Director

Chris Hopewell

Chris Hopewell directs a wonderful 2020 reimagining of Yusuf/Cat Stevens's seminal hit&nbsp;Father &amp; Son.&nbsp;As the song reaches its 50th anniversary, the new version features Yusuf/Cat as he is now singing the role of the father,&nbsp;brought together digitally with a recording of his younger self,&nbsp;originally recorded at his historic performance in the Troubadour Club, Los Angeles in 1970.If the recreation of this wonderful song is momentous, then Chris Hopewell has risen to the occasion with its video. Like everything else he does, it's stop motion model animation. But he achieves a moving and utterly believable drama from the characters he creates and the world around them.The video depicts animated versions of the Father and Son in a house, which bereft of a female presence, with an inability to connect to each other.&nbsp;Exploring love, loss and a sense of urgency as the clock ticks away, the regret is palpable, and perfectly visualised through the 3D concept.&nbsp;The attention to detail is brilliant, and the anachronistic sense of time and space makes the visual all the more universal.&nbsp;&nbsp;

United Kingdom

Rosie Brind

Black Dog Films

Jacknife Films

Martin Roker

Jon Davey

Holly Jo Beck

Tom Weller

Cadi Catlow

Folk

Yusuf / Cat Stevens 'Father & Son' by Chris Hopewell

Yusuf-/-Cat-Stevens-'Father-&-Son'-by-Chris-Hopewell

Chris Hopewell has directed the new video for Yusuf/Cat Stevens’ 2020 reimagining of his 50 year old&nbsp;ecological anthem Where Do The Children Play? (from the classic 1970 album Tea For The Tillerman) creating a disturbing vision of a world ruined by pollution and waste.Two children are playing on a suburban street, when they are confronted by a sea of plastic bottles, and then transported to the heart of darkness - the city which has become the centre of an environmental disaster. The kids join up with the remaining residents of the destroyed city to begin the reversal of the process, to save the planet.“Looking at the world today and the message in this fifty-year-old song, it looks like the world never grew up,” says Yusuf / Cat Stevens, who has re-recorded Tea For The Tillerman, for the generation that needs to hear the message more than ever.And in creating his hellish vision of our world, Chris Hopewell has also practised what he preaches. In&nbsp;creating the video at&nbsp;Jacknife, his studio in Bristol, Hopewell has aimed to have the least possible impact on the environment: nearly everything you see in the video was made&nbsp;from recycled material and old plastic. It's a&nbsp;memorable work that mirrors the environmental message of the song.[imgtoken data:1]&nbsp;&nbsp;

Jacknife

Singer songwriter

Yusuf/Cat Stevens 'Where Do The Children Play?' by Chris Hopewell

Yusuf-/-Cat-Stevens-'Where-Do-The-Children-Play?'-by-Chris-Hopewell

Legendary animation director Chris Hopewell is in lockdown in his hometown of Bristol - and he's making the most of it.The man behind classic videos for Radiohead, Father John Misty and Run The Jewels seems to be less phased by not working - he can now take a morning stroll on the dual carriageway -&nbsp;than the behaviour of people in supermarkets...&nbsp;What were you working on before the lockdown? Can’t say at the moment as it’s not due for release just yet. But he’s a huge household name and uber cool! It’s a full-on stop-motion odyssey - the biggest we’ve done yet. We managed to make the whole thing with 90% recycled materials. Even used secondhand paint and recycled set-build wood. We got it finished on 13th March just as the lockdown kicked in - but we were all already wearing face masks and gloves in the final grade.What are you working on now? We were supposed to go straight into another for the same artist, that’s going to have to wait till who knows when. But good to play it safe. So for now I’m at home building a scale model of my dream log cabin out of old Ikea beach-wood blinds and designing a multifunction beach cooking station/windbreak.<blockquote>A trolley&nbsp;full of toilet roll? Are you making&nbsp;a life-size fucking papier-mâché dinosaur?</blockquote>What's the most surprising, or least predictable thing, that's happened to you during quarantine? I think the most surprising thing I’ve experienced during quarantine is my new ability to sit still and do literally nothing but look at the sky for hours on end and think. I’m usually quite a ‘hectic’ person who always needs something to do. So I guess I’ve learnt to stop and think a little. Probs the nearest I’ll ever get to meditation’.What's the favourite part of your daily routine? The routine at the moment is watching every single Marvel film in order with my son - one a day. Some are actually very good! Guardians Of The Galaxy are the fave so far. Still prefer Watchmen though...Are things getting harder/better/staying the same? The lack of traffic and people staying home is definitely better.What have you learned about yourself during quarantine? Silence is good - you don’t need to fill the gaps with bullshit.Best meal you have eaten/are regularly cooking Done a lot of baking and am trying to perfect vegan low sugar oatcakes so they don’t taste like old carpet - they’re getting there! Check out the pic and call me Mary Berry![imgtoken data:1]Best thing you’ve watched, or heard, while on lockdown, and why? And the worst...? Box set of&nbsp;Justified&nbsp;from way back - way underrated and almost forgotten. Beautifully written dialogue.[vidtoken data:0]Worse thing I’ve watched is people being rude to staff in supermarkets. "No, you can’t have a whole trolley full of toilet roll! What are you doing making, a life-size fucking papier-mâché dinosaur?"How's your Work/Life balance at the moment? Depends on what you call work... Doing zero in the way of film stuff, but the beach kitchen/windbreak/rain shelter is looking great! ...and it’s orange!• Chris Hopewell is represented by Black Dog Films for music videos and commercials. Watch his reel <a href="http://www.blackdogfilms.com/uk/directors/chris-hopewell/" target="_blank">here</a>.

