Well it seemed like the distant future back when I posted episode 1, but believe it or not we’ve now been bringing you Directors Notes each and every week for the last 100 weeks! So to mark our move into triple figures I’m pleased to be joined by returning director Stathis Athanasiou (DN036) to talk to us about his new music promo for band the El Senor Antipirina and their track Me Voy.

El Senor Antipirina: Me Voy Materials
Stills
Animatic

Showlinks
El Senor Antipirina
El Senor Antipirina MySpace
Stathis’ Vimeo
Stathis’ MySpace
Stathis’ YouTube
KITAO
Theseum Ensemble
Dying as a Country Trailer
Dying as a Country - Wiener Festwochen
Dying as a Country - Kunstenfestivaldesarts
Dying as a Country - Athens Festival
Canon XH-A1

• El Senor Antipirina: Me Voy - Stathis Athanasiou
• DN EP 095: The Beangrowers: Not in a Million Lovers - Duncan Bone
• DN EP 091: Honey Honey: Homeless Heart - Michael Johnson
• DN EP 079: Menomena: Evil Bee - Stefan Nadelman
• DN EP 042: Auto Pilot, Distortion, Ping Pong & Biker Mike - Mike Chan

El Senor Antipirina: Me Voy (2008)
Stathis Athanasiou finds a way to channel the heartache in his promo for El Senor Antipirina’s track Me Voy.

• DN EP 100: El Senor Antipirina: Me Voy - Stathis Athanasiou
• The Beangrowers: Not in a Million Lovers - Duncan Bone
• Moros Eros: On My Side - Jesse Ewles
• Menomena: Evil Bee - Stefan Nadelman
• LIEBESTOD-Four Acts - Stathis Athanasiou

Director Duncan Bone joins us this week to discuss his multi-discipline career and recent move into music promos with the stop frame piece Not in a Million Lovers for band The Beangrowers.

The Beangrowers: Not in a Million Lovers Materials
Production Sheet

Showlinks
duncanbone.com
The Beangrowers
Adobe After Effects

• The Beangrowers: Not in a Million Lovers - Duncan Bone
• DN EP 079: Menomena: Evil Bee - Stefan Nadelman
• DN EP 042: Auto Pilot, Distortion, Ping Pong & Biker Mike - Mike Chan
• DN Ep 022: LIVE LOVE WORK PLAY - Thomas Atanazio
• Moros Eros: On My Side - Jesse Ewles

The Beangrowers: Not in a Million Lovers - Duncan Bone (2008)
Duncan Bone’s relationship stillsfest for The Beangrowers’ Not in a Million Lovers.

• DN EP 095: The Beangrowers: Not in a Million Lovers - Duncan Bone
• Moros Eros: On My Side - Jesse Ewles
• Menomena: Evil Bee - Stefan Nadelman
• Honey Honey: Homeless Heart - Michael Johnson
• El Senor Antipirina: Me Voy - Stathis Athanasiou

Our guest Michael Johnson used his skills as an advertising writer to pursue his true passion for filmmaking by writing his own scripts to cut his teeth on whilst leaveraging his ad contacts into potential new projects. We sit down with him to discuss his take on Honey Honey’s Homeless Heart in his latest music promo.

Honey Honey: Homeless Heart Materials
Stills
Shotlist

Showlinks
MichaelJamesJohnson.com
Honey Honey
Kamp Grizzly
Sub Urban Riot
O Brother, Where Art Thou?

• Honey Honey: Homeless Heart - Michael Johnson
• DN EP 100: El Senor Antipirina: Me Voy - Stathis Athanasiou
• DN EP 095: The Beangrowers: Not in a Million Lovers - Duncan Bone
• DN EP 079: Menomena: Evil Bee - Stefan Nadelman
• DN EP 042: Auto Pilot, Distortion, Ping Pong & Biker Mike - Mike Chan

Honey Honey: Homeless Heart (2008)
Something’s a going down in Michael Johnson’s promo for Honey Honey.

