Director

Emily Kai Bock

The long-awaited return of Arcade Fire with Lightning I, II, arrives with a video from Emily Kai Bock, that like the song is a work of&nbsp;two distinct parts. A classic band performance, and then a riveting, terrifying narrative.The band performance is&nbsp;filmed on a tiny outdoor stage in main&nbsp;street of a one-horse town on a sunny afternoon, like a rehearsal for a show at a county fair; the second part is preceded by signs of the weather changing, as the arc of balloons blows from its moorings.Then comes the full threat of a catastrophic&nbsp;weather&nbsp;event; frontman Win Butler struggling against high winds towards his home, where we see the source of impending doom. This is a wonderfully cinematic exposition of a new reality of climate change.In this case, disaster is apparently averted. But somehow the sight of the collapse of the coming tornado - brilliantly created by a VFX team headed by Josh Deu - is more resonant&nbsp;and effective in expressing its destructive power. It resembles the collapse of a&nbsp;skyscraper.&nbsp;

Canada

Julia Simpson

Miranda Kahn

Ricardo Betancourt

Abbie Jones

Jacki Calliero

Melissa Culligan

Mirmade

Oliver Millar

Chris Cruz

Bao Ngo

Chad Chamberlain

Eric Alder

Nathan Harrison

Jeff Galpin

Tanner Short

Justin Crawford

Josh Deu

Alana Hogg

Maureen Chapman

Renata Morales

Emily Kingston

Matt Whittle

Hunter McHugh

Rock

Arcade Fire 'Lightning I, II' by Emily Kai Bock

Arcade Fire - The Lightning I, II (Official Video)

At the UK Music Video Awards on Monday (November 10th)&nbsp;Emily Kai Bock collected the&nbsp;MVA for Best Alternative Video - International for her Arcade Fire video for After Life, and then gave a passionate&nbsp;acceptance speech, boldly arguing the superiority of music videos over feature films as big screen entertainment.And there&#39;s&nbsp;no doubt her latest music video, for Lorde&#39;s Yellow Flicker Beat - a song on the soundtrack of the latest from the latest Hunger Games movie - would be a feast on a big screen. In a series of beautifully-crafted scenes, she has brought the big, widescreen&nbsp;stylised elements&nbsp;evident in her Arcade Fire and Magical Cloudz promos into the realm of the proper pop video.From the pompadoured Lorde&nbsp;bathed in the cherry hues of a neon motel sign&nbsp;to the dark party&nbsp;scene, Emily has created a series of arresting vignettes that make a serious statement about the precociously-talented New Zealander&nbsp;(this video&#39;s release was timed to coincide with her 18th birthday last week) as an&nbsp;independently-minded pop star.&nbsp;And together, the pair have created&nbsp;a video that is a real reflection of Lorde&#39;s artistic ambitions.&nbsp;&ldquo;Ella [Lorde] emailed me during the summer while she was on tour&nbsp;with Magical&nbsp;Cloudz, who I made a video for a couple years ago,&quot; says Emily.&nbsp;I was amazed that&nbsp;she would reach out to me directly. Usually with such a big-name artist,&nbsp;there&nbsp;is a team of people you have to go through, but she kept a close connection to&nbsp;me from start to finish - from feedback on the treatment to&nbsp;editing notes, we&nbsp;were in constant touch.As for the inspiration&nbsp;behind the video, Emily explains, &ldquo;Ella is a true collaborator. She had sent me a reference video of&nbsp;Mae West being&nbsp;interviewed by Dick Cavett. In the clip, Dick Cavett walks&nbsp;across a massive airplane hanger to this tiny lit set, where Mae West is&nbsp;reclining in this&nbsp;chair - it&#39;s a really surreal interview setting.&rdquo;&ldquo;I wrote&nbsp;her a treatment with a bunch of these kind of set ideas, of things that could&nbsp;live within a dark void of a large vacant space, under a&nbsp;singular light - a&nbsp;motel room, a confessional, a chandelier, a streetlamp, and so on - and she&nbsp;loved it.&nbsp;&nbsp;I was really excited&nbsp;about the idea of using&nbsp;black as a way to transition between the worlds, losing&nbsp;the context of what is exterior and what is interior.&rdquo;Due to&nbsp;Lorde&rsquo;s busy touring schedule, the exteriors were shot in north New Jersey, and the&nbsp;interiors in the Park Avenue Armory during New York Fashion Week - and between the Marc Jacobs and Tommy Hilfiger shows.Emily says, &ldquo;We would wrap set&nbsp;and she would get on&nbsp;her tour bus to drive overnight to a new city and play a show. She didn&#39;t seem&nbsp;tired though. There was one scene where she&nbsp;had to fall off a four-foot&nbsp;platform onto these mats repeatedly, and she was really excited about it. I&nbsp;think even complained that the platform&nbsp;wasn&#39;t higher.&rdquo;

