Welcome to the first AirplayUK programme, presented in association with the British Council. This is a round-up of some of the very best work in music videos produced in Britain over the past few months, including an in-depth interview with Nima Nourizadeh, one of the most exciting music video directors currently working in the UK.
Nourizadeh works out of the London offices of Partizan, a production company which has been the source of much vibrant creativity and youthful energy for the past year or so. And we start the show with two videos from other young directors at Partizan who have emerged in the last few months.
1.The Klaxons – It’s Not Over Yet
Director: Saam
Prod co: Partizan
Rec co: Polydor
Firstly we have Klaxons’ It’s Not Over Yet, directed by Saam Farahmand – the fifth and most recent collaboration between band and director. Saam’s videos for Klaxons over the past year have been instrumental in creating a new musical movement in the UK called ‘New Rave’, but they have also progressed from being very low budget, low-tech yet colourful affairs to a more sophisticated but equally scintillating work which portrays the band in ironically heroic poses. It’s Not Over Yet sees the three Klaxons members as sci-fi samurai, swordfighting alien darts in a triumph of special effects.
2.Kate Nash – Foundations
Director: Kinga Burza
Prod co: Partizan
Rec co: Polydor
Saam was recently named best director at the 2007 CADS, the UK’s music video awards show. Fellow Partizan director Kinga Burza was nominated at the same awards for the best new director award, for her work with young British artists like Kate Nash. Kinga’s video for Nash’s Foundations is a funny and charming dissection of a collapsing relationship, with a bittersweet performance by Nash herself supplemented by animation of the couple’s everyday objects going their separate ways. This video has helped make Nash’s song a huge hit in the UK.
3.Tracy Thorn – It’s All True
Director: Si & Ad
Prod co: Academy
Rec co: Virgin
By contrast Tracey Thorn has been a recording star for more than two decades, usually as part of Everything But The Girl. It’s All True was the first single from her first solo project for years. Released a few months ago, it also inspired a brilliant video for the track, directed by experienced directing duo Simon Atkinson and Adam Townley (aka Si & Ad). A one-shot video with a dance production taking place on a huge stage, It’s All True looks absolutely stunning on the big screen.
4.Jamie T - Sheila
Director: Adam Smith
Rec co: Virgin
It’s followed by the first of two videos by another young artist, 21 year old Jamie T, a rapper from South London. However, the video for Sheila, directed by Adam Smith, features a much older, and very well-known face: renowned sixty-something actor Bob Hoskins, the star of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Long Good Friday and many other movies. Hoskins lipsyncs to Jamie’s lyrics – which constitute virtually a new form of English for the great actor – but he effectively tells the story of Sheila and her friends as he walks along London’s South Bank, and the video has a shattering ending…
5.Shitdisco - OK
Director: Price James
Prod co: Black Dog James
Rec co: Fierce Panda
Then comes a highly creative low-budget video for an up and coming band called Shitdisco. The video for OK is by Price James – another young director who has emerged in the past few months – where he ingeniously turns the band and the song into a pop-up book.
Nima Nourizadeh Interview (please click here to read more)
Then comes our director profile on Nima Nourizadeh, a Londoner of Iranian extraction, who talks at length about his work, about how he got started making music videos. We also show a number of Nima’s videos, in full or in part. Like many other video directors, his ‘career’ began when he left art school and having made some films at art school, his further experiments led him to make no-budget videos for musicians he knew – in his case, for his dance producer brother.
6.Hot Chip – Over & Over
Director: Nima Nourizadeh
Prod co: Partizan
Rec co: EMI
He has since progressed to making acclaimed videos for Architecture In Helsinki, Hot Chip, Jamie T, Lily Allen, Maximo Park and others, and becoming one of the most sought-after directors in British music videos. He also changes his style to suit the artist and the track, so his breakthrough video for Hot Chip’s Over And Over has been followed by very different work for the likes of singing star Lily Allen – in LDN she dreamily walks down colourful London streets like out of Mary Poppins, followed by the grey, grim reality – or in Maximo Park’s Our Velocity, where multiple versions of the band perform the track as the camera swoops around in one shot, without any edits.
7.Jamie T – Calm Down Dearest
Director: Nima Nourizadeh
Prod co: Partizan
Rec co: Virgin
In Jamie T’s Calm Down Dearest, Jamie’s home video is warped by the appearance of a mischievous gremlin.
8.Lily Allen - LDN
Director: Nima Nourizadeh
Prod co: Partizan
Rec co: Parlophone
9.Mark Ronson feat. Lily Allen – Oh My God
Director: Nima Nourizadeh
Prod co: Partizan
Rec co: SonyBMG
The Nima Nourizadeh section ends with his latest hit video, this time with a cartoon version of Lily Allen for the Mark Ronson single Oh My God. It’s an update on the famous scene in Who Framed Roger Rabbit where Jessica Rabbit performs, and features a cameo by Kaiser Chiefs, who originally recorded the song.
10.Bat for Lashes – What’s A Girl To Do
Director: Dougal Wilson
Prod co: Colonel Blimp
Rec co: Parlophone
11.Charlotte Hatherley - Behave
Director: Oscar Wright
Rec co: Little Sister Records/Vital
Then comes Charlotte Hatherley’s Behave, directed by Oscar Wright. Charlotte is the former lead guitarist of rock band Ash who is now going solo, and this video by Oscar – whose brother is Edgar Wright, director of hit comedy films Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz – is a witty and colourful sci-fi love story, with a twist, in the style of old fashioned video games.
12.The Go! Team – Grip Like A Vice
Director: James Slater
Prod co: Good Times
Rec co: Memphis Industries
The Go! Team’s Grip Like A Vice is a graphic video by the Liverpool-based directing team Good Times. This is the latest in a number of collaborations between band and director, and perfectly captures the atmosphere of the upbeat vintage sample sound of the Go! Team.
13.Jack Savoretti – Between The Minds
Director: Karni & Saul
Rec co: De Angelis Records
Jack Savoretti’s Between The Minds is an ingenious concept by another directing team, Karni + Saul, where the singer-songwriter creates a piano out of everyday objects, then sends his love song to his loved one via a can and piece of string.
14.Dizzee Rascal - Sirens
Director: WIZ
Prod co: Factory Films
Rec co: XL Recording
And infally, we finish with Dizzee Rascal’s Sirens, the first single from the new album by one of Britain’s most compelling young artists, with a video directed by one of Britain’s veteran directors, WIZ. This draws on several British film traditions, including social realism and fantasy/horror, to create something quite unique and very striking.
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