Well, this is a nice Monday morning treat isn't it? Peep the new visuals from James Blake for his cover of Joni Mitchell's track, "A Case of You". It features on his ever beautiful sounding EP Enough Thunder which you can go grab a copy of over here. The video itself was filmed just last week in London and features actress Rebecca Hall who you may recognise from Frost/Nixon and The Prestige, or maybe you don't, who am I to say that. Anyway, it turned out that she's a huge Joni fan and loved James' cover of the track so jumped at the chance to work on it with film maker Seb Edwards. So there you have it, that's enough words, time for the visuals. Hit play at the top.
Régine Chassagne is front and center in Arcade Fire’s new video for The Suburbs‘ “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains),” which sort of plays like a constantly refreshing hi-res GIF. And, as Arcade Fire is wont to do, they give you a different, interactive look over at the website they’ve set up for the video, where, by enabling your camera, you can trigger the video with your hands. Even though I haven’t quite figured it out yet, I appreciate anybody trying to tweak the format a little, you know? Push it to the limit! Check out the video’s teaser video, after the jump.
Credits: Music by Arcade Fire - Win Butler, Will Butler, Régine Chassagne, Jeremy Gara, Tim Kingsbury, Sarah Neufeld & Richard Reed Parry Director - Vincent Morisset (AATOAA)
The teaser: Arcade Fire - Sprawl II Invitation (Dance)
Video Produced by Marissa Nadler and Alec K. Redfearn Directed, Photographed and Edited by Alec K. Redfearn Art Direction by Marissa Nadler, Alec K. Redfearn and Ryan H. Walsh
It’s here! When LDR first mentioned that the video for “Born To Die” featured a tiger in its cast, she was actually being modest. The clip actually has two tigers, as well as a cathedral, a slo-mo flaming-wreckage shot, and a ton of makeout scenes with the Tommy Lee-looking guy from the topless flag-fluttering video (model Bradley Soileau). Woodkid (Yoann Lemoine) directs…
Blonds' Promotional Music Video for the song "206" — the full version is available on their new EP, Dark Roots — a song that simmers without ever really exploding. I can’t really tell what’s going on — the video is barely lit — but it’s NSFW because of bras.
The 2012 Vimeo Festival + Awards celebrate the best original videos online.
This time around we're honoring videos (and their amazing creators) in 13 categories, including four brand spankin' new ones. And because we believe creativity should be rewarded, we're giving away $5,000 grants to category winners and one $25,000 grand prize, all to help recipients make new work.
Digital Domain and Neil Huxley (Mothership) crafted this stunning teaser for Activision and High Moon Studios’s”Transformers: Fall of Cybertron” title.
Trent Reznor and Karen O interpet Led Zeppelin’s iconic “Immigrant Song” in this music video, masterminded by the wizards at Blur.
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' soundtrack for David Fincher's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, is out now digitally. It features a cover of Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" featuring Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman Karen O. The creepy, mysterious video for the song features a collage created by Fincher for the title sequence of the film.
Each year, the Internet gives us countless new ways to bring productivity to a grinding halt, most often in the form of WTFs, LOLs and FAILs. 2011 was no exception, producing some of the most awesome, annoying, catchy and otherwise adorable videos. Here are our 10 favorites:
10. Marcel the Shell With Shoes On, Two The original Marcel the Shell with Shoes On video pitter-pattered her tiny way into our hearts last year with its droll, introspective examination of life on the tiny scale. The sequel taps into that same vein of comedy, the one that makes us love “Parks and Recreation” so much, this time as Marcel explains the hardships of life as a shell.
9. Official Ojai Valley Taxidermy TV Commercial The Chuck Testa video burned through the life-cycle of a meme faster than ever before, starting at instant classic, hitting critical mass and finally settling in overused anguish all in the span of a few days. The video itself was an exercise in viral marketing, having been created by Youtube personalities Rhett and Link for their IFC show Commercial Kings.
8. Songify This: Can’t Hug Every Cat
Oh, Internet. What would you be without teary-eyed cat lovers? Thanks to the Gregory Brothers (you know, the kids behind Autotune the News and the Bed Intruder Song) this eHarmony online dating video transformed into a catchy, kitty-fueled tear-jerker. It’s a sad tale, she loves cats so much, but she can’t hug every cat.
7. Madeon – Pop Culture
17-year-old French pop-mashup prodigy Madeon took the Internet by storm with his live mashup “Pop Culture,” seamlessly blending samples from 39 different tracks into this three-minute pop-mash paradise.
6. 3-Way (The Golden Rule)
Andy Samberg’s Lonely Island musical-comedy SNL spinoff very much exemplifies the term “hit or miss.” The difference between a miss and a hit? Turns out, it’s Justin Timberlake. Samberg and Timberlake’s characters from the original “Dick in a Box” skit return, this time to indulge in a Summer-lovin’ fueled Lady Gaga sandwich. Remember, with a honey in the middle there’s some leeway.
