Director

Chris Sweeney

Some lovely artistic touches power Chris Sweeney&#39;s good-looking promo for Jesse Ware&#39;s Champagne Kisses which sees the singer shot&nbsp;in a variety of oddball set pieces - her neck&nbsp;sticking up from a hole in the floor and her body partially made from balsa wood...

United Kingdom

John Hassay

Jessica Wylie

India Bradshaw

Chris Kelly

Patrick Meller

Mikey Hollywood

Ed Cheeseman

Final Cut

Creep Post

Burning Reel

Chloe Hayward

Island Records

Ailsa Robertson

Marisa Garner Associates

Jessie Ware 'Champagne Kisses' by Chris Sweeney

Looking über-sultry, Cheryl shimmers in front of a variety of stunning and dramatic landscapes in Chris Sweeney&#39;s slick, fab-looking promo new single Only Human.&nbsp;Photographed by Tony C Miller, Cheryl shows herself to be a little more than merely mortal, exerting power over nature itself. Which is probably not that far from the truth...

Tony C Miller

Modest

Good Egg

Kit Wells

Burning Reel Post

Peepshow

M.I.E.

Houmam Abdallah

Electric Theatre Collective

Cheryl 'Only Human' by Chris Sweeney

Cheryl - Only Human

Chris Sweeney travels to Germany for this colourful journey through a funfair at night in his promo to rising star Becky Hill&#39;s Losing.&nbsp;&nbsp;The location was carefully chosen after much research and was shot over two nights at the Nuremberg Volkfest, one of the largest funfairs in Europe.&nbsp;

Germany

Stereo Films

Rupert Savage

Adam Scarth

Parlophone

Sam Seager

Julia Reed

James Bamford

The Mill

Munky

Becky Hill 'Losing' by Chris Sweeney

Becky Hill - Losing (Official Video)

Lily Allen and director Chris Sweeney celebrate the singer&#39;s life spent attending the Glastonbury Festival in a nostalgic look back in Chris&#39; video for As Long As I&#39;ve Got You.Intercutting old photographs of the singer with friends and family and&nbsp;new footage&nbsp;filmed this year, Chris draws on Lily&#39;s playful side as we see her singing and dancing around the mammoth campsite...

Josh Smith

Murren Tullett

Carl Rock

Lily Allen 'As Long As I've Got You' by Chris Sweeney

Lily Allen - As Long As I Got You (Official Video)

As the One Direction world tour hits Wembley, the lads will be getting the fans in the mood, and no doubt exercising their vocal chords,&nbsp;with an intro film by Chris Sweeney that cheekily encapsulates their globe-trotting, and the good-as-gold 1D charm,&nbsp;without leaving the studio.&nbsp;Okay girls, start screaming...&nbsp;

Jim Cole

Rob Witt

Caroline Watson

Lou Teasdale

One Direction live concert opening film by Chris Sweeney 

One Direction - Opening concert film / Intro de apertura Where We Are Tour.

Lily Allen enjoys a night up west with her gal pals in Chris Sweeney&#39;s promo for her next single Our Time.&nbsp;Powered by some fabulous timelapse shots of night-time London, we follow Lily (and 2&nbsp;friends played by Ms Allen)&nbsp;as she heads into town in the back of a cab, ending up in a ruck on the Essex Road...

Amalia Rosen-Rawlings

Gary Brown

Ed Downham

Lily Allen 'Our Time' by Chris Sweeney

Lily Allen - Our Time (Official Video)

Robbie Williams does an Andy Williams, as&nbsp;Chris Sweeney delivers a brilliant tongue-in-cheek homage to 60s/70s American variety TV specials&nbsp;with&nbsp;his promo for Robbie&#39;s version of the Mamas &amp; The Papas&#39; classic Dream A Little Dream.&nbsp;Featuring appearances by his songwriting partner Guy Chambers and a large cast, Robbie gives yet another sterling performance, as Mr&nbsp;Sweeney piles on the Christmas cheese and thoroughly nails the vintage feel...

