Max Sobol directs a timely crowd-sourced new video for DJ/producers Brain Rays and Parish News' Inner Freak. The film consists of footage filmed by a music-loving cast of family, friends, and acquaintances from all over the world, sharing the same experience of life on lockdown - and sadly away from the dancefloor.Brain Rays had the idea after seeing the ways people were dealing with the unique circumstances brought about by the Covid-19 crisis. Then Max Sobol worked with choreographer, dancer and singer-songwriter Bryony Perkins (Punchdrunk), to create a quarantine-inspired ‘TikTok’ style dance routine for the video’s cast to perform. All proceeds from sales and downloads of Inner Freak will go towards supporting Masks for NHS Heroes. #InnerFreaks4NHS

Spoken word artist Suli Breaks' piece for Cancer Research UK's campaign #CoughUp highlights the massive profits made by the tobacco industry and the financial burden the industry places on our society, in a video by Ed Lilly.

Will Young has joined forces with WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) and director Anthony Dickenson to create this moving charity ad and music video, reminding us that the earthly biosphere and the animals within it are being destroyed instead of protected.It sees Young covering the classic Bacharach & David song What The World Needs Now Is Love – originally made popular by Jackie DeShannon – along with stunning wildlife footage of plants and animals, many of which are facing the threat of extinction. The WWF has also released the following statement: "With staggering figures revealing that global wildlife populations have declined by over 50% since 1970, WWF-UK has teamed up with Will Young to ask you to show the world some love and take action. What the world needs now is every single one of us to take action and protect our world for future generations. Please donate now at worldneedslove.wwf.org.uk"

30 years on from the original and historic recording of Do They Know It’s Christmas? Sir Bob Geldof and Midge Ure returned to Sarm Studios in West London the location of the original 1984 recordings, on Saturday, November 15th, to record Band Aid 30, raising money for the current Ebola crisis in West Africa.The line-up of talent to perform on the fourth version of the song included new generation stars together with some music legends, and a music video legend was also there - Andy Morahan.Last week Andy, the director of iconic music videos including Guns N Roses November Rain and George Michael’s Faith and many more, was asked by Geldof and Virgin EMI to come on board to shoot the video. He just had to shoot it simultaneously with the recording of the song, and then deliver it within 36 hours, so it was ready for a special premiere on The X Factor. No pressure then.Andy says, “this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to work with so many incredible artists. The level of talent in that studio was truly awe-inspiring. What Bob (Geldof) is doing is important and changes people’s lives. Ebola is killing thousands of people in multiple countries and has the potential to affect the whole world on a truly catastrophic scale. The incredible passion with which Bob approaches the Band Aid project is humbling and I am truly flattered to have been asked to be a part of it.”In the space of the day Andy filmed some of the biggest pop stars of today – including One Direction, Emeli Sande, Rita Ora, Ed Sheeran, Ellie Goulding, Sam Smith, Clean Bandit, Jessie Ware, Paloma Faith and Olly Murs – who teamed up with music legends such as Bono, Chris Martin, Sinead O'Connor, Angelique Kidjo, Elbow, Underworld and Queen’s Roger Taylor on drums.“Being asked to be a part of the Band Aid experience was an incredible honor for us” says Great Guns’ Executive Producer Sheridan Thomas. “The whole process, from recording and mixing the track to shooting editing and finishing the film, had to be completed within 36 hours, presenting us with a number of pretty unique technical challenges. The workflow within each and across all departments had to be absolutely seamless to make it happen. There was literally no room for error. I’m so proud of the Great Guns team and so thankful to many of our regular collaborators, like our two DOPs Tony Miller and Angus Hudson, for pulling off what initially seemed like an impossible feat without a single hitch.” As well as collaborating with such talented artists, the Great Guns team had the joyous experience of working hand in hand with musical super producers Paul Epworth and Midge Ure.Says Great Guns’ music video producer Tim Francis, “Paul and his engineers were sensational. They helped us enormously with overcoming the many complicated technical challenges. We really could not have delivered a video in the time frame without them.”One of the most prominent of these challenges was faced by Great Guns Editors James Demetriou, Nick Saunders and Will Cole who had the gargantuan task of cutting a video that could not even start editing until the rough mix of the track was delivered at 2am, only 15 hours ahead of the delivery of the film’s final master.The video was graded and finished at Rushes postproduction, and the tape was literally sprinted from their machine room to be premiered during the Sunday 16th November broadcast of The X Factor. The text donations during the program raised half a million pounds within an hour.The entire project is non-profit - all partners involved have given their time & services up for free – and all proceeds will go to the Band Aid trust in the global fight against Ebola.

With the new U2 song Invisible being available for free on Sunday February 2nd to benefit [RED] – and receiving over 3 million downloads globally raising more than $3 million in donations from Bank of America – a 60 second clip of the video appeared in an ad break during Sunday's Superbowl.Now the video has been released in full today. Directed by Mark Romanek, it's a performance video but it's also technically groundbreaking, thanks to the ingenuity of British creative studio Marshmallow Laser Feast (or MLF), who designed a real-time visual system that captured and analysed U2’s movements as they performed on a stage, allowing the band to generate visuals interactively on a giant LED screen behind them.MLF - Memo Akten, Robin McNicholas, Barney Steel – worked with Juliette Larthe and Mark Logue of PRETTYBIRD to realise their concept, which was to create an interactive 3D lighting and video architecture that directly translated the band and audience’s movement into striking video and lighting output. Then the video was directed by Mark Romanek - utilising world class LD Patrick Dierson – and shot over three days in a hangar in Santa Monica with 1,000 extras. “Cameras track the movement of the band and audience and feed that information into the Punkalator, an application developed specifically for this project by MLF,” explains MLF director Robin McNicholas. “This then interfaces with a Green Hippo Media Server and works in sync with Protools and a GrandMA lighting console.”

The Barry Horns, the brass-wielding official supporters band of the Welsh football team, have recorded their own version of The Flying Pickets' acapella hit Only You – 30 years after it scored a Christmas number one – and are releasing the song as a charity single today (December 2nd) to raise money for Prostate Cymru. It's also a tribute to Flying Pickets' lead singer Brian Hibbard, who passed away from prostate cancer last year. And after her videos for Lungs and Coastal Cities, Lucy Anne Watkins has directed the video for the track, very much in the style of the original, with nine members of the Horns (named after cult 90s Welsh footballer Barry Horne) lamenting a lost love while playing darts, chalking pool cues and supping pints in the bar of the Capel Hotel in Bargoed.

Mikey Levelle, executive producer at Shameless, the music division of Park Village, is taking part in Swimathon 2011 for Marie Curie Cancer Care next weekend, and is looking for plenty of sponsorship to drive him in his efforts to swim in excess of 2.5km within just two hours. "A little late in the day but I have decided to join the incredible Marie Curie Cancer Care Swimathon and individually swim 2,500 metres, if not more, in just a couple of hours," says Mikey. "Every penny counts and if I can exceed my personal goal, both in distance and in fundraising, then we're all making an incredible difference to those affected and in need of help." You can give real support to Mikey's effort to help a very noble cause by sponsoring his Swimathon here.

The Mayor of London burbles on about popular music in a High Court Judge-style fashion, with visuals added by some chaps at Aardman. It's hardly Shaun the Sheep, but all profits go to the Macmillan cancer charity, so it must be alright.