5. Neil Patrick Harris’ 2011 Tony Awards Opening Number
Barney Stinson may be one of our favorite on-screen characters, but his real-life counterpart Neil Patrick Harris is just as awesome. NPH opened this year’s Tony Awards with this spectacular musical number entitled “Broadway: It’s not just for gays anymore.”
4. Trim
This video popped up on Reddit a few months ago with a simple headline: “My friend wanted to shave his amazing beard. I said ‘okay, but let us shave it in style.’" The result is this 43-second video of a man transforming before our eyes from a skinhead to a mountain man, pausing at pirate, punk, biker and more on the way.
3. Sexy Sax Man Careless Whisper Prank feat. Sergio Flores
“Hey play that George Michael song real quick!” “It’s okay, he’s with sexysaxmansaxograms.com” “Sorry guys, this is saxophone superstar Sergio Flores.” This video prank from Youtuber “Mike Diva” features self-proclaimed sexy sax man Sergio Flores skillfully serenading scores of shoppers and students alike with his sexy saxograms. George Michael would be proud.
2. The Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger
There was a moment earlier this month as I sat watching the 2011 SEC Championship football game, when I thought to myself, are the announcers really discussing a Youtube video about a badass honey badger right now? Their reason was to reference the nickname given to LSU cornerback Tyrann Mathieu, inspired by the video in question. It was in that moment I realized just how popular the Honey Badger had become. Watch the video and you too will understand just how badass the Honey Badger is.
1. Nyan Cat
Of all the memes and viral videos of 2011, none have seen the instant popularity and ubiquity of Nyan Cat. The formula: an animated cat, a pop-tart for a body, flying through space with a rainbow trail, all set to a repetitive, mind-meltingly catchy song. The result? Cuteness overload, and more than 52 million Youtube views of the original video alone, not to mention countless spin-offs and parodies. We welcome our adorable kitten overlords.
Dishonorable Mention: Rebecca Black’s “Friday”
This year’s dishonorable mention belongs to none other than Rebecca Black and her horrifically catchy video “Friday.” The lyrics are abysmal, the music cringe-inducing, the video poorly-produced, yet we know every damn word.
Even though the Montreal's electronic band Misteur Valaire already had a video for their amazing track "Dan Dan", Paf Paf, a french independent group of CGI designers made another one on their own initiative.
Wake up for happiness and Christmas by this nice pop rock song from San-Francisco based band “Train”. Recently this (but not from the Train) song was used in Coca Cola commercial “Wake up for happiness”.
Because they put out one of the best albums of the year, we’re going to give Fucked Up a pass for video-encompassing nonchalance in the clip for “Turn The Season.” It was apparently shot during the initial photo session for David Comes To Life, so that explains all the cameras and ballerinas and non-smiles from the band.
New York synth-disco duo Holy Ghost! recently dropped their cover of the early ’80s Ministry nugget “I Wanted To Tell Her.” Now their version the song has a video, in which director Ben Fries recreates an ’80s-movie dance party in all its neon glory. There’s also some sort of plot, but good luck following it. The Juan Maclean and LCD Soundsystem’s Nancy Whang, both of whom guest on the song, make appearances in the video, and Whang’s stuntwoman gets to bust out some impressive BMX tricks for absolutely no tangible reason. It’s a fun video! Ben Fries directs.
Major Lazer – “Original Don” (Dir. the Partysquad)
In which a head-spinningly weird viral video is perfectly created, with its original participants all present, and transformed into a perfectly functional music video. Diplo looks perfectly at home in this absurd little house, and I’m not entirely certain what this says about him.
This Angry Birds parody trailer looks like it was made by Guy Ritchie, and really has nothing to do with the video game aside from the whole “pigs snatch their eggs, so the birds get revenge” dynamic. But it’s sexy, funny, and really slick looking for a comedy short.
Watch: First Teaser Trailer for Will Smith's New 'Men in Black 3'
"Who are we? We are no one." Columbia has unveiled the first teaser trailer this morning (via YouTube) for Men in Black 3, the latest sequel in the MIB sci-fi comedy series, once again starring Will Smith as Agent J, and introducing Josh Brolin as the younger Agent K. Oh and "Agent K" is definitely still in this, Tommy Lee Jones' K, only briefly though. We've heard this sequel has gone through a lot of production problems and it shows, this looks a bit rough, almost made-for-TV. What happened? The first movie was so damn good, how did it devolve into this? Give it a shot anyway, I truly hope it turns out better next summer.