United States

Iconoclast

Kathleen Heffernan

John Nguyen

Evan Prosofsky

Inbal Weinberg

Eric Schwalbe

Dulany Foster

Crew Cuts

Republic Records

Somesuch

Lorde 'Yellow Flicker Beat' by Emily Kai Bock

Lorde - Yellow Flicker Beat (Hunger Games)

As beautiful as it is heartbreaking, the Emily Kai Bock-directed video for Arcade Fire&rsquo;s &lsquo;Afterlife&rsquo; is above all a stand-out piece of nuanced storytelling. A family of three men &mdash; father, teenager and young son &mdash; each lament the loss of their mother and wife in a narrative that blends their lives with their dreams.It&rsquo;s a device that is often practiced but seldom produces the kind of haunting and poignant impact Kai Bock achieves, like Linklater&rsquo;s Waking Life did over a decade ago. By the end of the video, nearly eight minutes of subtle and insightful storytelling swell to a melancholy conclusion that leaves you yearning.&lsquo;Afterlife&rsquo; reunites Kai Bock once again with cinematographer Evan Prosofsky. Their collaborative efforts have been so consistently strong, when you hear murmurs of them being on another set patience suddenly becomes scarce; you know it&rsquo;ll be great, but you can&rsquo;t wait to see how great.Prosofsky&rsquo;s lens picks up the subtext of story as if it were just another layer of celluloid, and he exercises ornamental restraint to craft images that are as pure as they are thought-provoking.Of course, it&rsquo;s difficult to watch &lsquo;Afterlife&rsquo; without considering the live rendition recently directed by Spike Jonze and featuring Greta Gerwig at the first YouTube Music Awards. Kai Bock&rsquo;s video is patently distinct, but it&rsquo;s an interesting comparison to make; one is an iconic director and the other is on her way to becoming one.

Charles-Marie Anthonioz

Anne Johnson

Danielle Oexmann

Brandeaux Tourville

Davie Carothers

Ari Robbins

Leo Scott

Hannah Hurney

Daniel McNutt

Olivia Segerstrom

Jamie Catino

Haley O'Neil

Grace Pae

The Creators Project

Indie Rock

Arcade Fire 'Afterlife' by Emily Kai Bock

ARCADE FIRE - AFTERLIFE

For Montreal duo Majical Cloudz&rsquo;s Childhood&rsquo;s End, Emily Kai Bock returns with a surreal, cinematic tale of an old man&rsquo;s daily struggle, and his flight into fantasy &ndash; including his dramatic encounter with a vintage locomotive.
The Childhood&rsquo;s End video features Kenneth Welsh, best known for his role as Wisdom Earle in David Lynch&rsquo;s cult TV show Twin Peaks, and also the father of Devon Welsh, one half of Majical Cloudz (with Matthew Otto). And it looks absolutely spectacular, shot by top Canadian cinematographer Bobby Shore on 35mm.

Jason Aita

Martin Wojtunik

Adam Azimov

Bobby Shore

Blaine Thrush

Zazu Myers

Sharon Yoo

Angela Moritsugu

Gregory Kaufman

Kenneth Welsh

Mason Podhorsky

Meridel Morrison

Majical Cloudz ‘Childhood’s End’ by Emily Kai Bock

Majical Cloudz - Childhood's End

Grizzly Bear are back with a new album, Shields, and maintaining their tradition of working with the cream of young video directing talent (former collaborators include Encyclopedia Pictura, Patrick Daughters and Alison Schulnik), directing duties for the video for Yet Again have gone to Emily Kai Bock - whose last music video was a work of sheer brilliance, for <a href="http://www.promonews.tv/2012/03/09/grimes-oblivion-by-emily-kai-bock/" target="_blank">Grimes&#39; Oblivion</a>.http://www.youtube.com/watchfeature=player_embedded&amp;v=AuG9i5cwGW0

Anna Junger

Vision Film Co

Michael Bailey

John Hall

Nabil

Grizzly Bear 'Yet Again' by Emily Kai Bock

Grizzly-Bear-'Yet-Again'-by-Emily-Kai-Bock

It's already been described somewhere as an instant classic, and we are not inclined to disagree with that assessment of Emily Kai Bock's wonderful video for Grimes's Oblivion.Emily, her cinematographer Evan Prosofsky and Claire Boucher (aka Grimes) shot most of it 'guerilla' at a football stadium in Montreal, using the action on the field (football, but also a gobsmackingly huge dirt bike rally) as a backdrop, and getting the fans involved, together with some more staged displays of testosterone-fuelled locker room action. It's frankly awesome.Interview with Emily Kai Bock and Claire Boucher about the making of the video <a href="http://pitchfork.com/features/directors-cut/8783-grimes-oblivion/utm_medium=site&amp;utm_source=ticker&amp;utm_name=features" target="_blank">Pitchfork</a>.

Grimes 'Oblivion' by Emily Kai Bock

Grimes-'Oblivion'-by-Emily-Kai-Bock

Promonews Podcast

Emily Kai Bock

Director

Videos featuring Emily Kai Bock

2022 (1)

2014 (1)

2013 (2)

2012 (2)

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