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Post by MarkUK on Jan 27, 2024 23:58:25 GMT -5
So there are two bands who I've worked with the most in regards to music videos. Duran Duran and Oasis, 6 videos for each of those. So like the album covers I'm interested in which of those 12 videos you like most
Starting with the 6 Duran videos in chronological order. 1 - 'Ordinary World' I wasn't the first choice for the band. In fact Paul Boyd, who is now a close friend but at the time was a friendly but competitive rival had started to shoot the video, but his production company for some reason (better Paul explain why himself) pulled out. At this point I was a very well known album cover designer but wasn't as well known a director, so where I could get in at the top with cover art, I was much further down the pecking order with videos. My Executive Producer at the time, Siobhan Barron at Limelight, from the outset, told the band I was the only person that should do the video, even when management wanted to see showreels for other directors at Limelight. She was immovable in her opinion and eventually they listened to her and decided to take a risk on me. The idea came after I had visited the Huntington The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in Pasadena and was struck by the scale and beauty of the various gardens, Japanese and in particular the cactus garden which looked like another planet. I thought it was a great play on the idea of an ordinary world, which is anything but ordinary, in fact extraordinary, and those gardens were certainly that. Of course I wanted to tie in the wedding concept of the album cover and place these large rear screen projections with images of the band in a stark simple environment, animated images from the album and the magical imagery of photographer Dean Chamberlain Light Painter beautiful and evocative flowers. I had worked with Dean on two previous album covers for Tesla and Marshall Crenshaw. His technique was truly original and he had just started to experiment with film, bringing these stunning pieces of nature to life. Dean was also a good friend of Nick Rhodes and had done a video for Arcadia. For me those giant colourful flowers full of life made the video perfect.
It was way before anything digital and everything was film and had to be processed and edited before projecting onto the screens. I remember the last day of shooting and as usual we were running out of time and film and during the last couple of shots there was a massive downpour that within minutes the crew were having to run cable through 6" of water, I never forgot their commitment when most would have said f___ it I'm not risking getting an electric shock, they carried on, so the success of the video comes down to my camera man Martin Coppen, and his crew Per, Slits and the rest and of course Don Wilson my editor. The question I get asked the most is about the wedding dress. The costume artist did a great job taking my idea from Fellini's 'Juliet of the Spirits' and the dress I borrowed from a Giorgio Armani black cocktail dress which had that big bow.
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Post by MarkUK on Jan 27, 2024 23:59:15 GMT -5
2 - 'White Lines' I think this is my second favorite video. By shooting the performance at half speed then transferring at 30fps, it gave that frenetic, edgy 'cocaine' look.
The band were brilliant and totally understood what I was trying to do and played it up perfectly and is one of their best performances in a video. My Art Director, Mark Tanner, created the futuristic Tower of Babel NYC glass slide as a back drop to Grandmaster Flash and the Furious 5 and the breakdancer.
I wanted the back drops to look unreal and fake, to give the video a claustrophobic nightmarish feeling. Martin (my DP) and I always loved mistakes and at some point someone turned of the lights to the white box the band were performing in and we both said, "that's great!" so we had an electrician flicking the on/off switch randomly throughout the video. The character depicting John Delorean the auto industry CEO who created the gull wing Delorean car, famous for its role in Back To The Future and who was set up buying a kilo of coke, was played by my late and wonderful and innocent Uncle Norman, I think it was my cousin Melanie who said the only white lines my uncle knew, were the ones in the middle of the road.