Men in Black III is once again directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, also of the first two. This newest sequel is said to be set mostly in the year 1969 and involves Agent J (Will Smith) time-traveling back to that year, where he meets up with a young Agent K (Josh Brolin) for some plot involving, most likely, our landing on the Moon. The cast also includes Emma Thompson as Agent Oh, Alice Eve as a young Oh, Bill Hader, Jemaine Clement, Rip Torn and Michael Stuhlbarg. It was shot in 3D and Columbia currently has it scheduled to hit theaters starting May 25th next summer. You can visit the official site: TheMenInBlackSuitsAreReal.com.
The Australia-born, New York-based bedroom popper Young Magic has a new video for the song “Sparkly.” Filmed on Australia’s East Coast by director Dylan Wiehahn, it’s a gorgeous mess of time-lapse cloud-billowing and swirly colors, all of it offered without context but unbelievably pretty regardless.
Electro-pop mainstays Goldfrapp have a new greatest-hits compilation coming out, and it features a deeply pretty new track called “Yellow Halo.” The song’s video is a sort of meditative travelogue about the band, following them as they stare languidly out of airplane windows and step onstage at massive festivals. Lisa Gunning filmed the entire thing on an iPhone.
Few things conjure carefree vibes like the words “young,” “yesterday,” and “skateboard,” so mathematically speaking the video for “As Young As Yesterday,” which focuses on one juvenile skateboarder gliding his troubles away, is the most relaxing thing to happen to you all day. It is also black-and-white and rather uneventful.
Directed by Marcus Söderlund. Cinematography by Daniel Takács // Skate by Nisse Ingemarsson
I can’t think of a better way to re-envision a classic tale like “Of Mice And Men” than to cast an orc and goblin as the two main characters, throw them into a fantasy world, then let the orc kick some human tail in the name of freedom. Just don’t let him near any puppies!
CREEP hones in on an eerie, spectral pulse in their video for “Animals,” where the music of duo Lauren Flax and Lauren Dillard teems with a violent, dark vibe. It probably won’t surprise you that they’re the ones who came up with the term “rape gaze.” Holly Miranda gives us, um, a new look as Creep employs another prominent guest vocalist for “Animals.” Greko Sklavounos directs.
Tom Blyth's debut music video for Internet Forever's morbid melodic pop track Break Bones, combines performance, animation and overlays in a Meso-American feast.
Written and recorded during the Whip It On sessions in 2001 in Copenhagen, The Raveonettes' Christmas Song was never intended for release. It eventually ended up as a B-side to their Heartbreak stroll single and quickly became the bands biggest selling song to date. The video was recorded in Sune's NYC apartment. According to the band there was supposed to be a guy dressed up as a homeless Santa but he never made it.
4. Handsome Furs – “Serve The People” (Dir. Han Xia)
If this video about an everyhipster’s struggle against day-to-day drudgery were filmed in Europe or even America, it’d likely still be pretty good; the economic storytelling and well-composed cinematography would see to that. But since it was filmed in China, it also works as a fascinating glimpse of how people live when they’re attempting to live the kind of lives that we take for granted but doing it on the other side of the planet.
A fun, evocative, fast-moving time-lapse travelogue of Florida that almost makes that ridiculous state look like a nice place to be. Almost. Directed by Drew Blatman (Sunset Television/Weird Days).
Shabazz Palaces’ new music video isn’t for a particular song off of their album Black Up; it’s for the entire album, or at least as much of it as they can fit into five minutes. The video weaves clips of music from many of the album’s songs into a visual tapestry full of gorgeous isolated images and big, sweeping Race-In-America type themes. Like the album itself, it’s as oddly beautiful as it is disorienting, and it takes on a whole lot of ideas but even more feelings. It’s pretty great. Khalil Joseph directs, and you should really seriously.
The Killers star in a Christmas-themed spaghetti western set in old Las Vegas. Bandits and extraterrestrial robots round out the cast in this holiday spectacular. Director: Robert Schober.
When most-recent BTW Beacon aren’t walking their sense for sensual R&B through a long, luxe hall lined with Warp LPs and bass music mixtapes, they work together at their own video production house. They’ve hand-crafted this video for “See Through You,” explicitly as a hat-tip to the “intuitive and passionate” genre of amateur-made videos, and certainly as a hat-tip to explicit imagery of CGI ladies riding poles and jiggling in bikinis. There is no nudity, but there are some cyber-thongs, so let’s call this one NSFW.
YACHT’s video for the cowbell-happy track “I Walked Alone” is a pretty simple affair. Throughout most of it, the Portland synth-psych duo are the only folks on camera, and it relies entirely on the gawky charisma of the two people in the group, as they cavort through a remote mountainous plain and an all-white room. Toward the end, we also see what look like a death cult’s devotional exercises. Mitchell Davis directs.
Lou Reed & Metallica: The View Directed by Darren Aronofsky
When Loutallica met with director Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan, The Wrestler) in the Bay Area last month, they were supposed to shoot a video for “Iced Honey.” Instead they made a video for single “The View.” Not that it matters if you watch it on mute.