• DN EP 091: Honey Honey: Homeless Heart - Michael Johnson
• The Beangrowers: Not in a Million Lovers - Duncan Bone
• Moros Eros: On My Side - Jesse Ewles
• Menomena: Evil Bee - Stefan Nadelman
• El Senor Antipirina: Me Voy - Stathis Athanasiou

Stefan Nadelman made a splash back in 2002 with his stills animated documentary Terminal Bar. Since then he’s gone on to create a host of personal, collaborative, and commercial work, and joins us to discuss his first outing into music videos with Menomena’s Evil Bee promo.

Menomena: Evil Bee Materials
Animatic

Showlinks
Tourist Pictures
Sundance Film Festival
Terminal Bar
Adobe Flash
Latin Alive
Resfest
VH1
Curious Pictures
Cinema 16
Apple Final Cut Pro
Adobe After Effects
Filmmaker Magazine
Menomena
Schatzi Marketing
Adobe Photoshop
PF Flyers
Food Fight

• DN Ep 029: Trusted Computing - Benjamin Stephan & Lutz Vogel
• Menomena: Evil Bee - Stefan Nadelman
• DN EP 076: Duelity - Boca & Ryan Uhrich
• DN EP 063: Flight - Andrew S Allen
• DN EP 046: The Raftman’s Razor - Keith Bearden

Menomena: Evil Bee (2006)
Stefan Nadelman reveals the hard life of worker bees in his promo for Menomena’s Evil Bee.

• DN EP 079: Menomena: Evil Bee - Stefan Nadelman
• Moros Eros: On My Side - Jesse Ewles
• Auto Pilot, Distortion, Ping Pong & Biker Mike - Mike Chan
• _grau - Robert Seidel
• What We’ve Found Out About Stem Cells - Richard Fenwick

Moros Eros: On My Side (2007)
An urban hunter works their way through the city’s back alleys pouching balloon versions of endangered species.

• DN EP 073: Moros Eros: On My Side - Jesse Ewles
• 8 - Benjamin Ducroz
• DN EP 072: 8 - Benjamin Ducroz
• Auto Pilot, Distortion, Ping Pong & Biker Mike - Mike Chan
• _grau - Robert Seidel

Today’s interview’s slightly different in that instead of zeroing in on a single film, we’re looking at four very different pieces from director Mike Chan’s body of work, to get a feel for the variety of projects he creates with his regular team of collaborators; including experiments with photocopiers in Distortion, duelling Ping Pong playing TVs, Mods vs Rockers dancing chair fantasies in Biker Mike and Auto Pilot, a playful giant gorilla attack disaster music video for The Mount Cherries.

Auto Pilot, Distortion, Ping Pong & Biker Mike Materials
Stills
Auto Pilot Gorilla Attack Animatic

Showlinks
Mike Chan
Mike Chan’s MySpace
malsirhc.com
chenghei.com
harumelon.com
Monster Talk
MA Communication Design 2007
CSM Illustration 2005
EMERGEANDSEE
Digital Horizons
Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design
The Mount Cherries
Adobe After Effects
NOISE
Pixilation
DepicT!

• Auto Pilot, Distortion, Ping Pong & Biker Mike - Mike Chan
• DN EP 095: The Beangrowers: Not in a Million Lovers - Duncan Bone
• DN EP 079: Menomena: Evil Bee - Stefan Nadelman
• DN Ep 022: LIVE LOVE WORK PLAY - Thomas Atanazio
• DN EP 100: El Senor Antipirina: Me Voy - Stathis Athanasiou

Auto Pilot (2006)
A giant gorilla arrives in the airport and things quickly turn chaotic. The Mount Cherries’ aeroplane tries to dodge the gorilla’s grasp until the hot air hostesses jump out and dance with the gorilla, who turns out to be friends with the pilot.

Distortion (2005)
An animation about expressing yourself using a photocopy machine.