Amelia Rosen-Rawlings

Will Bex

Jessie Brough

Tina Pawlik

Max Pearmin

Gina Kane

Callum Powell

Carrie Sutton

Thomas Grove Carter

Trim Editing

Robbie Williams 'Dream A Little Dream' by Chris Sweeney

Robbie Williams | Dream A Little Dream | Official Video

We&nbsp;spoke to Chris Sweeney, director of Lily Allen&#39;s Hard Out Here video, a couple of days after the video had dropped&nbsp;and created a sizeable media storm. So just as the official Behind The Scenes video is released,&nbsp;here&#39;s what Chris has to say about the making of the video, interpreting Lily&#39;s witty critique of sexism in the pop music biz, and the promo&#39;s&nbsp;lightheartedly&nbsp;satirical take on the conventions of the classic hip hop video...&nbsp; &nbsp;PROMONEWS: Are you enjoying all the attention being directed at the Lily video?Chris Sweeney: It&#39;s quite an interesting position to be in. It&#39;s almost like you have ringseat seats, while being invisible.&nbsp;Apart from the odd person on Twitter, no-one out there thinks that I made it. As far as they&rsquo;re concerned, Lily made it. And when you do a video for a song that has the lyrics that it does, you&rsquo;re putting the icing on the cake with the video.&nbsp;It&rsquo;s not like she wrote the classic pop song and I said &lsquo;why don&rsquo;t you subvert everything&rsquo;. Then I would be much more accountable.But it&rsquo;s great. You make things all the time and if people respond to them that&rsquo;s fantastic - because often you set out to do something and it doesn&rsquo;t work.&nbsp;This&nbsp;does what it was meant to, so I couldn&rsquo;t be happier.&nbsp;What about the negative reactions, including the view of the Guardian columnist who described the video as racist?If something happens I can write down for you what will happen next. The video will come out, some people will like, there will be backlash, some people will say &lsquo;it&#39;s this&rsquo;. The racism criticism is punchy, and I am disappointed.&nbsp;As Lily has said, it&#39;s got nothing to do with race.&nbsp;The problem is that people have said that she [Lily] asked for black girls to be in the video. She didn&rsquo;t. And we did the casting, so girls actually came to the casting and we picked the best ones.&nbsp;For me it was always about what&rsquo;s going on at the moment in terms of women being represented in pop.&nbsp;How did the process start - what was the brief?It was like: &quot;she&rsquo;s back, and we want to do something big and potentially subversive&quot;. So when I listened to those lyrics I said &quot;why don&rsquo;t you do something that ostensibly looks like you see on TV, but with each set-up you&rsquo;re punctuating it in some way, or making everyone think about it.&quot; But not to be pompous about it - that was really important. I&rsquo;m not Julie Burchill, I&rsquo;m a music video director, so I&rsquo;m not in the right position to say &quot;this is wrong&quot;. I work in that industry, and these things go on. Not in my work, but it does go on.&nbsp;We met before and talked through what would happen &ndash; essentially an extension of my treatment. And then I did storyboards and took her through them. And&nbsp;Lily and I talked about the fact she&#39;s complicit in this world.&nbsp;In the video we didn&rsquo;t make her stand there sneering. The manager character only ever addresses the girls as a group, she&rsquo;s included in that group. She never separates herself from them &ndash; and she does it as well. Because that&rsquo;s what you do have to do. Not necessarily twerk, but you need to lose some weight when you&rsquo;re releasing a single, and so on. And it would be so false and not as pertinent if she was going &quot;urgh&quot; from the side. Becauase what do you do for your next video?&nbsp;Was the prologue a way of getting around that, making Lily&#39;s distaste more obvious?Not really. We started talking about botox, and then she said &quot;lets make it gross&quot;. So I suggested that we do liposuction.&nbsp;She wanted to put that in the middle of the video, but I said we should put it at the beginning,&nbsp;to set up what&rsquo;s going on. We had an idea of what they would say and they came up with most of the dialogue on-set. The actor&nbsp;playing the American manager brought a lot to it -&nbsp;he came to to the interview in character and stayed in character for the whole day, but I think he&rsquo;s actually English.&nbsp;Of course we&rsquo;re caricaturing what actually gets said, but&nbsp;I think its more interesting if it&#39;s&nbsp;funny. I&rsquo;m not saying its laugh out loud funny, but you engage people more easily.Was Lily anxious about this being her big comeback video?&nbsp;From what I&rsquo;m reading from talking to her, not at all. It was more like&nbsp;&quot;right, what are we doing here?&quot; and then her just going for it.&nbsp;She knows what she&rsquo;s doing and how to do it.&nbsp;I think she enjoys making videos.&nbsp;She comes alive when she shoots them, she comes to the edit and we had loads of fun talking about the clothes.&nbsp;&nbsp;Some people really like that visual side, some people don&rsquo;t get it. She&rsquo;s definitely someone who gets it, and likes to be involved.&nbsp;And the &#39;Baggy Pussy&#39; shot...?Yes &ndash; that was her idea,&nbsp;of course. I suggested that&nbsp;we did something with balloons, to nod to Blurred Lines.&nbsp;And she agreed, and said that it should spell out &lsquo;Lily Allen Has A Baggy Pussy.&rsquo;&nbsp;There is lots of product placement&nbsp;in the video which is&nbsp;treated in an almost satirical way in itself. How did you get away with that?It&rsquo;s a bit of a weird one.&nbsp;We obviously couldn&rsquo;t take the piss out of brands. You can&rsquo;t take the money and not give them what they asked for, that&rsquo;s clearly unfair. But the brands wanted it to be fun. We showed them what we were doing, and made some suggestions - getting them to lick the Beats box, for example &ndash; because otherwise it wouldn&rsquo;t have weaved in with the rest of the video. The section with the Fuji camera -&nbsp;Lily made all that up on the day.&nbsp;It was the end of the day, and we were just mucking around and they really liked it. Then they gave me the camera&nbsp;- and then they took it back!So you&rsquo;ve had some fun - and the video has arrived when there is a bit of a feminist&nbsp;backlash going on, in the wake of Robin Thicke and Blurred Lines. Is this going to help make the music industry less sexist?&nbsp;I don&rsquo;t think anything could now &ndash; everything is too fragmented.&nbsp;It&#39;s very tough to get one voice driving things forwards. In the same way that no-one watches the same show on Saturday night, you can&rsquo;t really gain momentum. Or if you do, its over in three days. So for me I don&rsquo;t think it will change it. Having said that,&nbsp;if you were someone who didn&rsquo;t want to do that kind of thing, said &quot;I don&rsquo;t want to do that&quot;, then I think you&#39;d have more back-up now.&nbsp;The conversation is being had, it&rsquo;s obviously pertinent to how people are feeling and that&rsquo;s great. That comes from Lily. She said &quot;I would just like it if each of my songs made people think.&quot; But it&rsquo;s not a campaign &ndash; we&rsquo;d be going about it the wrong way if it was!&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Chris Sweeney on making Lily Allen's Hard Out Here video

