Channel 4 has collaborated with London singer Etta Bond on an experimental music video for song Under the Knife as part of its arts series Random Acts.
The video was directed by Jeremy Cole and was shot in one take before being spliced into 1,347 layers on After Effects. The result is a stunning three-minute film that explores a female artist's struggle with insecurity and expectations of perfection.
It begins with a muddle of eyes, ears, lips and hair as Bond sings of hiding behind a mask of make up. As it progresses, and Bond moves on to singing of people who have helped boost her confidence, the blurred fragments form a clearer picture. By the end of the video, Bond's face is revealed.
As Cole's behind-the-scenes video (below) shows, editing the film was a complex process that and one he says involved “plenty of trial and error and **** loads of coffee.” Instead of using a plug in, he created each layer individually.
“The concept for the visuals was something I jotted down in my notepad and vaguely thought about for a few days whilst working on other projects. It seemed relevant to do something that distorted the image and literally cut up the screen (Under The Knife) forcing the viewer to listen before revealing a comprehendible image.
“I struggled to find references, and more so to describe the format to other people, so the idea in my notepad slowly progressed into a brainstorm that involved a lot of guesswork and untested plans - somehow I reassured others it would work,” explains Cole.
A Kingston University graduate, Cole has worked on documentaries, mockumentaries and music videos for Channel 4 and production agencies including Lemonade, Remedy and Pulse Films. Along with the video's executive producer James Payne, he approached Bond as he wanted to collaborate directly with an artist, rather than through a record label.
“We've both worked in music television for years and the agenda of record labels and brands is usually in the wrong place, creating a physical boundary between audio and visual. It was nice to sidestep that and work directly with the artist,” he adds.
After Bond and Raf Rily (on piano) completed a rough recording of the track, Cole and director of photography Bud Gallimore headed to the studio and shot a live performance in one take.
“I started on the post production while on the train home that night and started to figure out how much of a mammoth task it'd turn out to be," he says. "In the end, I think it took around 30 hours over 4 or 5 days without the use of any fancy plug-ins or effects… but it sort of works.”
Out now, the May 2013 issue of Creative Review is our biggest ever. Features over 100 pages of the year's best work in the Creative Review Annual 2013 (in association with iStockphoto), plus profiles on Morag Myerscough, Part of a Bigger Plan and Human After All as well as analysis, comment, reviews and opinion
You can buy Creative Review direct from us here. Better yet, subscribe, save money and have CR delivered direct to your door every month. If you subscribe before May 3, you will get the Annual issue thrown in for free. The offer also applies to anyone renewing their subscription. Details here
CR for the iPad
Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month.
Made By Hand has just released its latest documentary film, The Bike Maker. It follows another 'maker', Ezra Caldwell of Fast Boy Cycles, but gradually becomes a moving portrait of someone coming to terms with cancer...
The fifth in the Bureau of Common Goods' series which looks at the lives of various craftspeople, The Bike Maker is perhaps the film that deviates most from its central theme – but understandably so.
Caldwell was diagnosed with cancer in 2008 and, since then, has tried to keep his bespoke bicycle business going but also document his condition through photography. The film is an account of his compelling story.
Made By Hand's other films include The Distiller, The Knife Maker, The Beekeeper and The Cigar Shop. More details at thisismadebyhand.com. Caldwell's website is fastboycycles.com and is well worth a look – his bikes are quite something.
