The work of Chris Cunningham

1. Bjork collaborated with Chris Cunningham to create the video for “All is full of love”. The collaboration started through a mutual friend, and Bjork sent Cunningham her song. He decided he wanted to use the B-track for this song because this version better suited his creative ways. Bjork told Cunningham that she wanted the video be white and have hard surfaces to reflect some kind of heaven. Her inspiration for this were ivory statues. Cunningham then took her ideas and combined them with his own. However, the first ideas that Cunningham presented to Bjork were too literal for her like, so he changed then to create the music video that was made for “All is full of love”.
   
   
2. The Portishead-Only You music video shows shots of a boy, and separate shots of the band's leads singer, floating in a lane. Even though it looks very complicated, there were only two main techniques used. First, the shots of the people were taken in a swimming pool, hence the reason they look as though they are floating. These were then overlayed with shots of the lane that the video is set in. Cunningham, and any team he was working with, then had to edit the video further, taking out any air bubbles, water ripples etc. to improve the quality of the video. Also, he had to remove any other aspects of the video that shows the water, such as the blue tones of the water.
   
   
3. Many directors for feature films started their career as a music video director, massively influenced by the introduction of MTV music channel in 1981. Micheal Bay, well known for his work on all the Transformers along with Steven Spielberg, directed music videos before his success in the movie industry. Bay has directed music videos for Divinyls (I touch myself) and Meat Loaf (I'd do anything for love, but I wouldn't do that). Mark Webb is another director who went from working on music videos to films. He was very successful with music video directing, with past clients including My Chemical Romance, Good Charlotte, Miley Cyrus, AFI, Yellowcard, Green Day, Weezer and Incubus. As well as directing 500 Days of Summer, he has recently directed the 2012 Spider-Man remake.

1. Before becoming a director, Chris Cunningham worked on the sci-fi action film, Judge Dredd. Staring Sylvester Stallone and Rob Schneider, it was based on the comic strip called 2000 AD, with a few alterations of the comic changed for the film. Despite having changes made and popular actors staring in it, Judge Dredd wasn't as successful as originally expected.
   
   
2. Even though there are other directors who use use computer graphics to create videos, Cunningham's work is very unique and original. This is not only due to the editing techniques used, but also the ideas he comes up with. They are unlike any other director's ideas and any other music videos previously created. He tailors every music video he creates to the musician/s he is working with, combining their ideas with his own to produce something visually interesting.

Sam Taylor Wood

1. 

   An example of one of
   Sam Taylor Wood's multi-screen
   installations

   Sam Taylor Wood uses both photography and video to create her artwork. By using both, she is about to produce self portraits in the most effective way. Also, she uses her work as a way of dealing with and confronting problems she has had in her life.
   
   
2. Sam Taylor Wood's multi-screen installation shows a conversation between five people in completely different locations. The people and locations are not linked in any way, but the timings of when the people talk, as well as what they say, creates a conversation between these people which flows together. Her work reflects a narrative because the conversations tells a story when they are all played together.
   
   
3. Sam Taylor Wood isn't the only photographer to integrate photography with video. Many photographers are now doing this because they can combine still images with moving images to make their work stronger. Gillian Wearing is one photographer who does this. Best known for her “Signs that say what you want then to say and not signs that say what someone else wants you to say” photography, some of her work also involves video. The purpose of her work is to show how people really think and feel, unveiling the mask that many of us wear so that people in society don't see personal things about us. Lorna Simpson is another example of a photographer who combines photography with film. She is an African American conceptual artist, who's work was recognised throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Her work is focused on the way society views different races and genders, in particular African women in American society. Around the time her career started, discrimination against women and African people still existed.
   