Ping Pong (2006)
A ping pong match takes place between two televisions.

Biker Mike (2004)
A short film about Biker Mike, mods and chairs. Biker Mike has been beaten by the mods. In order to escape the pain, he slips into a dream world of dance and chairs.

• DN EP 042: Auto Pilot, Distortion, Ping Pong & Biker Mike - Mike Chan
• Moros Eros: On My Side - Jesse Ewles
• Carlin - Brent Green
• _grau - Robert Seidel
• Virtuosi - Marcelo Garcia

• “Charlie Rose” by Samuel Beckett via Andrew Filippone Jr.
• Time Piece - Kat Mansoor
• The West Side Episode 3
• The West Side Back…Again
• DN EP 089: Bendito Machine - Jossie Malis

Our guest Thomas Atanazio used an abundance of can do attitude to push through the creation of his short LIVE LOVE WORK PLAY, securing the rights to an original story from comic creator Winshluss, production assistance, equipment and music clearance from one of his favourite bands.

LIVE LOVE WORK PLAY Materials
Stills

Showlinks
Down and Dirty Pictures
Winshluss
Beaux Arts Magazine
Design Your Self: Rethinking the Way You Live, Love, Work, and Play
Panasonic DVX100A
Adobe After Effects
Tim & Puma Mimi
Starfrosch
Johnny Ryan
Fantagraphics Books

• DN EP 095: The Beangrowers: Not in a Million Lovers - Duncan Bone
• DN EP 079: Menomena: Evil Bee - Stefan Nadelman
• DN EP 042: Auto Pilot, Distortion, Ping Pong & Biker Mike - Mike Chan
• DN EP 100: El Senor Antipirina: Me Voy - Stathis Athanasiou
• DN EP 091: Honey Honey: Homeless Heart - Michael Johnson

Little Spitfire - If I Look I See You (2006)
Broadcast media today can be difficult to get into, it can be strong, fixed and only broadcast what it wants to, enter our control tower. Little Spitfire are different, they are free to go in any direction they want, they are uplifting and are only just being picked up on the broadcast radar, enter our band or rather our crew.

The control tower it is not interested in hearing the new band and so they try to drown out their sounds, but our crew have something different and can not be knocked down. They are quite simply too strong and about to take off!

• This post is all alone.

Today, director Neil Horner takes us through his bold black, white and a splash of colour promo for the band Little Spitfire and their track If I Look I See You.

Little Spitfire Materials
Stills
Shot List
Live Action Shot List
Scene & Shot Catalogue
Visual Structure

Showlinks
ImageyNation
Disco Lever
Little Spitfire
Aardvark Records
3ds Max
Industrial Light & Magic

• This post is all alone.

Founded in 2003, Ark VFX applied its skills to the challenge of combining 3D animation with live motion for Muse promo Sing for Absolution. Ark VFX, through production company Colonel Blimp, were asked by East West Records to write a treatment for the promo. Initially devising a story loosely based on the Greek myth of Sisyphus , the idea was further developed with East West and Muse to feature the band starring as pioneering adventures sent on a mission from their dying home planet to transport an ark of frozen souls on a perilous journey to find a new world.

With the final treatment approved, Ark VFX set about locking down a schedule that would allow them to deliver the project in the eight-week time span they’d been given. First they produced a number of test shots to tackle the major technical issue they faced: how to incorporate the band’s live action heads into the CG backgrounds in a believable, convincing way? It was quickly decided that it would be necessary to work with a locked off camera for all scenes featuring the band, as the pre-planning required for elaborate motion tracking shots wasn’t achievable in the few days they had before the band was available for the live shoot. Three basic shots (straight on front, straight side/profile and an angled 45 shot) were decided on for each band member in the cockpit scenes. Also, despite the success of using a Blue Peter-style helmet lighting rig, made from cardboard and fairy lights, during test shots, it was decided that a special lighting rig would have to be constructed that would mimic the internal helmet lighting illuminating the band’s faces. Replicating some of the key environmental lighting conditions, such as traveling down a space wormhole or the re-entry of the stricken spacecraft were crucial to producing the ‘really there’ effect of the promo. Although initially considering a traditional blue/green screen chroma key shoot, after discussions with the DP it was decided that a luma key from a black background would do the job and eliminate any concerns about unwanted reflected light spilling onto the band’s faces.