DIRECTOR AND PRODUCER Keith "keef" Ehrlich. COMPOSER Nathan Rosenberg / Doghouse NYC. DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Adam McDaid. EDITOR Matt Shapiro. ASSISTANT CAMERA Josh Lawsom. ADDITIONAL CAMERA Elias Ressegatti. COLORIST Jaime O'Bradovoich. TITLE DESIGN Mandy Brown. LINE PRODUCER John Seabright. RE-RECORDING MIXER Nicholas Montgomery. SOUND RECORDIST Robert Albrecht
Out now, the May 2013 issue of Creative Review is our biggest ever. Features over 100 pages of the year's best work in the Creative Review Annual 2013 (in association with iStockphoto), plus profiles on Morag Myerscough, Part of a Bigger Plan and Human After All as well as analysis, comment, reviews and opinion
You can buy Creative Review direct from us here. Better yet, subscribe, save money and have CR delivered direct to your door every month. If you subscribe before May 3, you will get the Annual issue thrown in for free. The offer also applies to anyone renewing their subscription. Details here
CR for the iPad
Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month
This year's One Word Brief is Be: submissions are invited from budding filmmakers, photographers, illustrators and graphic designers. Winning work will be printed in a book and featured in an exhibition
One Word Brief was set up by artist and designer Zoltan Marfy and Katriina Cooper, a writer and planner as a showcase for young talent worldwide. In 2011, the first One Word Brief invited submissions to a choice of six words: Change, Search, Freedom, Social, Space and Enough. (See past work here). This year there is just one – Be.
Submissions will be judged by a panel including designer John Bateson of LCC and Bateson Studio and Tate head of production Celeste Menich.
The extended deadline for submissions is June 1. Rules here
Out now, the May 2013 issue of Creative Review is our biggest ever. Features over 100 pages of the year's best work in the Creative Review Annual 2013 (in association with iStockphoto), plus profiles on Morag Myerscough, Part of a Biggler Plan and Human After All as well as analysis, comment, reviews and opinion
You can buy Creative Review direct from us here. Better yet, subscribe, save money and have CR delivered direct to your door every month. If you subscribe before May 3, you will get the Annual issue thrown in for free. The offer also applies to anyone renewing their subscription. Details here
CR for the iPad
Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month
Digital agency ACNE is behind a very enjoyable interactive film designed for Y-3, the collaborative fashion venture from adidas and Yohji Yamamoto...
Using the keyboard visitors to Y-3.com/film can make their own audio-visual film piece. Press any letter key and the action cuts to a new section of video, any number key and the film can be manipulated and distorted in a multitude of different ways. Tim Hecker, celebrated composer of distorted audio treats, supplies the soundtrack.
Of course, all this goes some way to showcase the Y-3 Spring/Summer 2013 collection (and the fact that Yamamoto and adidas have been collaborating for ten years), but filmmakers can also record and share a 30-second clip of their work.
CR's effort, featuring more effects than you can shake a well-dressed stick at, is here.
Creative Direction, Interactive Experience: ACNE Creative Direction, Film: Lloyd & Co Photographer: Pierre Debusschere Video Director of Photography: Tosh Ozawa Video Editor and Effects Artist: Loïc Maes Music: Tim Hecker Styling: Jay Massacret Hair & Make-Up Artists: Esther Langham & Adrien Pinault Models: Juliane Grüner & Guerrino Santulliana
Out now, the May 2013 issue of Creative Review is our biggest ever. Features over 100 pages of the year's best work in the Creative Review Annual 2013 (in association with iStockphoto), plus profiles on Morag Myerscough, Part of a Biggler Plan and Human After All as well as analysis, comment, reviews and opinion
You can buy Creative Review direct from us here. Better yet, subscribe, save money and have CR delivered direct to your door every month. If you subscribe before May 3, you will get the Annual issue thrown in for free. The offer also applies to anyone renewing their subscription. Details here
CR for the iPad Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month.
Our May issue is the biggest CR ever, weighing in at over 230 pages. It's our Annual special, with over 100 pages of the best work of the year in visual communications combined with a regular issue containing our usual mix of interviews, opinion and reviews
The CR Annual, in association with iStockphoto, is our round-up of the best work of the year, as chosen by our panel of judges. The judges also choose what they deem to be the best of the best in our Best in Book section.
We have also chosen our design studio, client and ad agency of the year - details in the issue.