Remember when Saturday morning cartoons were full of fantasy adventure? This throwback Skyrim cartoon by Harry Partridge reminds me of watching the Dungeons and Dragons animated series as a youngster, with eyes full of wonder and monster manual in hand.
The moral of the story is: if you are going to sail off the coast of Wales on December 5th, you may want to change your name to Hugh Williams. But is this a true story? Any records from these incidences seem to be at least second-hand. I found a post at The Scuttlefish that may shed a bit of light on how “coincidental” the story really is. And be sure to check out the comment from Hugh Williams. Link
Kids wiling out; a thematic appeal that shall never die out. The new video from Cymbals Eats Guitars for “Keep Me Waiting” features a lot of smashing, punching and running by bored teens. Directed by Adam Kurland.
Caged Animals debut LP for the UK’s Lucky Number label, Eat Their Own, was recorded at home in Bushwick, with a generous serving of pitch-correcting vocal software, modern R&B balladic sensibility, and cross-generational lo-fi slack and chirps. There’s a palpable, slightly off-kilter sweetness at the core of the Animals’ single “Piles Of $$$,” and so having its video directed by quirk auteur Ace Norton was a smart play. Norton has lead man Vincent Cacchione and partner/bandmate Magali Charron cast in a Bonnie & Clyde type situation, the couple cruising around with piles of $$$ on a melodramatic shopping spree. I particularly respect how Ace embraces the most potentially difficult, off-brand lyric — shot here in a scene where Vincent sings “I want to rock with you tonight” while sitting glumly on a gas pump stoop — which is precisely what makes him a maestro of earnest awkwardness.
Philly retro rockers Dr. Dog are nothing if not consistent tweakers of their revivalist anthems; their last two LPs, Shame, Shame and Fate try on different hats, ranging from Beatles-y melodies to psyched out singalongs. Now Dr. Dog has been together for over a decade, and the formula still works on the first track from their new LP, “That Old Black Hole,” a song that hones in on a warm groove early and throws waves of melody and fuzz on top. It’s delightfully old-school.
Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor, the man masquerading as CANT, has made a video for “Too Late, Too Far,” one of the pheromone-soaked polyrhythmic slinkers from his debut solo LP Dreams Come True. The Richard Peete-directed clip opens with some “Vomit“-esque automotive chic, and then some mystic woods, cinematic smoke, VHS weirdness and fabric monsters take over, making it like David Lynch directing a We Are The World video siphoned through an analog filter. It’s not weird nightmare material at all!
Beyoncé’s video for the new song “Dance For You” is made up to look like an old film noir, but all those genre touchpoints are really just distractions. The video, it turns out, is really just five minutes of Beyoncé grinding, and you already know whether that’s something you want to watch. This much, however, is indisputable: Beyoncé is very good at grinding. And, perhaps more debatably, she also deserves some credit for refusing to hide her pregnancy while, at the same time, being sexy as fuck in an extremely public way. Beyoncé herself co-directs alongside her “Party” co-director Alan Ferguson.
Even for a longtime iconoclast like Kate Bush, the song “Misty” is a true flight of fancy — a thirteen-minute-plus tragic reverie about a woman who gets busy with a snowman. When the track is actually playing, it’s easy to get lost in Bush’s voice and the liquid arrangement and to forget just how ludicrous the song’s concept is. But the new “Mistraldespair” video, which animates a short segment of the song, makes everything as literal as it can possibly be. And even if things don’t end well for the snowman in question, the narrator from the Rudolf The Red-Nosed Reindeer claymation special has a new favorite music video.
Six famous thought experiments explained humorously in a minute each, by David Mitchell of the BBC’s That Mitchell and Webb Look. Produced by The Open University. -via The Daily What
It took Kalle Mattson, Kevin Parry, and friends over six months to create this cute stop motion short, a lot shorter than the time-frame covered in the video! Watch as history is told via illustrated paper, on an ever turning globe that brings it all back around again.
Here, as promised by director Mikael Colombu earlier in the week, is the official video for The Weeknd’s Cocteau Twins-sampling House Of Balloons closer “The Knowing.” It’s gorgeously shot — “in 2D JANKYVISION with Nikon 95 cm. film,” for those keeping track — and takes place on Planet Ethio X in the year 16311. Model Geena Rocero plays the heartbreaker.
Without You' - originally by David Guetta ft. Usher Written by: Pierre Guetta, Usher Raymond, Giorgio Tuinfort, Frédéric Riesterer, Rico Love, Taio Cruz Published by: EMI Music Publishing, Sony ATV Music Publishing & Shapiro Bernstein & Co Inc
Office toys go on a road trip the only way they can, with the help of Google Street View and stop-motion animation in this animation by Tom Jenkins. Read more about this video at the Atlantic. Link -via Metafilter
What better way to put off doing that thing you gotta do than watching this nifty book trailer about ... procrastination (Why do you procrastinate? "The problem isn't that you are a bad manager of your time. You're a bad tactician in the war inside your brain.")