Quarantine Q&A: Chris Hopewell, Jacknife Studios & Black Dog

JUSTIFIED - A Series

Chris Hopewell&#39;s second video for Father John Misty, after the MVA-winning film for <a href="http://www.promonews.tv/videos/2017/08/08/father-john-misty-things-it-would-have-been-helpful-know-revolution-chris-hopewell" target="_blank">Things It Would Have Been Helpful To Know Before The Revolution</a>,&nbsp;is another extraordinary voyage of discovery. This time it&#39;s Father John (aka Josh Tillman)&nbsp;who finds himself on a journey, with very ominous implications.&nbsp;We find Josh in his hotel room, the morning after a night of debauchery, as a&nbsp;typically autobiographical lyric, reflects upon the effects of a full-on rock and roll lifestyle. But soon he&#39;s falling into&nbsp;the Netherworld below, being guided across the River Styx by a big guy in a black hood...Needless to say, Josh&#39;s journey, his observations of waltzing skeletons and eventual arrival at&nbsp;his own grave, to be dragged further below,&nbsp;are rendered in Hopewell&#39;s trademark style - gorgeous stop-motion animation, with beautifully crafted set of characters in a world painstakingly created in his Bristol-based Jacknife Studios. Wonderful stuff.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

United States

Rosie Lea Brind

Alternative

Father John Misty 'Please Don't Die' by Chris Hopewell

Father John Misty - "Please Don't Die" [Official Music Video]

Father John Misty&#39;s audacious merging of Tiny Dancer-era Elton John with the Apocalypse has been rewarded with this marvellous stop motion-animated video by Chris Hopewell.For Things It Would Have Been Helpful To Know Before The Revolution, Hopewell visualises an account from the other side of the great apocalyptic event that has destroyed civilisation, using puppets. A survivor trawls through a devastated landscape collecting the once-prized, now useless objects of our current age, encountering other strange survivors - like beer-slugging cockroaches in denim jackets - on her travels.It took Hopewell - who has made a comeback to music video since his Radiohead video for Burn The Witch last year - and his small team in his Bristol-based studio Jacknife just three weeks to construct&nbsp;and film the video. It has been partnered by the <a href="https://www.edf.org/" target="_blank">Environmental Defense Fund</a>, and from August 3rd to the 11th, the puppets in the video are being auctioned on <a href="http://www.ebay.com/usr/fatherjohnmistyofficial" target="_blank">Father John Misty&#39;s eBay page</a>, to raise money for EDF.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&quot;Father John Misty&#39;s new video is a powerful statement -- a postcard from a world we never want to visit,&quot; said ​Eric Pooley, senior vice president at Environmental Defense Fund,&nbsp;in a statement accompanying the release of the video. &quot;That&#39;s why EDF is proud to partner with Father John Misty, and why we work every day to catalyze the &#39;visionaries among us&#39; who can help forge a better, more optimistic future. For 50 years, EDF has driven innovative solutions that help people and nature prosper. We use cutting edge science and technology and unexpected alliances to scale positive change. We&#39;re earning our middle name every day, and we&#39;re so grateful to Father John Misty for his support.&quot;&nbsp;

Bill Pollock

Bonch

Molly Bohas /Collide Inc.

