Chris Cunningham

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An unofficial Curriculum Vitae on one of the most influential music video directors of the last two decades.

Transcript of Chris Cunningham

Page 1: Chris Cunningham

An unofficial Curriculum Vitae on one of the most influential music

video directors of the last two decades.

Page 2: Chris Cunningham

Christopher Cunningham was born on the 15th October, 1970. He grew up in Lakenheath, Suffolk, so he’s a bit of a tractor boy! Before directing music video’s, he worked on animatronics for

films including judge Dread and A.I (Artificial intelligence) Directed by Stephen Spielberg.

Chris also worked for other music video directors including David Fincher and Clive Barker.

Chris also worked for the smash-hit show, Spitting image which depicted the likes of John Major, eating peas and Mrs. Thatcher being tyrannical!

Chris has worked with Music artists including Madonna, Aphex Twins, Bjork, Shakespeare's sister, 36 Degrees and Portishead.

Chris also has close ties with Warp records. Chris also directed a television commercial for Gucci.

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This video directed by Chris shows that his early work inspired him in the making of this video. Much like Artificial Intelligence, Bjork is featured as a robot, who is able to share emotion. Strangely enough though, the robot in this video is witnessed engaging in sexual activities with another female robot.

This allows the audience to interpret that Chris is a ‘breakaway’ director who likes to direct things that aren’t normal.

From the screen grabs below, we can see Chris’ style in action. Much like his ‘Frozen’ video, this is a smart video that did not

require masses of hard work. Simple and stylish!

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Directed in 1998, Frozen was taken from ‘Ray of light’. The video conforms to Chris’s artistic and abstract style.

The video is quite ‘dervishy’, as described by www.directorfile.co.uk/chriscunningham.

Unlike some of his other videos, this piece is really simple and looks like it was shot in a day, yet, it’s a great video.

This style of cinematography was used in the Gucci commercial directed by Chris.

Check out the screen-shots below to get an idea of some other work he has produced taken from ‘Frozen’ and the Gucci commercial

The Gucci advert is much like the ‘Frozen’ video, in a sense of simplicity and smartness. From the YouTube page, comments such as “beautiful and mesmerizing” are ways in which his work is described.

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The reason why I have chosen to research Chris Cunningham is because I just love the style he adopts. Originally, I wanted to create a video along the same lines as ‘Frozen’ and the Gucci commercial, but finding the music b an unsigned artist has been incredibly difficult.

Chris is able to utilise simple techniques with fantastic cinematography to create pieces that need no digital enhancement.

His videos and every single piece he has done is captivating, awe-inspiring and just simply brilliant.

Unlike many video directors, Chris does not limit his style to a particular genre of music. Whether it be the Aphex Twins’ weird and satanic pieces or Bjork’s attention grabbing masterpieces, Chris is able to invent scenes that conform to both his criteria and Andrew Goodwin’s too.

In conclusion, Chris’ work warrants him to be hailed one of the best video directors of modern time.

Lets hope that Chris makes even better work in the near future! Cheers for watching!