“The Shrine/An Argument” is the sprawling eight-minute suite from near the end of Fleet Foxes sophomore album Helplessness Blues; it’s the one with the free-jazz horn freakout. The new video for the song is a haunting and sometimes exciting animated piece about some sort of carnivorous antelope traveling across a hostile, fantastical landscape. Monsters abound. Sean Pecknold, the brother of Fleet Foxes frontman Robin, directed the video; he’s also one of the two animators.
There's another way to buy, share and listen to music. Try it now at http://music.google.com.
Google Launches Google Music Features MP3 store, free cloud storage, sharing on Google+
More than six months after the launch of Music Beta by Google, the internet giant's Google Music has officially launched, featuring a new mp3 store linked to their cloud-based storage service. The company made the announcement at an event in L.A. yesterday that featured a performance by Drake.
The online shop, which is part of Android Market, functions like the iTunes store or Amazon. It allows users to share one free play of purchased songs with their friends on Google+, Google's social networking service. As The New York Times reports, Warner Music Group is the only major label that has not reached an agreement with Google Music to sell their catalog yet. As Billboard points out, Google Music also includes a service that allows independent artists to sell their music directly to customers.
Google Music allows users to store their music collections online, for free, and access them from any computer, as well as through Android devices, "without the hassle of wires or syncing." Users can upload 20,000 songs free of charge, in addition to Android Market purchases. Google Music will also offer personalized music recommendations as well as editorial content emphasizing music discovery.
The new video for Kate Bush’s 50 Words For Snow track “Wild Man” takes a two-and-a-half-minute chunk of the song and sets it to a windblown haze of wintry imagery. It’s hard to see what’s going on at any given moment, but Bush seems to be telling the story of the abominable snowman being hunted through mountains. Maybe? That’s my interpretation, anyway.
Florence + the Machine - No Light, No Light (Dir: arni & kinski)
The absurdly overdramatic video for Florence & The Machine’s Ceremonials wailer “No Light, No Light” features a crystal skull, a voodoo doll, a weird masked contortionist-dancer guy, a kids’ choir, and maybe the most epic stagedive in recorded history. It is a truly ridiculous piece of work.
Feist has revealed her new video for “How Come You Never Go There”, and either she went halfsies with The Twilighton a film shoot or we now have two music videos, shot in black and white, featuring performances in the middle of the woods. For comparison’s sake, we have both videos (The Twilight Sad’s clip is for their new song “Sick”).
MGMT - All We Ever Wanted Was Everything - Animated (Late Night Tales)
When they released the LateNightTales compilation that they curated a couple of months ago, MGMT included one new song: Their cover of Bauhaus’s “All We Ever Wanted Was Everything.” Now Ned Wenlock has animated a video for the song: A rolling, impressionistic, constantly-changing thing about British urban life, with the lyrics scrolling along beside the pictures of smokestacks.
There's a video for "Hit the Ground (Superman)", the Laurie Anderson-sampling new single from the Big Pink's forthcoming sophomore effort, Future This. It features a lot of split-screen and slo-mo footage of young people blowing bubbles with gum, making funny faces, and getting out of bed. Directed by Tim Brown.
Director: Nate Buchik Cinematographer: Adam Wissing Editors: Nate Buchik and Jonathan Pulley Assistant Director: Jason Kelley Hair and Makeup: Amanda Ryan Stylist: Crystal Saujon X Factor: Derekh Froude Grip: Garrett Davis
After an almost 10-year break, VH1's Pop Up Video program resumed last month. Accordingly, Vampire Weekend's "Holiday" and the White Stripes' "I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself" have both received some royal Pop Up treatment, with explainer bubbles highlighting on various aspects of the videos. The White Stripes video was directed by Sofia Coppola and features a Kate Moss pole dance that may be considered slightly NSFW, whereas "Holiday" was helmed by directing duo The Malloys. Watch it above.
Another week, another video, this is our newest official we created from the High 5 Collective on Kitsune's amazing new indie band Citizens! "True Romance" is an offbeat tragedy revolving a hunchback and his strive towards human connection. Nonetheless, it gets a little spooky and strange.
The Rapture have released two videos to accompany "Sail Away", the anthemic opener to In the Grace of Your Love, a short version and an extended version. The whimsical clips, directed by Kris Moyes, feature frontman Luke Jenner engaged in a mystical struggle with a shiny silver bag (!), while Vito Roccoforte and Gabe Andruzzi blow on what sure looks to be a pair of shofars (!!).
