BUG 26 - the videos

14 Jul 2011 16:10 - posted by Phil Tidy

A midsummer romp through the latest world-class music video creativity offered up some amazing work, including Cyriak Harris cubic Powers of Ten tribute, CANADA's sexy biblical epic for White Lies, Patrick Daughters turning Witchfinder General for Depeche Mode, Dennis Liu's massive crowd-source Michael Jackson video and Megaforce's notorious-yet-genius vid for Is Tropical.

All this, and at our first show we welcomed music video pioneer and all-round legend Kevin Godley as our special guest, showing classics for U2 and Godley & Creme, and his excellent new vid for Gavin Friday.

BUG 26 Wednesday 13 July, 8.45pm

Special Guest Director: Kevin Godley

BUG 26 programme notes.pdf

BUG 26 - The Director’s Cut Thursday 14 July, 6.30pm and 8.45pm

BUG 26 Director's Cut programme notes.pdf

Michael Jackson - Behind the Mask

Michael Jackson - Behind the Mask, directed by Dennis Liu this video Dennis Liu could be the biggest crowd-sourced music video made so far. Launched via the Jackson website, it enabled fans to select a number of moves, film themselves and then line up their video with Jackson’s own actions on a split-pane interface. A mindboggling 15,000 videos were submitted to the project, from which Liu and his team created a work that includes about 1,600 fans (including a crowd of moonwalking Russians) from 103 countries.

Hooray for Earth – True Loves

Cereal Spiller remix for US band Hooray for Earth’s True Loves is very much one man’s work: iconoclastic After Effects artist Cyriak Harris. This video reflects his fascination with Powers of Ten, the classic Charles & Ray Eames film (Cyriak previously made a celeb-based tribute, Powers of Ramsay): but this journey from cosmic to microscopic is given a special cubic twist.

Is Tropical – The Greeks

Megaforce’s video for Is Tropical’s The Greeks is glorious, hilarious and somewhat disturbing: an utterly compelling transposition of innocent kids’ games and gore-spewing cartoon ultra-violence. The animated explosion, blood and guts are by Paris animation team Seven, and the unremitting action is grippingly directed by Megaforce – the Paris-based directing collective. Unsurprisingly the video has spread like wildfire online since its release in late May.

Memory Tapes – Yes I Know

Memory Tapes is the singer Dayve Hawk, and the video for Yes I Know is by Eric Epstein, a New York-based animator and compositor, who has created a wonderfully atmospheric and melancholy piece featuring some astonishing visual effects. With distress-aged black and white photography the tone is gentle and muted but the video’s centrepiece is a disappearing man, whose body starts acquiring ever-widening holes. Surprisingly, all the animation in the video was done in After Effects, with Eric building the man’s alternative anatomy in Photoshop, rather than CGI, and using AE’s puppet tool.

Castrovalva – Dream Carpet

Dream Carpet by Castrovalva – a breakcore/hardcore band from Leeds was actually made a couple of years ago by Philadelphia animator/filmmaker Harvey Benschoter, but has only recently been unearthed by the BUG team. It’s a short, simple entertainment on the dangers of gluttony, and being able to resist absolutely anything except temptation.

White Lies – Holy Ghost

The Barcelona-based directing team called CANADA has become something of a fixture at recent BUG shows. And following the videos for El Guincho, Scissor Sisters and Battles, their new one for White Lies made it inevitable that their run should continue. CANADA specialises in videos with cascades of non-sequitur, often erotic vignettes, shot in 16mm – so everything looks like it comes from a 70s European art movie. This brilliant video for Holy Ghost is less whimsical than others, and some of its astonishing set-pieces are genuinely on an epic scale, even biblical…

U2 – Numb

Directed by oft U2 collaborator and BUG 26 special guest Kevin Godley.

Godley & Creme – Cry

The second featured video from Kevin Godley in BUG 26.

Gavin Friday – Able

Directed by Kevin Godley

Chad VanGaalen – Peace on the Rise

Chad VanGaalen is a singer-songwriter from Calgary, Alberta, and also a richly imaginative illustrator and animator with a penchant for the deeply trippy. In his video for Peace on the Rise, two Space Indians visit a new alien world of diverse natural beauty, and mesmerising visuals propel with a narrative that develops a harder edge.

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