1. How did Bjork and Chris collaborate on the All is full of Love video?
A.
Bjork had been suggested to work with the English artist Chris Cunningham, former special effects designer for famous filmmakers like David Fincher and Daniel Kubrick for her music video All is full of Love. When Chris finally agreed to take on the project the only suggestions Bjork had were that she wanted it to look really white and portray heaven in a way. At the same time she wanted there to be an element of lust and to show how it takes over the hard white background and softens and merges with it. They had decided to start work on the music video for the song after her album came out so they wouldn’t be restricted my a marketing schedule. Chris, being very fascinated with industrial robotics since a very young age wanted to try and incorporate this fascination into the music video.
Chris’s initial idea was to have the two robots unfold like flowers as they mate, but apparently the music didn’t really allow for it. For the robots used in the video, Chris was assisted by Paul Catling who had taught him about model making in the past. Paul had sculpted the full size robots in clay in two hours. For the set design, Chris worked with Julian Caldow for the layout and the entire set was put together by Chris Oddy. Bjork had to have her face painted white and wore a blue costume while singing. Taking the place of the clay robots, Bjork had to remain perfectly still for the team to replace her face with the robots’ using computer graphics. The music video is a mix of sculpted models and computer graphics, made in such a way that the viewer cannot tell what’s real and what’s not. The scene with the white fluid dripping down the mechanical parts was made by submersing the parts in milk and then draining it off, filmed in reverse. Chris did express that he wasn’t very convinced with the way the video looked till the final effects were added at Glassworks. It was only after Glassworks started the computer graphics work that Chris started to see how the music video would come together and started getting new ideas for the video. Bjork, being very confident in Chris’s ability, let him work on the music video till it was finished and did not interrupt him to see how it was going in between.
http://unit.bjork.com/specials/gh/SUB-01/
http://www.rogersv.com/blog/bjorks-all-is-full-of-love-making-of/
http://www.acmi.net.au/195152371BA94B86B26F6F314A1D7C8E.htm
2. Which famous sci-fi film did Chris Cunningham work on before he became a director?
A.
Before Chris Cunningham became a director he had been recruited by Stanley Kubrick to work on Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi drama film, ‘A.I.’. ‘A.I.’ shows us the story of the childlike android David who was programmed with the ability to love. The movie shows the viewers the journey of David as he sets out to become a real boy to win the affection of his mother.
Kubrick did take inspiration from the Disney story of Pinocchio, and regarded the movie as “a picaresque robot version of Pinocchio”. Chris became the visual effects supervisor and helped assemble a series of robot type humans for the David character.
Chris worked on A.I. for little over a year before he carried on to become a director.
3. What other music video directors have gone on to direct feature films? Name two and the feature films they have made.
A.
The first director I’ve chosen is David Andrew Leo Fincher, a music video director who went on to direct films. He directed music videos for artists such as Madonna, including songs like “Express Yourself”, “Vogue” and “Oh Father”. He also directed “Love Is Strong” for the Rolling Stones, “Who Is It” for Michael Jackson and “Suit &Tie” for Justin Timberlake. His music video for Don Henley’s “The End of the Innocence” won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Male Video in 1990. He also won MTV Video Music Awards for Best Direction in 1989 for “Express Yourself” and in 1990 of “Vogue”. He also won three of the four available nominations in 1990 for the Best Direction category. He finally made his feature film debut in 1992 with Alien 3 and the movie received a nomination for its special effects. Other movies Fincher directed were “Seven”, “The Game”, “Fight Club”, “Panic Room”, “Zodiac”, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”, “The Social Network” and “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”. Out of all these movies, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, “The Social Network” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” were nominated for and won many Academy Awards and Global Globes.
The second director I’ve chosen to write about is Marc Webb, an American music video, short film and film director. He directed movie videos like “Nothing at All” by Santana, “Duck and Run” and “Here Without You” by 3 Doors Down, “Motivation Proclamation” and “Festival Song” by Good Charlotte, “Harder to Breathe” by Maroon 5, “Remember” by Disturbed and many more. “(500) Days of Summer” was his full-length feature film debut, which was released in 2009. A year later in 2010, Colombia Pictures recruited Webb to direct “The Amazing Spider Man” which was a remake of the original Spiderman film franchise and was released in 2012. He is also directing the sequal to “The Amazing Spiderman”, “The Amazing Spiderman 2”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Webb#Filmography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Fincher#Features
http://www.metacritic.com/feature/music-video-directors-turned-film-directors
Zeke Purushotham 