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Post by MarkUK on Jan 27, 2024 23:59:45 GMT -5
3 - 'Perfect Day' this was based off the idea that someones perfect day is another persons terrible day, so I had images of doom and gloom outside the window of the chocolate box padded cell and nightmarish animation. This is such a beautiful song and Thank you deserved more than it received by the music press, in fact most of the cover versions on the album were great. Notable also for Roger's return, Simon's 'Dracula' move to camera. The shot of Nick throwing flowers was the last shot of the day, around 3:00am and we were all in fits of laughter after Nick in his very droll sense of humor said to me "I'm in a pink suit with dyed blond hair throwing flowers from a colourful array of flowers with garden gnomes, what are you trying to say Nick? that I'm camp"
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Post by MarkUK on Jan 28, 2024 0:00:29 GMT -5
4 - 'All You Need Is Now (Extended Version) When I was asked to do this video John and I had sat and discussed some of the classic spontaneous performances, The Beatles on the roof of Apple, The Rolling Stones on a flatbed truck driving through Manhattan, the Sex Pistols on the riverboat on the Thames. I said the reason those are all classics were because they never set out to be, they weren't contrived so I suggested that the idea should be no idea! Just let me come to London and film whatever happens in the few days I was there. Base it around a rehearsal, mix live and playback audio to make it feel really 'live'.
In addition I wanted half a day with each band member and as it happened Duran Duran always have things going on, so I was confident I could get something that felt real as it happened. They really hadn't done anything like this before as a concept. This was at the early stages of digital and there was a camera that was on the market called a Flip camera. It was 1080p high def the size of a wallet. It was a game changer (for good and bad) It meant you really could be spontaneous without needing a camera crew, electricians, trucks, permits. Unfortunately not long after the iPhone upgraded their camera to Hi Def and it killed the Flip.
Pretty much everything shot was with the Flip with the exception of some behind the scenes footage shot by the bands constant film archivist Gavin Elder who also shot, along with me the performance. The day I arrived Nick and Simon were playing with Mark Ronson at Abbey Road, (which is where I discovered that Nick was a proficient juggler)I went with Simon to an interview at the BBC and on the way back to his house we saw a nice spot on the River Thames near where he lives in Barnes. It took all of 15 minutes to shoot.
I went to Brompton Cemetery to film Nick in amongst the grave stones and had him juggle, and to his back garden in Chelsea.
With Roger I went to Richmond Park on a cold and frosty morning and he was also DeeJaying at some big events so we went to Black Market Records in Soho.
With John I went to his new house near Bath and got up at dawn and walked around the desolate snowy fields surrounding his house.
The rehearsal I wanted to be as real as possible which is why I switch from live audio to regular audio playback. By this point the band were really getting into the idea and asked me if they could dress the rehearsal space and I thought that was a great idea, again it made it authentic so they came up with the silver foil on the walls.
I tried to be a fly on the wall and capture real conversations where I could.
At one point during the shooting we had some down time so I suggested we jump into a passenger van and drive somewhere, they thought the Tate Modern would be cool, so we went there and I filmed them walking along the Embankment much to peoples disbelief, "was it them? no it cant be!" type of disbelief.
Paul Boyd produced and edited the video for me and one day while he was editing I went back to my house and saw a car had obviously broken down close to his house surrounded by cameramen, when I came back the photographers had tripled in numbers. Im not a fan of the paparazzi so I pushed my way through to the side of the car and inside was Paris Hilton, someone else I'm not a fan of, but I could see the panic in her eyes as people were shouting and banging on the car window and I thought even she doesn't deserve that, as I d seen how it had affected Michael, Boy George and other friends of mine, relentless, un feeling, greedy, blood suckers. So I offered her sanctuary at Paul's house until somebody could get her. Initially she said shed be OK but thanks. I went back to my house soon after and when I got back the car was still there but the photographers had gone. She had taken up my offer and was in Paul's garden. I told her we were editing a Duran video and asked d her if she wanted to say something for the video, she didnt know what to say so I said just say "I'm jumping on the trampoline" and something about Duran, which she did, it was kind of whacky but I didn't want it to be too serious, because sadly no one really took her seriously.
This was also the end of the MTV 3 min video with all its restrictions and rules, so I thought lets make it a long version of a video with some words from the band about the video. The other thing I felt was important was that we didn't over do the make up or put any special filters to make them look younger, to show their maturity as people and as musicians.
