Commissioner

CJ Hassay

There&rsquo;s been more than a few tenpin bowling videos in the past, but none of them have managed to put quite the, er, spin on proceedings as Sam Pilling does for Two Door Cinema Club&rsquo;s Handshake.
Starting with a wild-eyed individual using a butcher&rsquo;s chopper to ominous effect, we soon discover the purpose of his work: he needs the head of TDCC frontman Alex Trimble (and those of bandmates Kevin and Sam) for his big upcoming bowling contest &ndash; they are the bowling balls.
What follows does to some extent owe a debt to the other great Nineties film featuring tenpin bowling that isn&rsquo;t The Big Lebowski &ndash; we&rsquo;re talking Kingpin, of course. First off, Sam has pulled together a great cast of bug-eyed weirdos &ndash; mainly Ian Virgo and Martin Hancock as the rival bowlers &ndash; who turn the dial to 11.
And then there&rsquo;s the added ridiculousness of the band as bowling balls which keeps getting better, as the trio are subjected to a variety of indignities &ndash; right down the final glorious throw. The VFX work by Tim Keeling is excellent &ndash; Sam explains below how they achieved the rolling heads FX &ndash; and that &lsquo;lick&rsquo; shot at the end is priceless&hellip;
Sam Pilling on the making of the video for Two Door Cinema Club&rsquo;s Handshake
&ldquo;I was really excited to make this idea so thank you to the band, their management and Kitsune for really believing in the project!
&ldquo;The real challenge was working out how the hell we were physically going to make the heads roll. Tim (the VFX supervisor) and I worked closely together trying to find the best way of achieving all the different VFX shots.
&ldquo;We had some great advice from some VFX specialists, but its always easier said than done and putting the theory into practice proved to be a problem &ndash; one which ended at midnight, the evening before the shoot with pieces of polystyrene littered all over the floor, foam stuffing ripped out of the office sofas and Tim wrapped in a entire 60m roll of bubble wrap, then almost passing out!
&ldquo;The shoot itself was great fun with a lot of laughs, despite trying to squeeze a 70+ shot list into one day! This was really a testament to the great team of people we worked with so thank you to all involved! You know who you are!!! It was an absolute pleasure working with such talented actors. Ian &amp; Martin completely nailed it and made the stressful experience just that bit easier!
&ldquo;A massive thanks to the band for being so up for it on the day. They had just played a gig in Brussels the night before, then travelled over night to get to London in time for the shoot. I&rsquo;m sure the last thing they wanted to be doing was rolling along a hard wooden floor with a cushion stuffed down their backs!
&ldquo;Everything weird that I asked them to do, they did with a smile! Yes, Alex did lick the bowling pin and Kevin was actually dragged along with his head in the gutter! As for Sam, he just got away with a stern talking to and Ian&rsquo;s fingers rammed down his throat!&rdquo;
&nbsp;

United Kingdom

Kitsuné

Sam Pilling

Pulse Films

Stacy Vaughan

Lucile Weigel

Ben Todd

Ellie Johnson

Tim Keeling

Denny Cooper

Lewis Arnold

David Lieb

Tim Gibson

Alice Wigley

Charles Johnston Robinson

Mike Linforth

Chris Belcher

Andy McBrearty

Adam Bell

Christian Hayes

Mark Morley

Georgina Napier

Candy Alderson

Sean Sweeney

Ore Okonedo

Joceline Gabriel

Ian Virgo

Martin Hancock

John Hassay

Indie

Two Door Cinema Club ‘Handshake’ by Sam Pilling

Two Door Cinema Club - Handshake

After two big videos for Cher Lloyd Mike Sharpe matches the relentless high-energy of Clement Marfo &amp; The Frontline's Mayhem with this sharp, fast-edited performance-based promo featuring a sterling performance from Kano...

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/eMuU9JX-Nao" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""/>

Mike Sharpe

The Found Collective

Seany Stuart

Tony C Miller

Marcus Mores

Thomas Grove Carter

James Tillett

Chloe Richardson

NTSH London

Clement Marfo & The Frontline ft. Kano 'Mayhem' by Mike Sharpe

Wizard-Sleeve’s-Get-Down-Tonight-by-Thomas-Goldser

Clement-Marfo-&-The-Frontline-ft.-Kano-'Mayhem'-by-Mike-Sharpe

http://www.youtube.com/watchv=L5VLHP9Rk7E A young hoodie mainline's Laidback Luke's new single and has quite a reaction in Ben Peters' promo for Natural Disaster - featuring the unmistakable vocal of Mr Example...