Strangely timed, yes, but today’s new Black Lips videos features the Lips dudes as corrupt cops in New York. It stars Leo Fitzpatrick — let me clarify that — Johnny Weeks from The Wire and model Janell Shirtcliff. It’s the first Black Lips video we’ve posted since the rather pukey “Family Tree,” so that’s something of note. There is much less puke in this, so depending on what your puke perspective (P.P., for short) is, it’s either a very good or very bad thing. Phil Pinto directs and Rachelyn Remz-Porter produces the video.
The entire video for the Raveonettes’ romantic reverb-awash “Let Me On Out” consists of old-timey black-and-white close-ups of the two Raveonettes. When your band is good-looking enough, I suppose you can get away with something like that.
The Roots are rolling out a new video and track from their upcoming concept LP undun each Tuesday and this week’s edition comes in the form of “Stomp,” another black-and-white clip of a hooded figure up to some felonious stuff. Check out the previous videos for “Make My” and “Tip The Scale” and you can see a little bit of a narrative emerging.
ROSA is an 9m50s epic sci-fi film that takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where all natural life has disappeared. From the destruction awakes Rosa, a cyborg deployed from the Kernel project, mankind's last attempt to restore the earth's ecosystem.
Rosa will soon learn that she is not the only entity that has awakened and must fight for her survival. The film was created entirely by young comic-artist Jesús Orellana with no budget during a single year.
The new video for the Red Hot Chili Peppers track “Monarchy Of Roses” is a chopped-up, animated, mostly black-and-white affair, in which the Chili Peppers inhabit environments taken directly from the drawings of a particular artist, the great Black Flag-affiliated pen-and-ink brutalist Raymond Pettibon. Marc Klasfeld directed the video, but it’s credited as being “inspired by the work of” Pettibon. I hope that means they broke him off with some paper, though I guess Raymond Pettibon isn’t exactly hurting for money.
The video for “Scale It Back,” DJ Shadow’s new collaboration with Little Dragon, opens with a vaguely creepy guy who explains that, to memorize a deck of playing cards, he creates a story in his head by assigning an image to each pair of cards. We then see a group of actors and puppeteers recreate every single absurd image, which means we get stuff like a breakdancing viking and an old man with a cane attacking Chun Li from Street Fighter. I’m pretty sure it’s all done in one unbroken shot, too, which is ridiculously impressive. Casey Raymond and Ewan James Morris direct, just as they did with the brand-new Los Campesinos! video.
We are a bit late to the game on How to Eat Your Apple, a surrealist gem by Erick Oh, but it still tastes great! More treats await on Erick’s blog and his Vimeo, like Way Home and the trailer for Heart
Learn more about How to Eat Your Apple at Short of the Week’s interview.
The video for Los Campesinos!' "Hello Sadness", taken from the new LP of the same name, features forced spaghetti eating, being dragged across the floor, and other general minor abuse committed by masked figures. It's kind of like the video for LCD Soundsystem's "Drunk Girls", only nobody looks like they're having much fun. The clip was directed by Casey Raymond and Ewan Jones Morris.
The concept is deeply silly and even a bit obvious, especially when it turns into the Joker-makeup bacchanal in its last minute. But the little touches are nice. Frontman Till Lindemann, for instance, is an almost disturbingly plausible David Hasselhoff clone. And the song turns out to be easier to twist to than anyone could’ve expected. Nice color pallette, too.
Ramshackle indie rock duo Secret Music builds their frenetic pop around simple, catchy synth or guitar lines, and that’s the basis of their single, “T.O.Y.S.” The video, directed by TV Carnage, piles up Jerry Springer clips, Full House snippets and lots of freaky-ass ventriloquist dummies. The song was produced by Passion Pit’s Ayad Al Adhamy.
Sometimes you promise someone forever but it doesn't work out that way. Watch Katy Perry and Diego Luna star in the sixth chapter of the "Teenage Dream" story. Do you have "The One That Got Away"?
Music video by Katy Perry performing The One That Got Away. Directed by: Floria Sigismondi / Produced by: Jannie McInnes & Danny Lockwood
New Clip from Hudson – Stop Motion Kaleidoscopic Fun.
The new music video for ‘Against The Grain’ from emerging Melbourne indie-folk artist Hudson sees him collaborate with film maker/animator/VJ Dropbear (aka Jonathan Chong), producing a vibrant and colourful clip based around a mainstay from our humble artistic efforts throughout childhood – coloured pencils.
After flirting with an intense dark/light duality since the late Nineties, Britney Spears' twisted side took on more graphic, unapologetic proportions by 2008 with the nihilistic pop politics of Blackout. The singer's accompanying mental health scandals giving her pop lustre a certain tortured gleam. She smartly embraced those tensions, creating visuals like this titillating video of her writhing around while mouthing the words to Marilyn Manson's 1995 cover of the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)."
