One to watch: Cat Solen

Director Cat Solen, a member of director’s collective Partizan, appeared on our radar with the kinda cool but creepy video for Bright Eyes’ ‘At the Bottom of Everything,’ which features Terrence Stamp and Evan Rachel Wood plunging happily to their deaths in a jetliner. LA based Solen, who has also directed clips for CSS and Conor Oberst,  has a style reminiscent of early Gondry. She blends DIY art school flourishes with a more sophisticated aesthetic, combining live action with animation sequences to create whimsical and engaging narratives. We’re particularly taken with her latest video for Double Dagger’s ‘Vivre Sans Temps Mort.’ Maybe its the tiny streetscapes featuring model cars – if that doesn’t teleport you to an 80s childhood, what will?

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Paging Child Protective Services!

Maybe I’m a little late to this party, but is the long-delayed video for MGMT’s ‘Kids’ not scary as all get out? It definitely captures the childhood primordial fears lurking within. What’s up with the Nietzsche quote attributed to Mark Twain? And what about Joanna Newsom as a convincing Madison Avenue princess? A riddle wrapped in an enigma, the Ray Tinroti directed video has totally bought the song back into Hubs high rotation.

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Lynch Mob

Music videos used to be the breeding ground for up and coming directors; a medium to develop one’s visual style outside the stiff rules of Hollywood. But with music videos becoming more of a rarified art form these days, are we going to see more established directors making a foray into the action?

Typically perplexing and frankly weird, David Lynch’s new clip for Moby’s ‘Shot in the Back of the Head’ could be a harbinger of things to come. A dark, fractured masterpiece, the animated clip depicts a dystopian landscape of severed heads, apocalyptic dream sequences and some weird ass scribbles. More please!

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Director: The Chapman Brothers!

The first music video directed by brothers Jake and Dinos Chapman was exactly what you would expect from two renowned artists having a go at a music video. The video for ‘Let’s Go F*cking Mental’ by The Peth simply features footage of a colonoscopy conducted on band frontman (and famous actor) Rhys Ifans.

Their second attempt is something completely different. A nicely polished pop video for PJ Harvey and John Parish’s first single from their new album ‘A Woman a Man Walked By’. On first viewing I assumed this was another Sophie Muller project, her video for Polly’s ‘This is Love’ is a personal fav. ‘Black Hearted Love’ features Polly jumping up and down on a bouncy castle, throw in some rain, strobe lights and some slow motion effects and you have a very nice looking video. The Chapman Brothers have put together a dark yet fun video without the need for genitalia on anyone’s face… not that there is anything wrong with that.

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From the dept of WTF…

When you’re all out of ideas call in the A list party favors. 

That appears to be Hype Williams’ approach in this new – spectacularly lame and predictably bombastic – clip for Jamie Foxx and T Pain’s Blame it.

As you may know, we’re rather fond of celebrity cameos in music videos. But in this new paean to hobo’s remorse we were pretty weirded out by the appearance of Jake Gyllenhaal and Ron Howard. Forest Whitaker and Samuel L Jackson we can forgive, but Ron Howard bringing the crunk up in the club is just too much for this fragile Friday morning.

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Classic director: Russell Mulcahy

Before he began his successful movie career (Highlander) Russell Mulcahy cut his teeth in music videos and boy did he take a bite out of the medium, amassing possibly the most prolific collection of videos. 

Mulcahy has directed some of the most recognizable videos of all time, including the first clip to air on MTV, The Buggles ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’. Riding the phenomenon that was MTV in the eighties, Mulcahy became the go-to guy for videos for the biggest acts, including the Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac, Bonnie Tyler and Elton John. Back then, in the days before meddling marketers and uptight label execs, Mulcahy’s video shoots often meant hiring a private jet rounding up some blow and models and heading somewhere exotic. Funnily enough, the inspiration came. As is the case with Duran Duran’s ‘Rio’, the results were often pretty outrageous and even more memorable.

Here’s a personal favorite – the campy extravaganza that is Elton John’s ‘I’m Still Standing’.

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Director: Ray Tintori!

We’re big fans of Ray Tintori’s work, both ‘Time to Pretend’ and ‘Electric Feel’ by MGMT were on high-rotation on HubsTV and ‘Time to Pretend’ even made our ‘Best Of’ list for 2008. Ray also collaborated with MGMT on a very cool interactive video for ‘Electric Feel’ that allows users to edit their own version http://www.whoismgmt.com/efvideo.

Not only does Ray make amazing music videos but this Brooklyn based director received an Honorable Mention for Short Filmmaking at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival for his undergraduate thesis “Death to the Tinman”.

His latest work can be seen in the new Killers video ‘Spaceman’. The crazy costumes and theatrical set are brilliant but does Brandon really pull off that outfit? Something tells us Bowie wouldn’t be impressed.

The Killers: Spaceman

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MGMT: Time To Pretend

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MGMT: Electric Feel

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UPDATE!!!

Brand new video by Ray for Chairlift just added to Hubs.

Chairlift: Evident Utensil

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