Ben Peters

Luti Media

Luti Fagbenle

Louise Wilson

Sam McCourt

John Holloway

Amarjeet Singh

Portobello Post

Laidback Luke vs. Example 'Natural Disaster' by Ben Peters

Laidback-Luke-vs.-Example-'Natural-Disaster'-by-Ben-Peters

The return of the Guillemots with The Basket - first single from long-awaited third album Walk The River - heralds a blast of extreme weirdness down in the woods from Tom Kingsley, his first video in a while too, after impressing so much with Darwin Deez and others last year. 
It's a very psychedelic camping trip which starts with the band airborne and zooming very fast and rather disturbingly among the trees - great work by Chris Bristow at Munky - and then gets even more strange. "That's what you get when you mix the Evil Dead with 2001 and add Fyfe Dangerfield in a tent," says Tom.

Tom Kingsley on making the video for Guillemots' The Basket
"Like most music videos, we had several months prep and sixty grand at our disposal - no questions asked. So we shot on the Harry Potter forest set with James Cameron's new IMAX 3D camera system. For modesty's sake, we post-converted to 2D 7D. And then Munky's After Effects guru Chris Bristow did beautiful post work all night every night for a week. The video literally wouldn't have been possible without him. 
"The shoot day was very fast and very fun, with James Moriarty heroically doing his own steadicam and engineering his own crane by magic-arming a 7D onto a pole. Everyone mucked in - we even got CJ the commissioner holding poly boards and rigging the flimsy tent. 
"There were a couple of problems, sure. For starters, I overslept, and turned up 45 minutes late. The cheap speakers I'd brought from home to save money turned out to be so pitifully quiet that Sally, who was doing hair and make-up, had to park her car just offscreen, and play the song on that. 
"In the last shot of the day, MC the guitarist got a flare fired straight into his eye. I kept the shot where that happens in the video. Blink and you'll miss it. If only he had done the same."

Tamsin Glasson

Colonel Blimp

Chris Wardle

George Nelson

Simone Sylvester

James Eliot and Sam Cochrane

Guillemots’ The Basket by Tom Kingsley

There's more than initially meets the eye in this stylish video for electronic pop outfit Mirrors' Into The Heart. But deception is all part of the graphic armoury of the directing team known as Us - that's Christopher Barrett and Luke Taylor, who directed the excellent videos last year for Ninja artist Dels - Trumplump, in particular, certainly has that quality. With this, Christopher and Luke use darkness to challenge perceptions - and they explore their concept within the confines of a pop performance video. 
"The concept for the promo was based on the discovery of the unexpected in darkness," the pair confirm. "The video came down to two things really: the art department and the location. We wanted all the props to look as real as possible, and like they existed in their environment. We oversaw the production of the props and were so pleased with how they turned out. We have to give a huge thanks to Fred Rigby, who put up with our attention to minor details. 
"The location was really important as we wanted it to be unexpected. We looked at infinity walls, etc., but we felt that we needed somewhere with more character, so that when you do see the location you really are rewarded by the contrast."

Liz Kessler

Marcus Domleo

Fred Rig

James Norris @ Whitehouse

Mirrors’ Into The Heart by Us

Mirrors’-Into-The-Heart-by-Us

Echoing the ferociousness and dark nature of the track, Sharpe and Steel turn in a brooding, menacing promo lit sympathetically by lensman Dan Trapp - with skilfully executed underwater footage (shot by Mark Silk) and visual effects.

Mike Sharpe & Barney Steel

Daniel Trapp

Vid Price

Monica Black

Milly McMahon & Alice Overington

Pendulum’s Witchcraft by Mike Sharpe and Barney Steel

Pendulum’s-Witchcraft-by-Mike-Sharpe-and-Barney-Steel

"We had originally planned to shoot in Spain/Ibiza as the track had a very summer vibe to it" explains Jacuzzi Films' Luke Douglas. "However due to cost and logistical reasons we proceeded to shoot the beach setting of the video down in Wales
"The remainder of the video was shot on an estate in Gloucestershire where it persisted to rain for most of the day. Nevertheless, the cast and crew worked extremely hard to make the video look the best that it could and we definitely feel it is the best video we have shot for this artist - we've shot three other videos for Fugative - Supafly, Crush and another to be released later this year."

Luke Biggins

Kasra Pezeshki/Yasha Malekzad

Jacuzzi Films

George Burt

Tom Goldser

Sonny @ The Farm

Fugative’s Bad Girl by Luke Biggins

Fugative’s-Bad-Girl-by-Luke-Biggins

Faced with Joshua Radin's breezy and optimistic acoustic ballad Brand New Day, Jon Watts takes arguably the only possible approach to make it interesting and entertaining: he turns it into the worst day of the singer's life. 
Police harrassment, road accident, robbery, kidnapping and torture... Joshua is cynically, brutally (and enjoyably) victimised by the lot - all excellently photographed by DoP Matthew Santo. 
Joshua deserves a lot of credit for going with Jon's brand of black comedy, and ultimately the approach does underline his hopeful message. Sort of. Definitely made by a New Yorker.

