Editor

Isaac Hagy

Alan Yang, co-dreator of Master Of None, has said that his video for JAY-Z&#39;s Moonlight is &quot;not a slam on Friends... it&#39;s more of a glimpse at how far we have come as a culture. And how far we have yet to go.&quot;Yang <a href="http://pigeonsandplanes.com/in-depth/2017/08/jay-z-black-friends-moonlight-alan-yang-interview" target="_blank">has said</a>: &quot;I don&rsquo;t want to be didactic and tell people what to think of the video, but one thing that Jay and I talked about is the importance of making your own stuff. I know that sounds trivial, but it really is just owning and making your own stuff. And that applies to movies, music, TV shows, art, whatever it is you&rsquo;re making. It&rsquo;s important to be the author of your own material.&quot;Yang recreated part of the Friends episode &#39;The One Where No-One&#39;s Ready&#39; with a cast of young black actors, all of whom are currently or have recently starred in hit TV shows or movies:&nbsp;Jerrod Carmichael, Issa Rae, Lakeith Stanfield, Tiffany Haddish, Tessa Thompson, and Lil Rel Howery. The original idea was to reshoot the whole of the 21 minute episode, and Production designer JC Molina did a brilliant job replicating the set.<a href="http://www.vulture.com/2017/08/master-of-none-alan-yang-jay-z-moonlight-video.html" target="_blank">Yang has told Vulture</a>: &quot;JC got the original plans from the original set and just literally reproduced it brick by brick, piece of furniture by piece of furniture. Every prop was the same. And I watched that episode so many times, some of those lines are etched in my head &mdash; I was telling Lil Rel, I&rsquo;m never gonna forget the line &ldquo;glass of fat&rdquo; &mdash; and we had a split-screen monitor of the episode on set. So I made sure every shot was exactly the same as the original.&quot;&bull; <a href="http://pigeonsandplanes.com/in-depth/2017/08/jay-z-black-friends-moonlight-alan-yang-interview" target="_blank">Pigeons &amp; Planes</a>&bull; <a href="http://www.vulture.com/2017/08/master-of-none-alan-yang-jay-z-moonlight-video.html" target="_blank">Vulture</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;

United States

Alan Yang

Stephan Mohammed

Chaka Pilgrim

Inga Veronique

Jamie Rabineau

Caviar

Lark Creative

David Jones

JC Molina

JAY-Z 'Moonlight' by Alan Yang

JAY-Z - Moonlight

From the echo of a lone lighter in the darkness, a monster of dense sound crawls through Grief, the debut track on Earl Sweatshirt&rsquo;s second album&nbsp;I Don&rsquo;t Like Shit, I Don&rsquo;t Go Outside, and its video by Hiro Murai translates eerie sonic textures into equally unsettling images.&lsquo;Ain&rsquo;t been outside in a minute,&rsquo; Earl spits, while the video unfolds as if from the perspective of some nocturnal creature that only sees in negative space. There are no bounds. No borders from which to frame the universe of this video. No way to get your bearings. It just emerges from the thick muck, while the backing sound ploughs ahead, like the hollow sweep of Badalamenti&rsquo;s ambient Twin Peaks score as if Burial had created it.The longer you watch, the more you&rsquo;re unnerved. Sucked in. Unsure if you&rsquo;ll ever make it out. Earl and his crew clearly haven&rsquo;t, stuck in limbo as x-ray video game characters. &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve been livin&rsquo; what I wrote.&rsquo;This is the third outing for Hiro and Earl, who previously collaborated on Chum&nbsp;and Hive, and if anything, this video feels obvious. That is to say, these two are so well matched, much like Hiro&rsquo;s ongoing work with Childish Gambino, that once you start watching, you&rsquo;re immediately struck by the inevitability of it all; it&rsquo;s a perfect visual realisation of what the music calls for. So much that you have to wonder if any other approach could even come close.I Don&rsquo;t Like Shit, I Don&rsquo;t Go Outside drops on March 23, and we can only hope to see Earl and Hiro continue their collaboration with the same brutally haunting momentum as this first release.

