line between derelict and palatial. And Monfaradi's canny use of camera&nbsp;and lenses seals the early '70s vibe,&nbsp;and works well in the themes of dreams vs reality that run through the lyrics.&nbsp;

Huse Monfaradi

Hannah Wainwright

Kode

Nathan Killham

Chris Kelly

Jasmin Anderson

Paul Toomey

Terry Palamara

Micahael Darlington

Jackie Tyson

Nick Ellis

Vic Parker

Raised By Wolves

Carrie Sutton

Michael Lewin

Indie Rock

Declan McKenna 'Be An Astronaut (live)' by Huse Monfaradi

Declan-Mckenna-'Be-An-Astronaut-(live-Video)'-by-Nathan-Killham

Michael Kiwanuka plays an intimate and transcendent set&nbsp;in&nbsp;Huse Monfaradi's long-form video,&nbsp;Live At The Mildmay Club.&nbsp;Shot by four handheld cameras, the magical performance is colourful, bold and engaging. With a real feeling of community and shared experience, the video captures the energy and spirit of&nbsp;Kiwanuka's music, as well as the captivating effect it has on the audience and musicians who work with him.&nbsp;

Jamie Brewer

Tom Kelly

Saul Harris

woutsider

Semera Khan

Matt Fleming

Soul

Michael Kiwanuka 'Live At The Mildmay Club' by Huse Monfaradi

Michael-Kiwanuka-'Live-At-The-Mildmay-Club'-by-Huse-Monfaradi

Anna Meredith surveys the world, as her cool&nbsp;Saab 900&nbsp;Turbo goes through an East London&nbsp;car wash, in Simon Owens's video for Inhale Exhale.&nbsp;&nbsp;Shot in Bethnal Green, Owens creates an almost Hogarthian sense of&nbsp;London night life, viewed by Meredith&nbsp;from the security of her sudsy cocoon.The car wash's revolving brushes&nbsp;is also a great visual metaphor for the metronomic track, made more powerful by Rebecca Luff's edit. Wonderful, luminous&nbsp;photography too by Ben Magahy.

Jerome Danvers

Jon Mitchell

Kian Altmann

Rebecca Luff

Cut+Run

Holly Greig

Freefolk

Rachel McWhinney

Moshi Moshi Records

Anna Meredith 'Inhale Exhale' by Simon Owens

Anna-Meredith-'Inhale-Exhale'-by-Simon-Owens

Nima Nourizadeh makes a rare return to music videos, teaming up once again with Hot Chip - with whom he first achieved great things - to create a distinctive take on the range of human emotion&nbsp;for Melody Of Love.It starts with Hot Chip&#39;s Alexis Taylor&#39;s near-disembodied head in a mirrored box, altered by lighting changes. Taylor&#39;s bandmates faces then appear merging into each other, and then a much bigger cast start to be introduced. These heads appear in a box, constantly changing and offering a kind of live-action animation of emotion. It&#39;s an intense experience,&nbsp;reflects the depth of feeling within this lovely song.This very much feels like a close collaboration between the band and&nbsp;Nourizadeh,&nbsp;who directed Hot Chip&#39;s legendary <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7dOuKbuEE4" target="_blank">Over And Over video</a> back in 2006, and many&nbsp;other great Noughties videos, before heading for Hollywood, directing Project X and American Ultra.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Nourizadeh worked with UNIT Studios VFX team, led by creative director Pete Rystra, carried out all head replacement, cosmetic clean up and colour balancing in the video, while UNIT&#39;s creative director of colour Denny Cooper added a low key grade that married with Nima&rsquo;s backlog of work with the band,&nbsp;keeping everything as naturalistic as possible.&ldquo;We were thrilled to be able to work on this spot with Nima,&quot; says UNIT Studios&#39; executive producer Bumble Davis. &quot;Hot Chip are artists that have a lot of love with our team, and combined with directing talent such as Nima&rsquo;s meant it was a very easy decision to jump in on this one. The VFX team that had to work round the clock to carry out all the huge amount of 2D work in such tight timings.&nbsp;All those involved were so passionate about the project that they even spilled in to their free time to bring it to life against the clock.&nbsp;&quot;Nima was an absolute delight to work with - affable and relaxed, with a very clear vision of exactly what we needed to do, coupled with extraordinary attention to detail aptly seen in this memorable video.&rdquo;

Nima Nourizadeh

Siobhán Daly

SMUGGLER

Sara Flood

Ben Gill

Ollie Hogan

Dan Sherwin

Final Cut

UNIT

Denny Cooper

Dance

Hot Chip 'Melody Of Love' by Nima Nourizadeh

Hot-Chip--'Melody-Of-Love'-by-Nima-Nourizadeh

Michael Cumming, best&nbsp;known for his TV comedy work like Brass Eye and Toast Of London, and his commercials, makes an auspicious music video directing debut for George Ezra that pokes wholesome fun at some of the absurdities of the music industry.The video for Pretty Shining People mocks the pop machine process, with George trying to win a recording contract by performing for&nbsp;a bunch of jaded record execs - all played by kids. They then want to turn the distinctive singer-songwriter into a pop star, by making him smile and dress and dance just like everyone else.Can George win them over by being true to himself? You better believe it.Ezra certainly has a knack for this sort of&nbsp;self-effacing, gently satirical comedy. It&#39;s served him well before&nbsp;- including a recent&nbsp;turn on Reeves and Mortimer&#39;s brilliant&nbsp;Big Night Out - and it does so again here.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Michael Cumming

