Ratatat’s Drugs by Carl Burgess
David Knight - 9th Aug 2010
Videos of such conceptual simplicity and disconcerting eeriness as this one are relatively rare. And then there's the dark humour in Carl Burgess's video for Ratatat's Drugs. So surely its all artfully faked. Surely all this perfectly cheesy stock footage cannot be the genuine article...can it
But apparently it really is all pukka, bone fide stuff, found in the vast digital vaults of Getty Images, as Carl explains. There was no shoot, it was all about finding the right footage - and then subtly playing with it.
"I have always been fascinated by stock imagery and stock footage collections," he says. "Hours and hours of footage which for the most part created with no pre-defined use in mind, sitting in storage waiting to be picked up and dropped into a budget documentary.
"Searching for 'stressed businessman' or 'old man smiling' on Getty Images throws up hundreds of great results. There is a surreal quality to these staged clips, and more often than not a really strange dark humour about them.
"Unconvincing acting, forced emotions, cheap lighting are just some of the things that make these clips unique, and these are the qualities I wanted to embrace."
David Knight - 9th Aug 2010
Credits
Featured here in the credits?
Production/Creative
- Director
- Carl Burgess
- Production Company
- Blinkart
David Knight - 9th Aug 2010