Hiro Murai

Doomsday Entertainment

Courtney Davies

Danielle Hinde

Larkin Seiple

Luke Lynch

Gloria FX

Ricky Gausis

Bryan Younce

Urban

Earl Sweatshirt 'Grief' by Hiro Murai

Earl Sweatshirt - Grief

Swiftly following his video for <a href="http://www.promonews.tv/videos/2013/08/14/arctic-monkeys-whyd-you-only-call-me-when-youre-high-nabil" target="_blank">Arctic Monkeys</a> earlier this week, Nabil teams up with the powerhouse combination of Just Blaze,&nbsp;Baauer (of Harlem Shake Fame) and Jay Z for this excellent promo to&nbsp;Higher.Nabil embarked to India to film some&nbsp;spectacular martial arts with actors/students from the&nbsp;Vishwabharath Kalari Sangam, a martial arts school that&nbsp;practice&nbsp;Kalaripayattu -&nbsp;an Indian martial art also known as Kalari...

Nabil

Chayse Irvin

Justin Benoliel

Kathleen Heffernan

Benny Estrada

Lisa Leuenberg

CH Rajesh Babu

Jamie Hardt

Mriga

Doris

Priority Records

Academy Films

Just Blaze x Baauer x JayZ 'Higher' by Nabil

JUST BLAZE X BAAUER x JAYZ.  [HIGHER]

Isaac Ravishankara films Keith Urban out in the country strumming his guitar under a pretty sky in his promo for the American Idol judge&#39;s new single Little BIt Of Everything.Then things take a strange course as the pretty sky turns out to be fake and the country is actually a room in his house and his house is in the middle of a football field...

Isaac Ravishankara

Kimberly Stuckwisch

Kevin Hayden

Joanna Carter

Country

Keith Urban 'Little Bit Of Everything' by Isaac Ravishankara

Keith Urban - Little Bit Of Everything

What lies beyond the edge? Hiro Murai&#39;s steady, considered camera seems to beg this simple, harrowing question as it wanders like molasses through an eerie and otherworldly suburban neighbourhood in his video for Earl Sweatshirt&#39;s Hive (and his follow-up to the Chum video), illuminating curious scenes with a pointed spotlight. It begins to feel as though we&#39;re in the suburban ocean deep, bearing witness to things no human was ever meant to see.&nbsp;This practice of the unexpected&nbsp;is quickly becoming the staple, both audibly and visually, for an emerging group of young MCs and producers out of LA. Most notably, the creative tornado that is Odd Future, and all of its affiliated artists.&nbsp;With most music, a very clear lineage can usually be drawn in the evolution of a style or musical movement. However, for Earl Sweatshirt and his contemporaries, it&#39;s not so much a case of wearing influences on their sleeves, but more like brazenly not wearing sleeves at all. Their musical aesthetic, and the visual themes they gravitate towards, aren&#39;t weighed down by pandering to the audience&nbsp;or flipping through a cultural rulebook to the This Is How Hip-Hop Should Look and Sound Like&nbsp;section.That being the case, Earl Sweatshirt couldn&#39;t have found a better director than Hiro Murai, with his visually adventurous pedigree, to create a video that sinks its gnarled teeth into the viewer as much as &#39;Hive&#39; does. What lies beyond the edge? There may not be one.

Jason Colon

Columbia Records

Max Orgell

Elise Velasco

Marc Steinberg

Clara Aranovich

Brian Younce

Earl Sweatshirt 'Hive' by Hiro Murai

Earl Sweatshirt featuring Vince Staples & Casey Veggies - Hive

A really marvellous video by Nabil Elderkin for Foals&#39; Bad Habit, taking a classic notion and making it thoroughly his own. Foals lead singer Yannis finds himself marooned in a vast desert, but it soon transpires he&#39;s not alone: he&#39;s trailing a naked girl who makes plants grow in the sand where she walks. But the audience realisation that she&#39;s obviously a form of mirage is just the start.A great idea executed with stunning imagery, and where the excellent visual effects work &ndash; by Ukranian post production house Gloria FX &ndash; creates a spectacular shifting desert which is also a psychological landscape.