Jon W

Martha English

SMUGGLER

Jeff Everett

Robert Ryang/PS260

Sarah Cargiulo

Joshua Radin’s Brand New Day by Jon Watts

Example (aka Elliot John Gleave) has a beautiful girlfriend - but he's still not quite sure.... 
James Copeman illustrates Example's situation in the electropoppy Kickstarts - produced by Sub Focus, already championed by Zane Lowe and Radio 1 - and its universal application through intuitive use of split screen and quick edits. Lovely stuff.

James Copeman

Black Dog Films

Alex He

Richard Mott

Anna Rhodes

Will Barnes

Example’s Kickstarts by James Copeman

&quot;We had two and a half weeks from winning the pitch to delivery so it was all hands on deck, full steam to finish&quot; explains Steel. &quot;We shot the band along with a crowd of a hundred extras over a long day down at Three Mills studios in Bow.&quot;The key was to create a sense of extreme power and energy, so we brought in some massive wind and rain machines and pummelled everyone with as much stuff as we could. Further particles and debris we&#39;re then added in post to create a suitably apocalyptic scene.&quot;We also spent a day shooting practical effects such as water and speakers as well as details of our &#39;black planet&#39;. In order to create our strange black liquid we used a substance called &#39;Ferro-Fluid&#39; which is a liquid that becomes strongly polarised in the presence of a magnetic field.&quot;Our good friend Sebastian Hagemeister at <a href="http://www.krafted-london.com/" target="_blank">Krafted</a> built an incredible machine to control some very large electro-magnets so that we could have complete control over the shape and movements of the fluid.&quot;For our CGI scenes we got the chance to work with two of Europe&#39;s finest - Argentina&#39;s Esteban Diacono created our beautiful nebula space scenes whilst Murat Pak of Turkey was responsible for the construction of our menacing &#39;Black Planet&#39;. The two elements were then composited together here in our London studios.&quot;Thanks also to Vid up at Family for his stirling editing work and to Ray and Tom for basically letting us camp out there for a week - very comfy sofas folks!&quot;Watch Behind The Scenes: <a href="" target="_blank">here</a>

Barney Steel

Joe Dyer

Thomas Ur

Family Editing

Michael Sharpe

Pendulum’s Watercolour by Barney Steel & Michael Sharpe

Pendulum’s-Watercolour-by-Barney-Steel-&-Michael-Sharpe

Steve Glashier has been focusing on documentary work and photography recently, but is also still keeping his hand in with promos. 
He recently directed the entertaining video for BYOB's Prescription. Which offers a word of warning now the party season has arrived...

Steve Glashier

Mike Prior

BYOB's Prescription by Steve Glashier

BYOB's-Prescription-by-Steve-Glashier

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.

Chris Sweeney

Adam Frisch

Ellie Lines

Lisa Laud

Ben Ansell

Julia Knight

James Bamford

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

Joe and Tim of John Major's Daughters are building a rep for creating atmospheric, great-looking videos from fairly minimal resources.
Case in point: Sander Van Doorn's house makeover for Robbie's Close My Eyes. The raw materials are some lovely ladies in party dresses, a trampoline, and a blue bloke. But probably most importantly, they shot with an army crash-testing camera.
It's slow motion fun, and a quality result. Although the production was not without its headaches for producer Paul McLoone (see below). As for JMD's Joe and Tim: "It's important to be able to work with slow motion cameras and beautiful women," they say. "Luckily in this video we were able to do both. We just want to say thank you to everyone who made it happen."

Paul McLoone on making the video for Robbie Vs Sander Van Doorn's Close My Eyes
"It's funny looking back at this video and seeing the girls moving so slowly, because on the shoot day everything (and I mean everything) seemed to be moving at a snails pace apart from the girls.
"We shot on an army crash-testing camera which got caught in a tailback on delivery. The computer took an age to download each take. We had to use stills photo lenses, which took endless fiddling to mount. Even getting a jug of water out of the studio hand was like pulling huge, deep-rooted crocodile teeth. It was like skinny, weedy legs running through deep murky quicksand.
"Then these beautiful looking girls would take position and start bouncing on a trampoline and we had just 3 seconds for a take. The whole raison d'etre of the video was like DARUMMM!! and gone. And we were back in the quicksand again...
"So its just really bizarre to see the girls now, suspended in time. Just like we were - though slightly more glamorous looking..."

