but have you seen his director?

Usually when I find a kick ass music video it prompts immediate searching for information about the artist behind the song - I’m always curious about peoples’ stories: where did they come from? where do they live now? how did they meet? While I generally cruise around for a while, watching lots of videos, reading interviews and listening to lots of music, this is usually as far as I get - who is the singer/songwriter/band. Recently though I’ve started seeing the same names popping up in the “producer” or “director” spot for some music videos I’ve been watching, which caused me to stop and take notice - who are the other creative forces behind these videos?

I came across this video Tuesday night on Gorilla vs. Bear and was instantly in love.

Memory Tapes "Yes I Know" from Najork on Vimeo.

The drippy man is kind of creepy but interesting and some of the other visuals are just captivating: the black and white pictures that flip and fold and turn upside down revealing one another, the strange disruptions in the streetlights/moon, and the flock of birds that drift into the word “GONE.”

I wanted to know more about the director behind the video and found Eric Epstein’s site with a couple demo reels and other fun studies. The reel from 2009 is pretty bad ass and makes me remember there are all kinds of amazing artists out there doing things that we don’t even necessarily notice. For example, in that reel, there were tons of animations from Food Inc. Not once during that movie did I stop to think about the animator behind those images but seeing them out of context in Eric’s reel made me realize how cool they really were.

Another person that recently peaked my interest is David Altobelli whose ability to tell a story in a music video is commendable to say the very least. I first noticed his name on the recent Cults video for “Abducted.”

Cults - Abducted from David Altobelli on Vimeo.

Then I came across another great example of his maybe less creepy but very heartfelt story telling for The Belle Brigade song “Losers.”

Belle Brigade - Losers from Jonathan Wang on Vimeo.

Watching Kanye videos for my post yesterday I noticed Chris Milk’s name in my Vimeo search for the “All Falls Down” video. It turns out Kanye also worked with him on the video for “Touch The Sky” - I loved this video back in college with its 70’s throw-back concept and the hilarious confrontation between “Kanyevil” and afro-clad “Nia,” with her ass-promoting side-kick hating on the Kanyevil’s girlfriend played by the Pamela Anderson.



More recently Chris Milk created an “interactive film” that had everybody at KCRW crying a few months back. That’s right - remember that video for the Arcade Fire’s “The Wilderness Downtown”? The one where it asked for the address to the house you grew up in and then proceeded to have all these google shots of that house mixed with tear jerking images of vague figures running and neighborhood shots (i.e. birds against the sky). Oh yeah - that with the Arcade Fire lyrics of longing for youth in the background and an ending asking you to write a letter to your former child self...instant tears.

If you didn’t partake in the crying, you can go here to experience it yourself. You can also check out the song against the kind of cool story board Chris Milk posted below.

The Wilderness Downtown - Original Animatic from Chris Milk on Vimeo.

Usually there many, many people involved in the creation of something great. Working on production teams for events has given me some insight into “it takes a village” nature of most events. These music videos are great because of the songs and the artists that made them but they’re also great because of the team of creative people making it happen. While director is by no means an entire team, it feels good to acknowledge somebody besides the singer/songwriter/rapper/star sometimes.