Matyas Erdely

Brandon Chavez

Warner Brothers

Indie Rock

Foals 'Bad Habit' by Nabil

FOALS [bad habit]

Nabil Elderkin has created a majestic and mysterious music video for James Blake&rsquo;s Overgrown &ndash; the second single from the acclaimed second album with the same name &ndash; which really captures the nature of Blake&rsquo;s music.At first, sitting in a bedroom with a view on a natural scene in fast forward, Blake leaves what turns out to be a floating house in a field as night falls, walking through fields and forest towards the sea &ndash; shadowed by swirling black-robed figures. The video has serenity, sense of place, mystery (are those black figures real?) and a stronger performance from Blake himself than in his previous videos.Nabil shot the video in California, and it features the dancing talents of Lil&rsquo; Buck and his crew as the reaper-like figures that follow the singer &ndash; and it was shot day-for-night in camera by Nabil&rsquo;s regular DoP Danny Hiele.

United Kingdom

Iconoclast

Lil Buck

Ringmaster Nugget

Talilban Shelk

Danny Hiele

Rita Zebdi

The Mill

James Blake ‘Overgrown’ by Nabil

James Blake [overgrown]

While Foals perform in an Eastern European hotel bar, life goes on in the rooms upstairs in Nabil Elderkin&#39;s gripping video for Late Night. In fact, the brass tacks of human existence are played out in this intense, unflinching, highly cinematic work - a couple make love, a woman gives birth and an auto-erotic suicide happen simultaneously, within a few feet of each other...It was shot in Bucharest, Romania, as was Nabil&#39;s previously released video, for The Weeknd (although it was actually shot before that video). This is more visceral and less psychological than some of his other recent work, but with his handling of narrative becoming more adroit with each outing, no wonder Hollywood is now beckoning for Nabil...

Liz Kessler

Carmen Dima

Luis Martin

Joe Tang

Tara Richardson

Aubrey Woodiwiss

Foals 'Late Night' by Nabil

Following Antony &amp; The Johnsons&#39; Cut The World and Frank Ocean&#39;s Pyramids, Nabil is finding his groove for enigmatic, psychological drama and his video for The Weeknd&#39;s Twenty Eight follows in the same vein, intercutting between the soul singer&#39;s appearance on a serious TV chat show, a ghost of a girl watching him on TV, and a flashback to a house where two half-naked pole dancers at a private party may well be in mortal danger...This was shot in Bucharest - the party scenes at the personal residence of reviled Romanian tyrant Nicolae Ceaucescu - where Nabil has characteristically made the most of the budget. With excellent production value, sumptuous visuals and the measured pacing for which he&#39;s becoming renowned, this is definitely one for the viewer to fill in the gaps themselves...

Finish

Kate Miller

Ileana Anghel

The Weeknd 'Twenty Eight' by Nabil

The-Weeknd-'Twenty-Eight'-by-Nabil-Elderkin

Odd Future associate Earl Sweatshirt is in reflective mood in Hiro Murai&#39;s low-key, atmospheric, trippy and beautifully-shot video for Chum. Excellent work by DoP Larkin Seiple &ndash; and another fine addition to this year&#39;s gallery of utterly mashed hip-hop stars in music vids.&nbsp;

Earl Sweatshirt 'Chum' by Hiro Murai

Earl-Sweatshirt-'Chum'-by-Hiro-Murai

Ace Norton delivers this beautifully constructed promo for the sweet and strange-acting Regina Spektor for her bi-lingual single Don't Leave Me (Ne Me Quitte Pas). Regina gets up to all sorts in a fancy New York hotel room. 

http://www.youtube.com/watchv=BWXWivwhi14

Ace Norton

Jason Baum

Sebastian Wintero

Devin Sarno

Regina Spektor 'Don't Leave Me (Ne Me Quitte Pas)' by Ace Norton

Regina-Spektor-'Don't-Leave-Me-(Ne-Me-Quitte-Pas)'-by-Ace-Norton

Employing a mix of live-action and animation, the video pushes through a re-imagined beer label trompe l'oeil, complete with vaudeville pop-colored stage theatrics. The labels bring the song's lyrics to life, ultimately ending with a full-on dance number around a helplessly lovesick rabbit.

Lorenzo Fonda

Aaron Pl

Luca Zamoc

Damijan Saccio

Dilly Gent

Scissor Sisters 'Baby Come Home' by Lorenzo Fonda

Scissor-Sisters-'Baby-Come-Home'-by-Lorenzo-Fonda

Four heroic horses charge through the desert in Lorenzo Fonda's promo for upcoming Scissor Sisters single Only The Horses.
With the band trapped inside a pyramid bathed in thick, gloopy paint, the horses set them free at the promo's climax. We're pretty sure it's a metaphor for something...