The extras I wanted to represent the new generation of Duranies, the sons and daughters, which I think is part of their longevity, Id seen seen some 20 something kid wearing a Rio t shirt which was perfect for me to add that realism. The boy is actually wearing John's clothes from the 80's. The band also made a special score for the intro which made it all work perfectly in the way I saw the finished clip.. The other point of interest was that Simon's brother was the lighting technician and the hand with the drumstick, holding the mic and playing the keyboard is mine!!!
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Post by MarkUK on Jan 28, 2024 0:00:57 GMT -5
5 - 'Pressure Off' Not only my favorite Duran video, but my favorite ever video. It's the one and only time where I can look and say it's perfect, in the way I perceived it to look. That is rare, sometimes you get close but never perfect.
I utilised the technique I had used in many of my album covers. Rather than shoot the band in one performance, I shot each one individually. Nick had mentioned the Kick cover, not knowing I had done it, as something he wanted for the video. This is one of the reasons the video is perfect for me, because everyone looks great and everyone is performing brilliantly. So many people have told me its one of the best videos that Nick is in, it gave me an opportunity to work on each member carefully, making sure I got each personality perfectly and this shows a side of Nick that most don't see, I think he is brilliant in it. They all were, especially as they had to imagine they were all together, which isn't easy in a film situation, it's much easier with stills, but convincing people that they are all in one scene can be tricky. Simon really made it work by imagining that Janelle was next to him, I put an eye line for him to look over at but he didnt need it. I shot the band in London and Janelle, Nile and the extras in LA.
I took my daughter Ava with me to London but she didnt want to be just the directors daughter doing nothing, she wanted a job, so Simon asked if she would catch his jacket when he threw it to the side, she took that role so seriously and never dropped it once.
It was interesting working with Janelle as I had worked with 'divas' before, Belinda, Kylie, Wendy and Lisa but this was another level. She constantly had 5 or 6 of the Glamour Squad surrounding her, it was like a scene from the movie Funny Face where Audrey Hepburn plays a model in the 50's and she is constantly surrounded by people 'adjusting' her.
Video was edited by the Snorri Brothers from Iceland and the edit was impeccable, every select was perfect.
Below are my original concept boards for the video and behind the scenes with Ava waiting for Simon to throw his jacket and both Ava and Dashiell as extras jumping
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Post by MarkUK on Jan 28, 2024 0:01:24 GMT -5
6 - "Last Night in the City' This originally was meant to be part of a long form video from the Paper Gods Tour. Unfortunately the people who were financing the project disappeared back to Iceland and were never heard from again, even though I managed to get some great stuff of the band from the Barclay Centre, in New York, Montreal Canada, Atlanta Georgia and the Belasco Theatre in LA. So we decided to use some of what we had to make this video, with all the live and colourful imagery that goes with Duran on Tour. I had unprecedented access , back stage, on their private plane, interviewing the fans.
I've grown to like this video more and more and the opening is taken from the Warriors movie where the female deejay is letting all the New York gangs know where the Warriors are. It was narrated by an incredible LA poet and Artist Karen Roc. The idea was she would narrate in her street poet style the whole documentary.
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Post by medazza on Jan 28, 2024 4:00:07 GMT -5
Brilliant stuff, thanks for sharing
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Post by stevet76 on Jan 28, 2024 4:08:55 GMT -5
I can't believe that I was not aware of the All You Need Is Now (Extended Version). I have just watched it on Nick Egan's YouTube channel.
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Post by aftertherain on Jan 28, 2024 5:04:13 GMT -5
I can't believe that I was not aware of the All You Need Is Now (Extended Version). I have just watched it on Nick Egan's YouTube channel. wouldn’t it be great if we had an extended and edit version with every clip thereby we’d have a Girl Panic edit / 7 inch single video version too
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karenduran
NOTORIOUS
Smiling when the butterfly escapes the killing jar
Posts: 1,414
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Post by karenduran on Jan 28, 2024 12:11:35 GMT -5
All classic, striking videos (save LNITC, which I never watched more than a couple times, because I don’t care for the song). I love that PO was partially inspired by Kick. ❤️
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