Originally broadcast as a live interlude clip for her Circus tour, where Britney test-drove her Jekyll-and-Hyde image through various persona-shifting guises, a high-quality version of the video leaked online this week, sending YouTube viewers into a frenzy. For the video, Chris Ashbrook, who also directed Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart's original "Sweet Dreams" clip in 1983, portrays Spears as the mistress of a dark masquerade-cum-orgy, with her dancers slinking around. In many ways, it's the perverse culmination of what Spears' live act has been about for years, just with Manson soundtracking.
Amazingly, it all feels rather appropriate. For some, the idea of pairing Britney Spears and Marilyn Manson might seem apocalyptic, the ultimate collision of musical opposites. But for others, that's the very point: sweet dreams (beautiful nightmares?) can be made from these two antithetical pop ingredients, who arguably had an equal hand in birthing Lady Gaga. In any case, in this era of unlikely pop partnerships, this is one we wouldn't mind seeing in the light of day – or darkness of night.
Lewandowski’s back with a music video for Hurting by the Friendly Fires. It’s a sweet take on the age-old story of boy lusts for girl, girl has hot legs and crushing power over boy (perhaps these are interrelated), but boy just can’t stay away.
I dig the fun, Gondry meets high-end homebrew VFX, feeling. And I love the in-camera lighting, created by velcro-ing literibbon and litecards to a balaclava.
I have been waiting for years to get my hands on a new Elder Scrolls game, and my excitement can barely be contained. Enter an equally excited, and fashionably medieval, bard to sing the praises of the newest incarnation-Elder Scrolls: Skyrim.
The “Song of Skyrim” is beautifully animated by Harry Partridge, and is so catchy that you’ll be humming the tune all day as you wait to get a copy of Skyrim in your hands.
We all love short animated films, but creating short film is very hard task. Putting whole story in 5 to 10 minutes is not easy. Can you imagine? Few films produced after working hard more than 6 years! Here we collected 15 dazzling animated short films for your inspiration. You can find different genres in these movies like heart-touching film One life, frightening film The Passenger.
I bet you will love these short animated movies, do let us know your favorite one, also feel free to share your favorite short film if it’s not present in the list.
Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty
Oscar-nominated film of ‘Granny O’Grimm’, directed by Nicky Phelan, produced by Brown Bag Films, and written/voiced by Kathleen O’Rourke.
Oktapodi (2007)
In Oktapodi, these two cuties help each other escape the clutches of a tyrannical restaurant cook. But, even once they are out of the kitchen, their battle to stay together is not over.
This Side Up – A Short Animation by Liron Topaz
A naive music-lover’s patience is tested on his quest to download music online, as his perspective on technology completely changes.
Oxygen
Oxygen tries to make friends on the playground. Unfortunately for Oxygen, he is unaware of the many things that can go wrong when trying to interact with his other elementary kin…
“Heavenly Appeals” a short film by David Lisbe
After many millennia of being tortured in Hell, Raymond K. Hessle has finally earned a chance to appeal his sentence of Eternal Damnation. Upon arriving at the “appeals” gate of Heaven he is greeted by the angel who will preside over his case. As Raymond waits at the edge of paradise, he will finally have a chance to prove just how worthy he is.
Marcelino and Bartolomeo: Bye Bye!
Marcelino and Bartolomeo are playing pong at the office when they are not supposed to. Unfortunately their boss shows up and makes a harsh call.
Bunny Animation
The Passenger
The Passenger is the result of about six years spent in a bedroom with a computer.
GetOut – Best Animated Short Film
Alma
Alma is Rodrigo Blaas’ first short film as a director. Originally from Spain, Rodrigo Blaas has worked in animation for more than ten years, in Spain and in the United States.
Pigeon: Impossible
A rookie secret agent is faced with a problem seldom covered in basic training: what to do when a curious pigeon gets trapped inside your multi-million dollar, government-issued nuclear briefcase.
Replay – Amazing Animated Short Film by Talantis
In a destroyed world, the only glimpse of hope is the memory of a forgotten past. But be careful not to let your dreams control your mind…This is Replay an amazing animated short film.
One Life – Amazing Animation by Corey Hayes
This animation will make you think about your life. The song is “old man” by Neil Young Animation by Corey Hayes.
The Last Knit
When knitting becomes an obsession. Directed by Laura Neuvonen, Country Finland.
Do penguins fly?
A collective of French artists braves the current glut of penguin films and even a flooding air conditioner to create this excellent film seeking the truth about those tuxedo-clad Antarctic birds.
UK youngsters the History Of Apple Pie have some messy fun to the tune of the upbeat, shoegazey “Mallory.” Whoever the curator of the food items used for the food fight is, A+, some truly great/gross textures and colors in the mix here. May it enter the pantheon of indie rock food fight videos! Check out the clip after the jump.
9-minutes musical short film on the famous song by Serge Gainsbourg, Variations sur Marilou, interpreted in 2006 by Alain Bashung (Label barclay).
Hot off the press and sure to be doing he rounds pretty quickly, this wonderful delight is from Chez Eddy director, Maxime Bruneel. If you are offended by illustrated breasticals and other such goodness then please consider this video NSFW.