Amber Millington

Moxie Pictures

Dawn Laren

Eleanor Daynes

Steve Roberts

Eve Carreno

Rosy Thomas

Luci Ellis

Emma Regan

Jo Jenkins

Flaura Atkinson

The Quarry

Ross Baker

Halo Post

Charlotte Hawkins

Róisín @ Oblong

Marilou Bakkenist @ Moxie Pictures

Laura Clayton

Sony Music

Emilio Schlappi

George Ezra 'Pretty Shining People' by Michael Cumming

George-Ezra-'Pretty-Shining-People'-by-Michael-Cumming

Maxine Peake plays a woman who retreats to her hotel room to sink into alcoholic despair, in Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard&#39;s new video for Ex:Re, the solo project of Elena Tonra, lead singer of&nbsp;Daughter.While Tonra appears on the room&#39;s TV screen, watching her as she performs her song The Dazzler, Peake - brilliant in so many TV dramas and movies, from Shameless to the David Slade-directed Black Mirror episode <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xejjA2AFO5I" target="_blank">Metalhead</a>&nbsp;&ndash; gives a characteristically powerful performance as a woman apparently driven to self-destruction.The video was shot at the Town Hall Hotel in East London - which becomes The Dazzler depicted in Tonra&#39;s lyrics. It&#39;s a reunion with the singer for the directing duo, who created a triptych of videos for Daughter&#39;s&nbsp;second album Not To Disappear.&nbsp;Forysth and Pollard were&nbsp;inspired by Alfred Hitchcock&rsquo;s iconic movie Vertigo, infusing this piece with a&nbsp;muted colour palette to reflect their character&#39;s&nbsp;spiralling inward journey.&nbsp;And then ending on a jolting moment of surrealism.

Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard

Hannah Bellil

Prettybird

Hannah May

Juliette Larthe

Ted Thornton

Will Jasper

Ran Geffen

Roger Cutting

Emily Newson

Libby Uppington

Olly Stothert

John Claude

Dirty Looks

4AD Records

Maxine Peake

Ex:Re 'The Dazzler' by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard

Ex:Re - The Dazzler

With the legendary Nile Rodgers fronting&nbsp;the first Chic album since 1992, Giorgio Testi has worked with VFX house Dizzy Zebra to make the video for Sober - featuring Craig David and Stefflon Don.Set in Abbey Road Studios, Nile operates a UI interface that harnesses the combined forces of music and science, enabling him to fuse various elements in order to create a song.Dizzy Zebra designed and brought to life the UI, as well as integrating an array of VFX throughout the rest of the video to tie the two worlds together and heighten the &#39;Studio 54&#39; feel of the live action setting.

Giorgio Testi

John Bannister

Pulse Films

Martin Crasswell

Paul Dimond

My Brother Bob

Dizzy Zebra

Funk

Nile Rodgers and Chic 'Sober' by Giorgio Testi

Nile Rodgers, CHIC - Sober ft. Craig David, Stefflon Don

Calvin Harris and Dua Lipa&#39;s summer anthem One Kiss is given a a deconstructed pastiche of summer-set video by Emil Nava, studio shot, with all the rough edges showing.

Emil Nava

Amy James

Ammolite Inc

Rosie Marchant

Ben Glickman

David Penfold

Terry Edland

Max Lincoln

Candice Birns, Lorenzo Posocco

Anna Cofone

Francesca Brazzo

Ellie Johnson

Aubrey Woodiwiss

Mike O'Keefe

Sony

Calvin Harris & Dua Lipa 'One Kiss' by Emil Nava

Calvin-Harris-&-Dua-Lipa-'One-Kiss'-by-Emil-Nava

giffgaff&#39;s now-traditional Halloween film&nbsp;centres around a young woman called Lucy who&#39;s dressed up for a big Halloween Club night. But when she tries to meet her boyfriend in the club,&nbsp;her evening quickly spirals into proper scariness - with new versions of Rockwell&#39;s 1984 classic Somebody&#39;s Watching Me on the soundtrack.What lies beyond is playful bizarre Halloween fun, providing a few scares and a kooky ending. When the truth reveals itself,&nbsp;hands a choice to Lucy which cleverly resonates with giffgaff&#39;s core proposition and message. &nbsp;

Tom Rainsford

Gwillim Gwylim

Riff Raff Films

Matthew Fone

giffgaff '2am' by Tom Rainsford

2am | giffgaff

Newly-svelte Sam Smith teams with long term collaborator Luke Monaghan to visualise the big comeback single Too Good At Goodbyes. And&nbsp;not surprisingly, it&#39;s emotional.Sam Smith&#39;s heartfelt performance is intercut with dramatic vignettes, all variations on the main theme: the pain of saying goodbye. The strength&nbsp;of the performances - this was filmed with a combination of actors and non-actors - is underlined by the settings, and its resolutely British feel.Smith is an&nbsp;international pop star who wants to keep it authentic, and once again finds a worthy partner in&nbsp;Monaghan to achieve that.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Ben Magahy

Director of Photography

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