Lily Allen - Hard Out Here (Official Making Of Video)

Lily Allen 'Hard Out Here' by Chris Sweeney

Lily Allen - Hard Out Here (Official Video)

Lily Allen is back - and she&#39;s going to have&nbsp;her cake and eat it too.Lily&#39;s taken time out from the pop-world&nbsp;to have a couple of kids, and Hard Out Here is her big comeback single, demonstrating that her rare ability to combine humour and sharp lyrics with accessible pop remains undimmed. It&#39;s all about how, more than ever, females must look great in order to succeed in this world &ndash; but&nbsp;the video directed by Chris Sweeney has it both ways. It satirizes the&nbsp;crass&nbsp;values of showbusiness (and, by extension, music videos) but also, with its tongue sometimes in its cheek, sometimes not,&nbsp;plays by the rules.First of all, there&#39;s the comedy prologue, with&nbsp;Lily on the operating table, undergoing lyposuction in order to look beautiful enough to resume her career - overlooked by a&nbsp;disgusted,&nbsp;misogynistic manager. Then she&#39;s on the set of her video, complete with raunchy dancers and obligatory twerking &ndash; and joining in. From then on the video finds a place&nbsp;between spoof and playing it straight &ndash; incorporating several brand pack shots in the process.Irreverent and fun - always important in a pop video &ndash; and those who are hard of hearing may just focus on the wobbling bottoms. But it&#39;s still a subversive way to get across Lily&#39;s very important message. And she&#39;s not exactly shy of telling us about her less than perfect post-baby body, as her balloon message in the third pic above proves... &nbsp;

Chloe Brady

Miles Roberts

Sam Neal

Alex Candlish

Chris Sweeney, now signed to Good Egg exclusively for promos and commercials, teams up with the Mercury Prize-nominated and critically-acclaimed Jessie Ware for her next single.Making good use of light and shade, Chris matches the polished, balladry of Night Light with this stark, cool and stylishly monochrome promo.

Jonny Rayner

Dulcie Kellett

Ben Fordesman

James Dyer

Holly Blakey

Mikey Hollywood & Jon Hollinsworth

Freddie Bonfanti

Jessie Ware 'Night Light' by Chris Sweeney – now signed to Good Egg

Jessie-Ware-'Night-Light'-by-Chris-Sweeney-–-now-signed-to-Good-Egg

Will Young and Chris Sweeney conspire to bring a lump to your throat with the video for Come On, where Will and his loveable hound are competing at a Crufts-alike dog show - against all odds...
Another unlikely scenario that Will and Chris pull off with expert aplomb - and its going to have dog-loving Will fans going weak at the knees.