Around these parts David O’Reilly needs no introduction.
When David’s name is attached to a project anything can happen. Usually grotesque, sinister and wholly unholy, but always hilarious.
With his latest offering for Tim and Eric’s “Professor Genki’s Super Ethical Reality Climax”, he does not disappoint. Again it’s NSFW (and finishing of the recent NSFW posting trilogy). Normal service will now resume!
In the buildup to the December release of the Roots’ concept album, undun, the legendary rap collective is putting out a video every Tuesday at 12:06, which mirrors the 12/6 release date of the LP. Today’s clip is for “Tip The Scale,” a gritty black-and-white clip where a lone figure patrols a bleak neighborhood, a motif the Roots are familiar with. Dice Raw guests and Clifton Bell directs.
Sometimes, ambiguity is a good thing. The Brooklyn band Pearl and the Beard just released a beautiful music video for its song "The Lament of Coronado Brown" that adheres to that mantra by inviting multiple interpretations with both its visuals and lyrics.
The band, made up of guitarist Jeremy Styles and multi-instrumentalists Jocelyn Mackenzie and Emily Hope Price, just played a series of shows at CMJ and is currently touring Europe. Together, they make warmly inviting folk music with uplifting three-part harmonies.
The video for "The Lament of Coronado Brown" is a solemn, stately affair that mixes shots of the band with footage of a man trekking across a sandy beach, shovel in tow. He's looking for something, but what it is remains unclear. That's part of the video's power; instead of being told what to think, the viewer is dropped in the middle of the story and encouraged to come up with his or her own interpretation.
Where to begin? You know what, I think this is one of those videos that you just have to experience!
It looks to me like the director, Jeremie Perin, was weened on a diet of Urotsukidōji and darkness that is required to conjure up such a delicious slice of evil. Be warned, some scenes could be considered NSFW so make sure your screen is adequately shielded from prying eyes (and your mum).
A brand new version of ASIMO – Honda’s humanoid robot, which has been in development for over 10 years now – was recently demonstrated. The new model can jump on one leg, pour drinks and much more.
Check out the video for "Satisfied" directed by Jesse Dylan from the new record Bad As Me.
Jesse Dylan knows a few things about dealing with difficult, enigmatic musical-genius types. He is, after all, the son of Bob Dylan, and he directed Method Man and Redman in their cinematic opus How High. For his latest effort, he’s helmed the bare-bones video for Tom Waits’s junkyard-blues howler “Satisfied.” In the clip, Dylan films Waits in high-contrast black-and-white as he does his deranged-preacher impression and pulls off impressive old-man angry-rooster dance moves in flickering backyard light.
South African rave-rap terrorists Die Antwoord, who became global viral sensations last year and who somehow turned that into an Interscope contract, have parted ways with their major label, claiming that Interscope was doing its best to turn them into something more pop-friendly. Instead, they’re planning to self-release the new album TEN$ION on their own label Zef Recordz. And with that announcement, they’ve given us a new video called “Fok Julle Naaiers,” a title that translates to “Fuck You All.” The black-and-white clip doesn’t have the same eyeball-exploding weirdness that the group’s earlier videos brought, but not a lot would. Instead, the black-and-white video mostly features bare-chested dudes, many of them with bad tattoos and firearms, staring down the camera. There’s also a whole lot of scorpion/tarantula/butterfly/worm action.
With the new video, they’ve also uploaded a new clip in which rat-mustached frontman Ninja explains that they aren’t homophobic and that the elaborately latex-masked DJ Hi-Tek (at least, I hope that’s a mask) is gay.
In director Clifton Bell‘s video for the Roots’ new single “Make My,” one guy gets shot a whole fuckload of times, and that’s pretty much the only thing that happens. The slow-motion black-and-white clip is just two minutes long, about half the length of the song, and it excises guest rapper Big K.R.I.T.’s verse entirely. The Roots don’t appear. According to the YouTube page, it’s one of four planned videos for the band’s new concept album undun.
"The Ph.Diddy is on the scene" - Animation of life in the biotech lab
I suspect that Alex’s grad school life (remember, the owner of this site is a fully credentialed mad scientist) was like this. Except for the female groupies.
This video was produced as a promotional spot for the firm Invitrogen.
“It’s Real” is one of Real Estate’s best tracks from Album Of The Week album Days, so it’s fitting that the song’s equally great video maintains the same cheery, upbeat attitude. Oh, and there are like, a dozen dogs in the video, hanging out and starring in home movies. Several are wearing bowties. Bowties! This video is definitely the logical counterpoint to Best Coast’s “Crazy For You” video, although I think they blew an opportunity to include those bumper stickers that say “I [HEART] My [Picture Of Dog Breed].” Maybe next time. Directed by Weird Days.
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