Once you've finished perusing the Annual, turn over for a regular issue of the magazine where you will find a host of features relating to the work selected for the Annual this year. This includes a major profile piece on Morag Myerscough, whose Cathedral Café project features in The Annual and who also designed our cover this month
Here's a film of Morag and her team making the cover:
We also interview Christian Borstlap from Part of a Biggler Plan in Amsterdam, whose work for Louis Vuitton has featured in several of our Annuals
One thing our graphics jury noticed about the work entered this year was how nostalgic much of it was. In particular, there was a trend for what we termed 'Austerity Graphics' – post-war British replete with sugary pastel colours. We explore the rise of this trend and look back at graphic design's abiding addiction to referencing the past
Another trend discussed by our judges was the increasing importance of the 'PR stunt' in advertising: we explore what effect this is having on ad agency creative departments and the skills of those who work there
And, in our final profile piece, we met Human After All, the creative agency formed by the design team behind Little White Lies magazine
In our Crit section, Wayne Ford reviews Jo Metson Scott's new book of photographs of soldiers who have opposed the Iraq war
James Pallister looks at how microsites have become a new platform for protest, Gordon Comstock discusses the tensionbetween branding's desire for consistency and advertising's search for originality, MIchale Evamy discusses brands which play with concealing their identity, Daniel Benneworth-Grey ruminates on the difficulties of working for that most demanding client (yourself) an Paul Belford applauds the risk-taking in a classic ad for Alexon produced by the combined talents of Richard Avedon, Paul Arden and Tim Mellors
And, if that wasn't enough, our subscribers can also enjoy a fabulous collection of Cuban posters produced by the Organisation in Solidarity with the People of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, in this month's Monograph
You can buy the May Annual issue direct from us here. Better yet, subscribe and you will not only save money but will be guaranteed to receive CR (and Monograph) every month. If you subscribe before May 3, you will get the Annual issue thrown in for free. The offer also applies to anyone renewing their subscription. Details here
Thanks to everyone who entered The Annual this year, our judges, and to all our sponsors: iStockphoto, Microsoft, Shadowplay, Cake Factory, Streamtime, Agency Rush and Fasthosts Internet
The cover image for this year's Creative Review Annual (out this week) was created by Morag Myerscough in her inimitable hand-crafted style. See how she did it
Here's the final cover - the issue will be out tomorrow
Myerscough, as well as having work selected for The Annual this year, is also the subject of a major profile piece in the magazine this month. You can buy a copy direct from us here
Believe it or not, the above image is an entire film (Dear Mandela by Dara Kell and Christopher Nizza, to be precise) squeezed into a unique visual code. It is part of a campaign created by TBWA\Chiat\Day New York for the Brklyn Film Festival to drum up interest and ticket sales ahead of its launch in May.
The campaign, Expand Your View, aims to encourage film lovers and the Brooklyn community to see films through a different lens, which is the principal goal of the festival itself.
The agency therefore, together with WiMO Reality, created an interactive print campaign that features the previous year's festival winners, 'compressed' into a unique 'film code' visual that is made up of the individual frames of each film.
As 'Gray' points out in the comments below (our thanks to him/her) the idea of representing an entire film, slice by slice, in one image has already been used by the Moviebarcode Tumblr.
What's different here, though, is that, using software developed by IT student Melvyn Laily for the .NET Framework, the images represent a unique, scannable fingerprint of each film.
Above is the campaign poster featuring the code for 2012 animation winner, The Making of Longbird (shown below)
The campaign appears across outdoor posters and in print, inviting passers-by or readers to scan the codes with the WiMO app to access the trailer for the film, as well as ticketing and other information about this year's festival.
The film code process certainly results in an intriguing graphic device, although as with other technology dependent on downloading apps to scan, such as QR codes and Augmented Reality, the question remains how many New Yorkers will actually stop to download, scan and ultimately engage.
The Brklyn Film festival is on from May 31 to June 9 at indieScreen (289 Kent Avenue, Williamsburg, New York).
Credits Agency: TBWA\Chiat\Day NY Chief Creative Officer: Mark Figliulo Creative Director: James Cheung Art Director: Deniz Marlali
The April print issue of CR presents the work of three young animators and animation teams to watch. Plus, we go in search of illustrator John Hanna, test out the claims of a new app to have uncovered the secrets of viral ad success and see how visual communications can both help keep us safe and help us recover in hospital
Please note, CR now has a limited presence on the newsstand at WH Smith high street stores (although it can still be found in WH Smith travel branches at train stations and airports). If you cannot find a copy of CR in your town, your WH Smith store or a local independent newsagent can order it for you. You can search for your nearest stockist here. Alternatively, call us on 020 7970 4878, or buy a copy direct from us. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 970 4878 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.
