Director

Kevin Godley

He started directing music videos for his own band a mere 40 years ago, and Kevin Godley is still experimenting with the artform.&nbsp;Godley has recorded a new album called&nbsp;Muscle Memory - his first ever solo album, in fact&nbsp;- and directed the video, while in lockdown at home in Ireland. By directed, we mean he did literally everything himself. It is completely self-made, and very much an experimental piece, as this pioneer of the&nbsp;music video medium demonstrates he is still fascinated by new technology, and pushing boundaries.&nbsp;&nbsp;But in a way, this is also strongly connected to those early works he created with Lol Creme for their band Godley &amp; Creme, and their first videos for other artists, like Visage's Fade To Grey. The subject is the same as it has been in so much of Godley's music video canon: the human face. In this case it is his own - like in one of his most celebrated videos, for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a_PRcVYX7g" target="_blank">Godley &amp; Creme's Cry</a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;As he explains below, shooting and editing everything himself was a journey of discovery that included some happy accidents. Kevin Godley is still experimenting - and in some ways he's also come full circle.[imgtoken data:1]

United Kingdom

Alternative

Kevin Godley 'Expecting A Message' by Kevin Godley

Expecting a Message (Official Video) by Kevin Godley - Music from The state51 Conspiracy

Keane are back - and reunited with Kevin Godley for their first music video in years. And it's a straight performance video with a big difference.What looks like a conventional widescreen performance set-up in a white room is anything but. The first clue is the appearance of Tom Chaplin and the rest of the band attached to the walls by bungee ropes. And then it becomes celar - Keane are performing on what appears to be the best bouncy castle ever!As Godley describes below, it's the latest in a series of videos where he has put Keane, or Chaplin on his own, through a test of sheer physical endurance.

Lucy Nolan

Smash Production Services Ltd

Jo Allen

Shea Bradley

Tony C Miller

Ben Worthington

Joseph Edwards

Henry Jones

Eoin Mcdonagh

Outer Limits, Dublin

Eugene McCrystal

Outer Limits, Dubin

Outer Limits, Dublin, Eire

Ciara Walsh

Lucy @ Smash Management

Sam Flynn

Island Records

Keane 'The Way I Feel' by Kevin Godley

More than three decades after Godley &amp; Creme made one of the defining music videos of the 1980s, Kevin Godley has done it all again. The same conceptual simplicity, with a sizeable cast of extras of all shapes, sizes and ages.&nbsp;Only this time, including Benedict Cumberbatch (above).So we asked Kevin - what was it like remaking the amazing video for Cry for Elbow&#39;s new single Gentle Storm? Wasn&#39;t it a little bit strange? Was it much easier this time around to pull off, considering the huge leaps in technology?&nbsp;Did they move on from keeping the actors&#39; heads straight with a saucepan? As Kevin (below left, with Elbow&#39;s Guy Garvey, right, and cast member 16 year old Oscar Boulter, centre) explains here, they certainly did...[imgtoken data:1]KEVIN GODLEY: &nbsp;Is it possible for a job to be easy and difficult at the same time? Yes, it is. When Guy Garvey called me and said: &#39;Would you consider recreating the Cry video for our new song Gentle Storm?&#39; I was a bit puzzled. Why would he want something that was already out there?Then I realised that &lsquo;out there&rsquo; really meant &#39;out there since 1985&#39;, and a whole generation or three wouldn&rsquo;t have seen the original, or have a clue who Godley &amp; Creme were. So to a world of millennials it would probably be &ldquo;who the fuck?&rdquo;...So why the fuck not?It was a different song with a different tempo and feel, that&rsquo;s why not. Where Cry loped, Gentle Storm clattered, where Cry relied on simple pop lyrics, Gentle Storm was full of poetic truths. So yes, everything was different yet somehow the same, and I could see how the film we conjured up all those years back might resonate with Guy.So, after some thigh-slappingly funny phone conversations and texts, I said &#39;yes&#39; and began casting. This time out, thank fuck, potential cast could video themselves miming the song and send us clips to prove how good or bad they were. Last time we sent everyone audio cassettes of the song and hoped they&rsquo;d get it right on the day. Most didn&rsquo;t.One major bonus was finding out that Benedict Cumberbatch was up for appearing in it. Needless to say we didn&rsquo;t ask for a video to check his miming.Come the day of the shoot the studio was full of people waiting their turn like it was a doctor&rsquo;s surgery, and second in line was Benedict on a strict one hour time slot. We&rsquo;d never met before so I had no idea what to expect. Was he a snotty superstar with a million PAs in attendance? Nope! He was a lovely down-to-earth man, an enthusiastic music fan, and (luckily) an admirer of the original Cry video. We did two takes with him, both flawless, except for the stray &lsquo;and&rsquo; towards the end of the song that tended to screw everyone up.[imgtoken data:2]<blockquote>&quot;Needless to say we didn&rsquo;t ask Benedict for a video to check his miming.&quot;</blockquote>After Benedict set the benchmark everyone who followed nailed it in two takes. That includes Craig, Mark and Pete of Elbow, who trained in from Manchester, Guy&rsquo;s wife Rachael Stirling and brother Marcus, both accomplished actors. They were all extraordinary to work with and had that classic, no bullshit northern sense of humour that set the tone for the day.I didn&rsquo;t really have to direct anyone - they all became suitably themselves as soon as the camera rolled. Everything felt real, nothing felt forced and there were no fuck ups, no tantrums and no 35mm gates to check as we shot on 4K res digital video. In fact the only difference between this shoot and Cry was the major technological advance of steadying people&rsquo;s heads with a sink-plunger instead of a saucepan.[imgtoken data:3]<blockquote>&quot;The only difference between this shoot and Cry was the major technological advance of steadying people&rsquo;s heads with a sink-plunger instead of a saucepan.&quot;</blockquote>A few days later I was editing in Ireland with Eoin McDonagh and Eugene McCrystal and finding my way around the differences in feel and tempo. Were transitions too slow, too fast, too many? How often do we feature Guy and the band, Benedict, Rachael, Marcus, me? Yes, me. At Guy&rsquo;s request, I did a take too, and appear briefly on the stray &lsquo;and.&rsquo;Our first cut was considered a little fast by all back in London, so we tried to slow it down a little. Tricky, as there were many editorial factors in play that suggested a pacier approach, so a lot of head scratching ensued...and then it was Christmas.After hibernation we reconvened, refreshed and full of ideas on how to tweak the cut into line with band, management and label suggestions. We didn&rsquo;t over analyse it, we just did it, submitted it and, after 24 hours of serious nailbiting we got a call saying we&rsquo;d nailed it.My thanks to Guy, Craig, Mark and Pete, Benedict, Lucy Nolan (my peerless producer at Smash) Bruce Jackson (DOP), video commissioner Emily Tedrake, the cast, the crew, the studio, editorial team Eoin &amp; Eugene and the sink-plunger.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Kevin Godley on remaking a classic for Elbow - with added Cumberbatch