The band was shot separately, seated in a dentist’s chair to help restrict below the neck movement on Digi- Beta, with a set of detailed storyboards used for reference. With the live footage in the can an intensive week of creating animatics and producing the entire concept art and design for the production (spacesuits, helmets, spacecraft, color design, etc.) began. The animatics were quickly rendered and cut into a rough working edit. These proved to be an indispensable part of the process and much of the animation created for them was used in the final promo. The live action band footage was telecined at Glassworks, with Ark VFX receiving over 250GB of frames back to work with.

Week two saw the beginning of modeling (the spaceship and spacesuits), with a couple of freelances drafted in to ease the heavy workload. Other elements, such as the helmets, cockpit and launch-site were completed in-house. To remain on course with the tight schedule, the less labor-intensive technique of using matte paintings for complex background shots was employed, saving a massive amount of time. A similar shortcut was used for the cockpit shots. By rendering a high resolution still of the cockpit and compositing the shots of the band on top, the need for rendering thousands of frames was cut down. As a consequence, by mid-production the first Muse shots were completed, with their heads seamlessly composited within the computer-generated helmets, suits and backgrounds. Also, a number of the matte painting shots were starting to come together, while the overall tone and feel of the finished product was taking shape, as animatic shots in the edit were being replaced by final or almost final shots on a daily basis.

The thorough planning of the early stages of the project began to pay off, with an absence of the caffeine-induced all-nighters and even a few weekends off. This leisurely pace meant that Ark VFX could revisit and/or re-render some sequences they felt weren’t quite up to scratch. Finally, falling snow and sound effects were added, enhancing the cinematic feel of the video. With all shots completed, the frames were digitally graded and transferred to Digi-Beta at The Mill.

Sign for Absolution was completed using standard PCs running a mix of Lightwave 3D, Adobe Photoshop CS, Premiere Pro, Audition and Digital Fusion DFX for all aspects of the production.

- Originally published in Showreel, Issue 5 (Autumn 2004)

• The Scent of Seth - Anita Shukla
• Stagnate - Miranda Bowen
• DN EP 079: Menomena: Evil Bee - Stefan Nadelman
• Dialog - Stephen Irwin
• City Paradise - Gaëlle Denis

Combining 1950s B-movies with porn may not sound like an obvious starting point for a neon road movie-styled music video, but this is exactly what director Bob Dixon has done in his promo for the spaghetti western, David Lynchesque Cheeseburger track, Another Song About Guilt and Death.

“I’d been wanting to create an animation that gave the sensation of traveling down a road, after seeing various video games and club visuals of that nature that I liked. I tried to give the impression of a steadily accelerating drive along a desert road lined with neon signs which become flashbacks to a relationship.” Flash was used to rotoscope film footage of couples kissing from a collection of trailers for 1950s B movies, along with some of the softer images from porn videos. These rotoscoped images became the neon signs with all motion graphics completed in After Effects.

Bob Dixon’s other video work includes live show visuals for David Bowie, Kylie, Westlife, S Club 8 and American Idols commissioned by Blink TV. He has also completed promos for Neo Records artists Bass Toy and the Rhythm Masters. His work with Cheeseburger continues with a series of videos created for a DVD of its album Pat and Amy’s Wedding.

- Originally published in Showreel, Issue 3 (Spring 2004)

• DN EP 079: Menomena: Evil Bee - Stefan Nadelman
• The Scent of Seth - Anita Shukla
• Sing for Absolution - Ark VFX
• Remote - John Burns
• Push - Steven Hore