P for Production

John Major's Daughters

Paul McLoone

Justin Dickel

Pepper

Robbie Williams Vs Sander Van Doorn’s Close My Eyes by JMD

Alex and Liane's new Ting Tings video is a corker: weird hand signs, clever transitions, touches of anaglyph 3D, kung fu, great art direction - and loads of sexual chemistry.
But just what is that hand sign thing all about
A and L reveal all below.

Alex and Liane on making The Ting Tings' Shut Up And Let Me Go video
"We seem to have a lot of ideas based around hands - not sure why. Actually we've been sitting on the finger transition idea for a while, thrown it at a few people who didn't pick up on it.
"The shapes come from us waving our arms around and gesticulating a lot while we talk to each other, and our interest in the Neoists, who have also used the gesture as a symbol for the art movement since the Seventies.
"We reached the stage where we just wanted to realize the idea. We wrote some fighting sequences into it - which the band picked up on and expressed a desire to do some kung fu and wirework.
"It was probably a bit over-ambitious for a one day shoot and we had to drop quite a lot of the stunts because they were just so time consuming to get right - we shot 6 rolls - and follow precisely with a Technocrane.
"We did have some concerns about translating our mini DV test onto film but Will Bex was really encouraging and great to work with so we knew we were in good hands.
"Amanda James at Final Cut had a massive task with all the layers she had to work with but she is a whizz and between her and Marcus at Rushes, they really pulled it out of the bag for us."[/pay]

Factory Films

Alex and Liane

Charlotte Woodhead

Will Bex

Amanda James

Rushes

Marcus

Ting Tings’ Shut Up And Let Me Go by Alex and Liane

D.A.R.Y.L. go way out West with CTE - Park Royal Studios - for a video that's like watching a car crash happening over and over.
Because it is a car crash happening over and over...

D.A.R.Y.L.

Hannah Cooper

Richard Stewart

Maria Chryssickos

Duncan

Quin Williams

Cage The Elephant's Ain't No Rest For The Wicked by D.A.R.Y.L.

Rani Creevy's video for Utah Saints' Something Good '08 has been a phenomenon - but could his new Sonny J video be even better 
Oh yes. Heroes (when it was good) crossed with a trailer-trash Thriller, with great production values, great choreography, and a star performance by the Southern belle in the cut-offs. She is very cool.
Great fun - and a fantastic song (as is the original, Donna Hightower's 1972 hit If You Hold My Hand). 
Dozy-doe your partners.

Between The Eyes

Eran Creevy

Ben Pugh

Crispian Sallis

David Leighton

Dan Sherwen

Rob Walker

Kai Van Beers

Sonny J's Handsfree by Eran Creevy

Very attractive girls in sexy underwear + chaps who look like they model for Men's Health + Jonnie Malachi = One highly saucy video.

Jonnie Malachi

Sam Tidman

Fragma's Toca's Miracle '08 by Jonnie Malachi

At last we can post the video for Sonny J that Phil Sansom and Olly Williams - aka Diamond Dogs - shot just before Christmas, and premiered at BUG 05 last month.

HSI London

Diamond Dogs

Malachy McAnenny

Kenny Gibb

Phil Sansom

Prime Focus

Sonny J’s Enfant Terrible by Diamond Dogs 

Tim Mattia had an amazing 2007. He was recruited to shoot bands playing live for a NME DVD covermount at the start of the year and barely had a day off after that, shooting live show after live show all year long.
He has also applied his live performance directing nous to videos - most notably for <a href="http://www.bikinifilms.co.uk/public/newwork/mv/reel/bc_wgam/" _blank="">Biffy Clyro</a> - and he recently went to Nashville to shoot a riotous performance for Cage The Elephant, another hard-rockin' bunch of sons-of-preachers from Kentucky (who happen to now reside in East London). 
Frankly you can almost taste the sweat and lick the excitement. And the seen-it-all-before scorn of the old boozers is a wonderful thing.

Bikini Films

Tim M

Helen Potter

Duncan Russell

Cage The Elephant's In One Ear by Tim Mattia

So that's how it happened! 
It's the hitherto untold story of the big-in-the-late-Eighties Running Man dance move, that apparently took Cardiff by storm back in the day. 
Eran Creevy recreates the atmosphere, without the fag smoke, and the guy in the way cool red satin bomber jacket knows how to bust a move alright.
Looks a bit tiring to me, like.

CJ Hassay

Commissioner

Videos featuring CJ Hassay

2013 (1)

2012 (1)

2011 (3)

2010 (5)

2009 (3)

2008 (7)

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