Ross Levine

Doomsday Ent

Scissor Sisters 'Only The Horses' by Lorenzo Fonda

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

Scissor-Sisters-'Only-The-Horses'-by-Lorenzo-Fonda

NABIL translates the intimacy of Bon Iver's widescreen ballad Towers with this gorgeous, cinematic promo. 
Shot on location in Washington State and beautifully photographed by Larkin Sieple, an old fisherman - played by actor Mystic - takes his small wooden tower out to the much bigger wooden towers out at sea... An intriguing companion piece to Nabil's equally beautiful video for Holocene, shot in Iceland a few months ago.

NE Direction

Bon Iver 'Towers' by NABIL

Bon-Iver-'Towers'-by-NABIL

The pictures say it all really. Hiro Murai's video for St. Vincent's Cheerleader will make you shudder, as Annie Clark (aka St V) becomes a giant, living art exhibit, who starts crumbling to dust as she moves... 
Lovely, shuddersome imagery - for arguably the best track on the current St Vincent album Strange Mercy. 

http://www.youtube.com/watchfeature=player_embedded&amp;v=LEY9GJAm8bA

Ethan Feldbau

Chad Nicholson

Tina Cohen

Laura Francis

St. Vincent 'Cheerleader' by Hiro Murai

St.-Vincent-'Cheerleader'-by-Hiro-Murai

Partizan Darkroom

Michael Rizzi

Chelsea Oliver

Doomsday

Jeff Pantaleo

Saul Levitz

Foster The People 'Call It What You Want' by Ace Norton

Foster-The-People-'Call-It-What-You-Want'-by-Ace-Norton

Nabil Elderkin's lovely video for Bon Iver's Holocene premiered on the National Geographic channel - the first video ever to do so - and it's not difficult to see why. 
A solitary boy's journey through his surroundings is also a celebration the bleak beauty of Iceland. Reminiscent of those classic Sigur Ros videos by Arni &amp; Kinski, but even more focussed on the breathtaking settings (with some additional post production flourishes for added visual poetry).

Peter Sauvey, Gustavo BKR

Jill Hammer

Lark Cre

Bon Iver 'Holocene' by Nabil

Bon-Iver-'Holocene'-by-Nabil

NABIL's fun promo for electro house dj Wolfgang Gartner (aka Joey Youngman) focuses on Will.I.Am's guest appearance - portraying the Black Eyed Pea in all manner of guises from his birth to a hit lothario with the Darby &amp; Joan crew...

Black Dog Films

Josh Reis

Gustavo Torres

Wolfgang Gartner feat. Will.I.Am 'Forever' by NABIL

Nabil's intention for his video for Frank Ocean's Novacane was to "make something that feels trippy", and he certainly succeeded. Frank O articulates a nightmarish psychological landscape, when the drugs take hold, and this visualises it very effectively.
Shot over one day in LA it was a labour of love for Nabil. Hard to believe that the 5D can look this good...

Frank Ocean 'Novacane' by Nabil

Frank-Ocean-'Novacane'-by-Nabil

Following his promo for <a href="http://www.promonews.tv/2010/11/05/seal%E2%80%99s-secret-by-nabil-elderkin/" target="_blank">Seal</a>, Nabil Elderkin directs Grenade, the new single by highly in-demand writer and producer Bruno Mars which follows-up his globe-straddling Just The Way You Are.With some great photography from Giles Dunning, Elderkin, listening closely to the lyric, shoots Mars dragging his piano through underpasses, dodgy neighbourhoods and up steep hills - but that&#39;s nothing compared to what he&#39;d do for his girl...Watch: <a href="http://rsafilms.wiredrive.com/l/p/presentation=23b5c95000313a93a1537dba377f6a51" target="_blank">here</a> Bruno Mars <a href="http://www.brunomars.com/" target="_blank">website</a>

Anne Johnson

Giles Dunning

David Saslow

Bruno Mars’ Grenade by Nabil

Patrick and Ace break out the ruffs, the wimples and the luminous makeup to celebrate our hard times. A deft and dazzling combination of performance, theatre, vfx, and outré neckwear.

Isaac Hagy

Editor

Videos featuring Isaac Hagy

2017 (1)

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