Justin Brown

Anna Rhodes

Bex Crofton Aitkins

Speade

James Bramford @ The Mill

Colonel Blimp

Tamsin Glasson

Semera Khan

Sam Sneade

Will Young 'Come On' by Chris Sweeney

For the classic balladry of Rumer's dreamy Goodbye Girl, Chris Sweeney delivers a sensitive tale of loneliness from relationship woes - oscillating between the two partners going about their everyday lives. 
"There were many things that I liked about this shoot," Chris explains. "One being that Dan Curwin had a walking stick for the whole shoot which I thought was rather chic. My other favourite thing was the lady who ran the amazing house we shot in. She would magically appear in whatever room we were shooting in. She started to make a full English breakfast while we were trying to shoot the breakfast scene, then decided to tidy her bedroom while we shot the bedroom scene, and during our last scene I was convinced she was going to lunge in to shot. 
"A close second favourite was meeting the man who ran Super Laundrette on Essex Road who keeps a bottle of Lambrini down by the till and was drinking vodka tonics most of the time. Massive thank yous to the ace crew Andy Kelly, Clem Miller, Titus Penate, Alex Barber, Stuart Bentley, Quin Williams, Susan Hildebrandt, Beatrice Warren, Sophie North, James Bamford and Gary Brown - and to the first ladies of Music Video, Tamsin Glasson and Katie Griffiths."

Alex Barber

Andy Kelly/Clem Miller

Susan Hildebrant

Quin Willimas @ TenThree

Dan Curwin

Rumer's Goodbye Girl by Chris Sweeney

Rumer's-Goodbye-Girl-by-Chris-Sweeney

A new strand (if you pardon the pun) of fashion video, for super-hair stylist Charlie Le Mindu by Chris Sweeney, who uses all his pop vid chops to excellent effect: squadrons of athletic dancer types, cool art direction from Andy Kelly, camerawork from Ross McLennan - and big hair from Charlie...

Ross McLennan

Andy Kelly

Joce

Andriani Vasilou

Charlie

Cynthia

Charlie Le Mindu’s Haute Coiffure by Chris Sweeney

Chris Sweeney turns in a cracker of a promo to contrast the uber-serious Foals with this brilliant school hall 'have-a-go' set-up for next single Blue Blood. What an absolutely stirling performance from actor James Wilson...

Watch: <a href="http://www.colonelblimp.com/view-video/item4626/" target="_blank">Quicktime Movie
</a>

Andy Noble

Sophie North

Alex Reynolds

Cynthia Lawrence John

Foals’ Blue Blood by Chris Sweeney

Taken from her fourth album Straight To The Heart (released next month), the popdisco of Bittersweet is accompanied by this stylish Chris Sweeney promo - high on glamour with lots of paint, confetti, slow-mo and long-limbed dancers. 

Watch: <a href="http://www.colonelblimp.com/view-video/item3678/" target="_blank">Quicktime Movie</a>

Rachel Rumbold

Jay Arthur

Ross McLennen

Lou Corcoran

Ellie Lines

David Leighton/BPM Productions

Lisa Laud

Ross Anderson

Joce Hockings

Sophie Ellis Bextor’s Bittersweet by Chris Sweeney

Kristin R

Nathan Parker

Darren Baldwin

Ross Cooper

Mike O'Keefe

Paloma Faith 'Upside Down' by Chris Sweeney

Watch: <a href="http://www.colonelblimp.com/view-video/item2929/">here</a>

Adam Frisch

Ben Ansell

Kimi O'Neil

Eamonn Hughes

Paloma Faith’s Do You Want The Truth Or Something Beautiful? By Chris Sweeney

"We had puppet legs and arms made for Marina that she then wore on the shoot so we could get it all in camera. The shoot was very funny with a lovely team of puppeteers all dancing around in white body socks as they controlled Marina's puppet limbs with sticks and fishing wire, all choreographed by Natricia Bernard. Then Gary Brown at Munky and an army of flame artists worked 27 hours a day painting out Marina and the dancers' real legs and arms and putting in a new shadow for her. I have to say a huge thank you to everyone who worked on the video, it was a lot of fun".


