Art Director

Joe Lobley

Joe Dixon from directing team Tim &amp; Joe has made a very touching video for Texan band Black Books&rsquo; song The Big Idea &ndash; featured on the TV show&nbsp;Californication&nbsp;&ndash; in which Joe cast his father David Dixon as a man who finds a new companion in unconventional fashion: he draws her on his hand.It&rsquo;s an idea that&rsquo;s delivered with sincerity, and that&rsquo;s made possible by the sensitivity of the direction and performance. Ultimately this is about grief, and one man&rsquo;s way of dealing with it. And if David Dixon looks familiar to you &ndash; yes, he played Ford Prefect in the classic early 80s TV version of&nbsp;Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy&hellip;&ldquo;The band contacted us out of the blue and we just loved the song too much to turn it down,&rdquo; says Joe. I decided to make it with long time collaborator/lifetime father David Dixon and wrote an odd little story for him. It really lives (or dies) on the integrity of his performance, hopefully for us it&rsquo;s the latter.&ldquo;I just want to thank everyone who helped out along the way, especially Joe and Katy who designed the gorgeous Bette as she became known, as well as (far more than just a) DOP, Marcus Autelli. This is his first DPing job in the UK which I think is quite remarkable. He&rsquo;s got a bright future.&rdquo;

Joe Dixon

FRIEND

Marcus Autelli

Matt Robinson

Henry Keep

Black Books 'The Big Idea' by Joe Dixon

Black-Books-'The-Big-Idea'-by-Joe-Dixon

In the olden days they used to call it a medley and it wasn't that uncommon. So it's interesting that Laura Marling, who's about twelve (well, she looks it with her new haircut) should revive the old tradition by sticking two songs together and releasing them as one.
It's probably coincidental that the video for Cross Your Fingers/Crawled Out Of The Sea was directed by two people - Tom Palliser and Ian Anderson, aka Babanuki - and it's their second video for Laura.
Tom and Ian know their visual effects - Babanuki's ads and handful of videos, including a Katie Melua video made last year, have a versatile graphic sensibility. But this is their first real go at stop-motion animation. "It seemed to evoke the themes of decay and age that run throughout the song," says Ian, "and it's also a good way of making a low budget video look dollar."
And there's a distinct development in Tom and Ian's torn paper theme once Cross segues smoothly into Crawled.
Laura Marling
Cross Your Fingers / Crawled Out Of The Sea (Virgin)
Prod co: Another Film Company
DoP: Ben Pritchard<o/>
Editor: Babanuki<o/>
Animation: Babanuki<o/>
Telecine: Ben Rogers at Glassworks<o/>
Online: Glassworks<o/>
Commissioner: Carole Burton-Fairbrother<o/>
Watch online: <a href="http://www.babanuki.com/storage/Laura_Marling_Cross_and_Crawled.mov">Quicktime movie</a>
 <o/>Tom and Ian of Babanuki on Laura Marling's Cross/Crawled video
Tom: "We had done a little bit of stop-motion experimentation in the past, certainly nothing that you'd call accomplished. Laura suggested a homemade feel, so it seemed right to make something which revelled a little in its imperfections.
"We had had ideas for a few scenarios and we were going to initially shoot these scenes with just a stills camera. However that would mean that all the lip-sync was going to look really 'live' and video-y.
"So we tried a technique whereby we shot everything as normal, then printed out the individual frames, re-photographed each frame with a digital stills camera, adding in any extra stop-motion manipulation along the way, then fed it back into the edit suite to replace the previous shot."
Ian: "Essentially, we shot the promo once, edited it, then shot it again."
Tom: [on the break from one song to the other] "The theme angle basically stops at that point and it's more about the performance of Laura with her band. This part of the video has each performer animated within a ripped section of the image, appearing and disappearing in an unusual way each time. By the end Laura has been ripped to shreds, the pieces scattered into the air before landing on the carpet."
Ian: "We tore every frame by hand, so the edges have a chattering movement. There's a lot of paper that still needs clearing up round Tom's flat."
Tom: "And we're really grateful to everyone at Glassworks as they were so kind and considerate given they were doing us a favour. We'd hope that we'd be allowed back in again!"
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Babanuki

Laura Marling’s Cross Your Fingers/Crawled Out To Sea by Babanuki

Promonews Podcast

Joe Lobley

Art Director

Videos featuring Joe Lobley

2013 (1)

2008 (1)

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