Björk 'Family' by Andrew Thomas Huang
David Knight - 25th Mar 2015
She was briefly wrongfooted by having to rush its release a few weeks ago, but now the visual campaign for Björk's new album Vulnicura is in full swing, taking shape in a characteristically unconventional fashion. And it looks like she's established a collaboration with a super-talented director to rival her long-term creative relationship with Michel Gondry.
Her work with Andrew Thomas Huang began with the video for Mutual Core from her last album, Biophilia. Now on Vulnicura, they have created the 'sound and vision installation' for Black Lake - shown in a special auditorium at the current Bjork exhibition at MoMA in New York. They have also created a 'virtual reality' video for Stonemilker, also showing at MoMA PS1, and at Rough Trade record shops in London and Brooklyn.
And also this. The video for the track Family is described as a 'moving album cover' for Vulnicura (slightly confusing, as it's actually a lot less like the album cover shot than the video for Lionsong by Inez and Vanoodh). But in effect Huang uses his considerable multi-disciplinary talents to build the Björk universe from scratch, starting in CGI and then merging into live action.
It's not just creation, but a kind of regeneration, as we begin to distinguish a figure, prone on a rock and split down the middle. This becomes Bjork, lying on a rock within a familiar Icelandic landscape, and repeats the visual motif from the other Vulnicura videos of a small exposed area of chest, symbolic of a damaged heart.
It finishes with a symbolic CGI-enhanced repair job, indicating how the healing process continues - an uplifting message, that draws the viewer into the wonderful world created by Björk - and Andrew Thomas Huang.
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David Knight - 25th Mar 2015
Credits
Featured here in the credits?
Production/Creative
- Director
- Andrew Thomas Huang
- Producer
- Tamsin Glasson
- Service Producer
- Hrönn Kristinsdóttir
- Creative Director
- Björk
- Creative Director
- Andrew Thomas Huang
- Creative Director
- James Merry
- Service Company
- Truenorth
- Executive Producer
- Tamsin Glasson
- Executive Producer
- Kevin Shapiro
- Service Co Exec Producer
- Rafnar Hermannsson
Camera
- Director of Photography
- Laura Merians
- Focus Puller
- Kate Wurzbache
Art
- Production designer
- Thorgeir Frímann Odinsson
Wardrobe
- Wardrobe
- James Merry
Agent
- Director's Rep (UK)
- Colonel Blimp
Misc
- Project Manager
- Helga Margrét Reykdal
Other credits
2nd AC
Elva Sara Ingvarsdóttir
DIT
Benedikt Jóhannesson
Playback
Frank Arthur Blöndahl Cassata
Gaffer
Jonathan Devaney
key grip
Jón Marino
art director
Asgeir Guðmundsson
embroidered mask
James Merry
Wound design/additional styling
Hrafnhildur Arnardottir aka Shoplifter
Dress design
Michael van der Ham
Make-up
Andrew Aallimore at CLM London
Hair
Lok Lau at CLM London
la coordinator
Kitty Walsh
vfx landscape capture
XREZ Studio, Eric Hanson & Greg Downing
Assistant to xrez studio
Olafur Haraldsson
VFX
Wolf & Crow
producer
Kate Berry
producer
Emmi Nakagawa
VFX supervisor & technical director
Sebastiano D’Aprile
cg modelers
Dan Edery & Josh Suyemoto
lead compositor
Andrew Thomas Huang
compositors
Lindsey Fry, Andrew Knizek, Norton, Travis Button
cg lead
Sebastiano D’Aprile
rendering & lighting
Sebastiano D’Aprile & Josh Suyemoto
cg artists
Alexis Brovko, Andrew Knizek, Amy Sharpe
autodesk producer
Brian Pene
special thanks
Arri Media Iceland, Arni Björn Helgason and Sagafilm Studios
David Knight - 25th Mar 2015