Elbow 'Gentle Storm' by Kevin Godley

Elbow - Gentle Storm

Such is the iconic nature of the video for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxtPRF6NG7I" target="_blank">Godley &amp; Creme&#39;s Cry</a>&nbsp;that it is hard to believe that we have not had this before now - a remake. Now it has - and the good thing about it is not only it&#39;s been remade by Kevin Godley himself, it stays true to the original. Albeit this time with one or two more familiar faces, like actors Rachel Stirling (Elbow frontman Guy Garvey&#39;s wife) and Benedict Cumberbatch.

Smash Management

Clemency Abraham

Chris Kelly

Bruce Jackson

Mark Brennan

Sam Horn

Alex Byng

Jonny Lewis

Tom Laurie

Baines

Bean Ellis

Jade Soar

Kevin Godley returns to music video directing, and pairs up with Tom Chaplin for the first time since their collaboration for Keane&#39;s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVe_KVzBFOo" target="_blank">Is It Any Wonder?,&nbsp;</a>for this lovely visual for the track Still Waiting.&nbsp;But as you find out in Godley&#39;s notes below, sometimes even a seemingly straightforward visual device can be tricky to pull off with&nbsp;elegance. But the video has come together beautifully, capturing a strong performance by the singer from four different&nbsp;angles, shot simultaneously on different cameras. In classic Godley fashion, it&#39;s all done in-camera.Refracted, mirrored and duplicated, Tom&#39;s image takes on a&nbsp;life of its own through a&nbsp;variety of movement that avoid&nbsp;becoming too repetitive.&nbsp;[imgtoken data:1]

Andy Boulter

Rupert Cobb

Shukeel Murtaza

Bernie Prentice

Tom Chaplin 'Still Waiting' by Kevin Godley

Tom Chaplin - Still Waiting

The video by the legendary Kevin Godley for Irish hopefuls Bipolar Empire's Feel That You Own It - shot just before the recent Irish General Election - perfectly expresses the current mood of the country in the wake of its recent financial collapse. And it contains real punch-power in the form of female boxing world champion Katie Taylor, a fan of the band. 
Anger and frustration is a permanent presence here - while Kevin might be forgiven for thinking that Bipolar Express's way with a rock riffs and pop hook is reminiscent of the work of his old muckers U2...

AnneMarie Naughton for Park Films

Ivan McCullough

Dan Gannon

Windmill Lane

Bipolar Empire's Feel That You Own It by Kevin Godley

It's been five years since Charlotte Church unleashed her pop debut and for her big comeback teams up with Kevin Godley for first single Back To Scratch.
For the cyclical nature of the track, Kevin sets Ms Church spinning using his cool multi-faceted 'hall of mirrors' thang to great effect.

Watch: <a href="http://www.bikinifilms.co.uk/musicvideos/kevingodley/index.html" target="_blank">here</a>

Ben Sullivan

Bikini Films

George Tiffin

Juniper Caulder @ Screen Scene

Screen Scene, Dublin

Marisa Garner Associates

Charlotte Church’s Back To Scratch by Kevin Godley

Kevin Godley's video for Katie Melua's soon-to-be-massive The Flood (produced by William Orbit) is all about looking at the same thing from opposite angles - the yin and the yang, industry versus nature...
Much of the action was shot simultaneously from opposing angles, and then one of the results 'flipped' - the resulting split has similar but exactly opposite action. And among the tribal dancing, Katie is playing a piano inspired by the songtitle - because it doubles, uniquely, as an ark. Quite appropriate really, considering this video was directed by God himself. 
Oh, and by the way, girls: Fit bloke alert...

Kevin Godley

Director

Interviews featuring Kevin Godley

Videos featuring Kevin Godley

2020 (1)

2019 (1)

2017 (2)

2011 (1)

2010 (2)

Popular content

Is this your profile?

Feedback

Latest Videos