   
4. Some examples of video artists and their working philosophy are:

   

   Bill Viola-The crossing

   Bill Viola-Bill Viola's work has roots in both Eastern and Western art. His work also crosses over with spiritual traditions e.g. Islamic Sufism. Viola's work is about universal human experiences, including birth, death and the unfolding of unconsciousness.
   Martin Arnold- Arnold's film work uses seconds of found footage that he stretched out to make them longer. This footage is then flipped back and forth between frames, as well as frames repeated and reversed. Also, single frames are cut out. The purpose of him doing this it to break down any narrative that are hidden in regular footage. One example of this is Arnold's “Passage a l'acte”, which tells the story of aggression and anger in a traditional American family. He created this film with several seconds from “To kill a mockingbird”.
   Janet Biggs- Biggs has worked with miners, wrestlers, bikers, synchronized swimmers and Arctic explores to produce her videos. This is because she likes her work to display images of obsessive and extreme activities. Her earlier video work often dealt with psychosis and psychotropic drugs.
   
   
5. Like many artists, Sam Taylor Wood has to consider the gallery space provided for her to exhibit her work in when putting it together, especially with her film work. One example of this is her multi-screen installation. Due to needing projectors to display her work, she has to have a space where they can be fitted in the ceilings. Also, she wanted all five projections to be along the same wall, which will effect how large the projection are because otherwise they may not all fit.

Cinematography

1. A cinematographer is a photographer who operates a film camera. They are a cameraman who decides what shots to take and use in the film They work alongside a director combining their own ideas of what shots to take with the director's ideas. The cinematographer also decides what lens to use, what zooms, pans etc. to use and where, what gels (if any) to use and how the lighting should be.
   
   
2. Chinatown, an American film make in 1979, is known as one of the greatest films ever made. Staring Jack Nicholson, it follows the a private detective who comes across a murder scheme whilst investigating an adultery case. It was directed by Roman Polanski, who used a hand held camera and key lights throughout the filming process. He did this because hand held cameras allowed him to get close, intimate shots that would have needed to be done in a studio environment with removable walls in order to fit all the equipment in.
   
   
3. In any form of art, colour can be used in a symbolic way, such as white representing innocence and red symbolising passion, danger and love. Films use colour for symbolism in the same way as paintings, photography and graphic design. This can be the colour gels that are used for lighting, the colour of the set or the colours the actors are dressed in. In films, the colour yellow is used to symbolise identity, and green to show knowledge. 
          In the original Godfather (1972) overhead lighting was used so you couldn't see the characters eyes (the keyhole into the soul) in some of the scenes. The lighting in these scenes had a yellow tone in order to give it brassy feel, influencing the atmosphere it created. 
          The Wizard of Oz (1939). Even though the majority of the film is filmed in colour, the opening and closing credits are filmed in black and white. The opening and closing scene when Dorothy isn't dreaming and is in Kansas also wasn't in colour. These scenes were filmed in black and white, and then coloured with a sepia tone. The reason for the Kansas scenes not being in colour is that in The Wizard of Oz book, Kansas was described as being “in shades of grey”.The yellow brick road is another key colour element of the film. Even though the inspiration for the yellow brick road is disputed, yellow symbolises joy, happiness and friendship, reflecting the journey that Dorothy, the scarecrow, tin-man and lion are about to embark on and the relationship between them.
   
   
4. “Raging Bull” is an American fighting film created in 1980. Directed by Martin Scorsese and staring Robert De Niro, it follows the life of a middleweight boxer who's relationship with his his wife is destroyed by his own rage and jealousy. The cinematographer was Michael Chapman, responsible for deciding the speed of each shot. The main fight scene in the film was shot using different speeds to build up tension towards to the final punch. This was important because this is one of the most important scenes in the film.
   
   
5. “Apocalypse now” is an award winning American film set during the Vietnam War. As well as being awarded the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture (Drama), it was also given an Academy Award for Best Picture. The cinematographer was Vittorio Storaro and won an Oscar for his work on this film. Vittorio's working philosophy as a cinematographer is that “It is our obligation to defend the audiences' rights to see the images and to hear the sounds the way we have expressed ourselves as artists,".