Watch: <a href="http://www.colonelblimp.com/view-video/item2611/">here</a>

Sarah Tognazzi

Chris Sabogal

Scott Clark

Peter Richardson/Various @ University Of Dundee,

Alan Parks

Marina & The Diamonds’ Mowgli’s Road by Chris Sweeney

Watch: <a href="http://www.colonelblimp.com/view-video/item2522/">here</a>

Tom Townend

Susan Hildebrandt

Claire Missingham

Gary and Chris

Will Young’s Hopes And Fears by Chris Sweeney

The unbelievably statuesque Sophie Ellis-Bextor is back doing her guest-vocalist thing.
And Chris Sweeney turns her Freemasons collab into a very graphic design-influenced performance - the VFX by Gary Brown at Munky. Clean, colourful, and fabulous.

Julia Knight

CJ Hassay

Freemasons feat. Sophie Ellis Bextor’s Heartbreak Made Me A Dancer by Chris Sweeney

Esser - he of the tremendous Kid n Play hair - has a tremendously old-school video for his latest catchy new tune, directed by Chris Sweeney.
We're talking a Méliès-old school. But of course, Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès (to give his full name) is pretty much the patron saint and ultimate godfather of VFX, and his style of cinematic magic (and he was actually a real stage magician) still works.
Where would <a href="http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c325/amyisnice/moon.jpg">The Boosh</a> be without him for a start

Daniel Trapp

Rhimes Leconte

Sarah Massie

Kim Howells

Darren

Tom Mackay[/pay]

Esser's Satisfied by Chris Sweeney

Friendly Fires are a band to get properly excited about, and their new video for the fantastic Paris is properly clever and suitably gorgeous.

And after all the MVAs shenanigans, new videos are back on Promo...

Chris Sweeney on making the video for Friendly Fires' Paris
"I bought a kaleidoscope and took it to bits - taking things to bits is one my favourite things to do. And what I found is that a kaleidoscope is essentially a revolving surface with mirrored walls that infinitely reflects plastic shapes in the middle outwards, to create a pattern.
So I wanted to make a giant version of this, that the guys in the band could replace the plastic shapes, and they could basically become the pieces of the kaleidoscope creating shapes that would make giant kaleidoscope patterns.
"I spent the best part of a fortnight with a mini-kaleidoscope pressed up to my eye, to see what kind of things make cool patterns. So if anyone saw me peering in to a dustbin with some mirrors attached to my face I do apologise.
"So what we did was build an 18ft wall of mirrors that enclosed a revolving dancefloor - I am realising this all sounds very Timberlake - and then gave the guys giant versions of things that you get in a kaleidoscope, like massive silver balls and star shapes. Plus other things that we knew would make cool patterns, like the umbrellas and light tubes. Then we shot it from above.

Veronica Saez

Jenny Selden

Ashley Tyas

Phil Lee

Friendly Fires’ Paris by Chris Sweeney

Fresh from the sophistication and glamour (and budget) of the <a href="http://www.colonelblimp.com/directors/YSL/">YSL menswear films</a> Chris Sweeney co-directed with Sarah Chatfield, here's something rather diff.
Chris recreates teeny TV with an ever-growing cast of sock puppets for the unsigned Rod Thomas.
Sweet and somewhat poignant, and despite the "it's not you, it's me" break-up line, hearts remain resolutely within chest cavities.

Barry

Rod Thomas

Rod Thomas’s Same Old Lines by Chris Sweeney

Two recent vids (hell, let's call 'em New) from Chris Sweeney that are worth checking out.
First there's the weird/sexy little number for Blood Red Shoes, where Mr Plug-Socket-Face here is but one of the delights that await... 

And then, by utter contrast, there's this sensual/sexy beast for American singer Stephanie Dosen (not produced through Colonel Blimp, but featuring on their website as Chris is now repped by Blimp).

Thom Green

Christopher Sabogal

Alice Hale

Vic Parker

Prime Focus

Stuart Wilson

Darren Macaskill

Blood Red Shoes and Stephanie Dosen by Chris Sweeney

Okay, it's not a video but... well, actually it is, a very stylish and beautiful one. It just happens to be for a fashion show - Stefano Pilati's menswear collection 08-09 at Yves Saint Laurent. It played last week in Paris on three huge screens - hence the triptych design, and a most un-music promolike luxurious feel. 

Could this be a bit of a trendsetter (And can you still say trendsetter) Surely no self-respecting fashion show can do without it's own video now. Catwalks - so last season...

Chris Sweeney

Director

Interviews featuring Chris Sweeney

Videos featuring Chris Sweeney

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