CR for the iPad Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month.
Students can now save 30% off a subscription to Creative Review
Yes, we know, finally, right? Students can now get a discount of up to 30% on a print subscription to CR. All you have to do is go to our Shopify page here
UK-based students now pay just £49.70 (instead of £71) for 12 issues of Creative Review delivered straight to your door (there are also discounts for European and rest of the world-based students). No longer will you miss out on special issues such as our celebration of 150 years of the tube or our CR Annual
And of you subscribe for longer, the savings get bigger: £83.30 for two years (instead of £119) and £117.60 for three years (instead of £168).
And all subscribers receive our award-winning Monograph booklet each month for free, featuring projects such as James Jarvis's Amos graphics (below)
Design studio Moniker in Amsterdam has created this excellent music video-cum-website for the song Kilo by the band Light Light which is super fun to play with...
The site plays homage to the humble computer cursor, recording your interactions as you navigate the site. "After 50 years of pointing and clicking, we are celebrating the nearing end of the computer cursor with an ever-changing music video where all our computer cursors can be seen together for one last time," the site explains.
Here are some stills from it to whet your appetite, but it's best to get on over to donottouch.org and have a play for yourself.
More info on Moniker is available at studiomoniker.com. The studio was formed last year by Roel Wouters (who is a CR Creative Future alumni), Luna Maurer, and Jonathan Puckey. There are some lovely other projects on the site, so it's well worth a visit.
Director Carl Burgess has shot a self-initiated film that looks to add "older" to the classic Olympic motto of "Swifter, Higher, Stronger"...
Something of a master at creating uneasy weirdness in his films, Burgess here captures the sporting endeavours of five ageing actors (clad in the red, white and blue) who exchange batons, put shots and spray champagne in victorious celebration - all in glorious super-slow motion. Combined with a stirring soundtrack and the result is both compelling and uplifting too.
"The core idea came from an article in the Daily Mail I read a few years back about the World Masters Games," Burgess revealed to CR. "The images [of athletes as old as 100] in that piece have been in my references for ages and I always wanted to take it further," he continues.
"I wanted to shoot my film on high speed to not only beautify the movement and to capture the expressions," says Burgess, "but I also liked the idea of these old folk doing these usually explosive sports really slowly."
The film features actors rather than athletes and apparently it wasn't easy finding people that looked old enough but who were also physically fit enough to take part in the activities lined up for them on the day of the shoot. Burgess also learnt a few things about working with older actors. "Aside from the obvious physical limitations that you have to be aware of, I had a few people dozing off on set," he tells us. "It was absolutely imperative that cups of tea were in constant supply."
The day wasn't without its (thankfully injury-free) accidents either. "The outtake of Keith letting off the champagne prematurely proved to be a highlight of the day," says Burgess. "We were in the middle of framing up and moving lights when it just went off. The footage shows this really expensive camera falling over backwards as everyone gets blasted with champagne."
Credits: Director Carl Burgess Production More Soon DoP Matt Day at Clapham Rd Studios Gaffer Max Halstead Design Lauren Kinley Cast Maurice Fleisher, Rosemary Bannister, Keith Heppenstall, Abigail Hamilton, Jean Elwood
The April print issue of CR presents the work of three young animators and animation teams to watch. Plus, we go in search of illustrator John Hanna, test out the claims of a new app to have uncovered the secrets of viral ad success and see how visual communications can both help keep us safe and help us recover in hospital
Please note, CR now has a limited presence on the newsstand at WH Smith high street stores (although it can still be found in WH Smith travel branches at train stations and airports). If you cannot find a copy of CR in your town, your WH Smith store or a local independent newsagent can order it for you. You can search for your nearest stockist here. Alternatively, call us on 020 7970 4878, or buy a copy direct from us. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 970 4878 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.
CR for the iPad Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month.