Sub Pop

Father John Misty 'Things It Would Have Been Helpful To Know Before The Revolution' by Chris Hopewell

Father John Misty - Things It Would Have Been Helpful To Know Before The Revolution [OFFICIAL VIDEO]

Chris Hopewell, who reached a new level of infamy with his Radiohead video last year takes Run The Jewels on a claymation ghost train in the clip for Don&#39;t Get Captured.Taking Ray Harryhausen&#39;s classic skeletons and running them through a paranoid, gritty New York City horror show, Hopewell&#39;s video sees a claymation Mike &amp; El take a tour through the horrors of gentrification, authoritarianism, and class-based oppression.Walking the line as ever between concise political satire and effortlessly cool delivery, RTJ &amp; Hopewell have hit the nail on the head here.&nbsp;

Secret Door

Amaechi Uzoigwe

Run The Jewels 'Don't Get Captured' by Chris Hopewell

Run The Jewels - Don't Get Captured (Official Music Video From RTJ3)

Chris Hopewell reunites with Radiohead - for whom he made the video for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AQSLozK7aA" target="_blank">There There</a> back in 2003 - for the video for Burn The Witch, a beautifully executed recreation of the classic children&#39;s TV shows Camberwick Green and Trumpton, with the storylines of other, far more disquieting British productions of the late 1960s - Witchfinder General and The Wicker Man.The treatment may well have had the compelling brevity of the one for Alien (which was famously pitched as &quot;Jaws in space&#39;). But only time will tell whether it was quite that straightforward. With Radiohead removing their social media sites and then posting messages to fans before the video&#39;s release (&lsquo;Sing the&nbsp;song of sixpence that goes&nbsp;burn the witch&rsquo;&nbsp;and &lsquo;We know where you live&rsquo;) there is the distinct possibility this is the opening salvo of the band&#39;s bigger message. We shall see.In the meantime, this is a welcome return to music video directing for Chris Hopewell, who created this wonderful rendition of the stop-motion style pioneered by Gordon Murray and animators&nbsp;John Hardwick and Bob Bura, out of his own Bristol-based studio Jacknife. As he has been spending much of his time designing posters, its a return as surprising as it is welcome.[imgtoken data:1]

Ben Foley

Virpi Kettu

Louie McNamara

Oli Putland

Radiohead 'Burn The Witch' by Chris Hopewell

Radiohead - Burn The Witch

A farmworker, chained to his miserable grinding toil, is released by a nymph bearing an enchanted guitar - and escapes to seek fame and fortune as the demon minstrel in the city.
In his video for The Offspring from late last year, Chris Hopewell weaves a familiar cautionary tale with his usual sweeping vision. His city is a mix of past and present, reflecting a timeless story of a gift squandered by hubris, greed, arrogance, etc. Very rock and roll in fact. So let that be a warning to you, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watchhl=en&amp;v=s_4aGXTHo7w&amp;gl=US">very talented boy-guitarist on Youtube</a>...
And through a combination of studio shoots, green-screen, post production, and willing extras, Chris and Collision Films partner Ben Foley are flying in the face of music video conventional wisdom with their sprawling movie-like storylines: after their first Mad Max-inspired epic for McFly, their second sees their <a href="http://www.collisionfilms.com/video/video_46.htm">Christmas fun spoiled by zombies</a>.
Doncha just hate it when that happens

Collision Films

Fred Reed

The Offspring’s You’re Gonna Go Far Kid by Chris Hopewell

The-Offspring’s-You’re-Gonna-Go-Far-Kid-by-Chris-Hopewell

McFly go all Mad Max in Chris Hopewell and Ben Foley's fantasy epic - and demonstrate you get loads of bang for your buck down in Bristol at Collision Films.
It's a post-apocalyptic world where water is the most precious commodity (not an unreasonable premise then) and McFly's must enter the fortress city of the beautiful yet merciless water baroness and her teeming cohorts to get some.
Luckily they have super powers to match her super powers...
Six minutes of far-fetched fun, with impressively old-skool production values.

Chris Hopewell & Ben Foley

Lou Whorlow

Hermione Ross

McFly’s Lies by Chris Hopewell and Ben Foley

Chris Hopewell has directed some marvellous videos for The Young Knives previously, including She's Attracted To and Hot Summer. Now here's another one. 
Inspired by the great Jan Svankmejer's film Food, it features both stop frame animation, and CGI. Most importantly it does what Chris has done so well in his previous Knives videos - drawing out very fine comic performances from the Knives. 
And let's face it, chubby-cheeked Henry and The House Of Lords do look like they enjoy their grub...

Charlotte Neal

The Young Knives' Turn Tail by Chris Hopewell

Promonews Podcast

Chris Hopewell

Director

Interviews featuring Chris Hopewell

Videos featuring Chris Hopewell

2020 (2)

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