Chris Cunningham

Today, we watched some videos directed by Chris Cunningham, a famous director that uses quite disturbing and futurisic imagery.

Playstation Ad

The first Vid we watched was an advert for the original Sony Playstation, that was interviewing a girl in a small white room that look like confinement, prison or quarantine. The most noticable thing was her face (which is displayed below). Her cheekbones and eyes were really far apart, but look so similar to a human face that it plays on your mind and actually makes you question whether it's real or not (a similar effect is used in the Hills have Eyes). The whole video is quite disturbing with a progressive wind sound in the background that gets louder and a clock at the top right hand side of the screen that keeps randomly changing (and at the end of the video changes into a Triangle, Circle, Square and X - the 4 symbols used to represent the Playstation). The final part of the video, shows the girl turn to the left, like she's looking at someone and she starts laughing as the pitch of the laugh increases and sounds even more twisted. The whole presence of the girl is actually quite intimidating at the ending impression of the video left me with quite a 'worried' feeling.

Levis Ad

This was a short and simple advert for Levis. It showed a Photocopier that keeps printing off sheets of paper that just has bold text on it displaying 'copy'. The printer continues to do this for a few seconds, until a Truck comes speeding a long and destroys the Copier with sheets of paper left rolling about. Finally, a 'Levis Original' Logo is displayed on the screen. I liked the ad because it displayed the point and moral clearly without being blatant and un-original. It does what it has to do, no more, no less.

Nissan Ad

A weird and quite futuristic advert that shows a Toned up and well built man's chest, pulling different flexing stances (that shows lots of veins, I'm not certain if some were CGI or not) with machinery sounds in sync with his movements. After about 10 seconds, it cuts to the Nissan car that's being advertised, as the camera pans around slowly. It took me a few watches to try and understand the video, and a good point that Dan made was about the theory of perfection of 'Man and Machine' and how the video tried to give the point across of this car trying to get that.

Aphex Twin - 'Come to Daddy'

A disturbing and 'controversial' music video for Aphex Twin. The whole video is smooth, with a lot of distortion and flickering interrupting the video towards the middle and end of the video. The whole video has a Blue overlay and is very fast, with action all the way throughout. The video is based around an elder woman walking a dog, and the Dog starts barking at this TV that starts to spark. The video begins to distort here as it changes into slow motion with all the sounds distorting and echoing. Then, the TV turns on and this creepy face displays, that is all liquified and mutilated (similar to the Playstation ad, but much more exaggerated). The woman shows a strong feeling of panic and fear, as this image on the TV is quite intimidating. All of a sudden, all these Children start running out, but they're not children. They're short adults, dressed in Children's clothing which plays on your mind, and it takes a while to come to terms with what it really is. The first time you see it, it really confused you - which I think is very clever.

The video focuses on these children commiting crimes and just creating an all out riot and havoc. The lyrics being played with the song are quite intimidating too like 'I want your soul' and 'come to Daddy' and in the end, all these creatures gather around this tall, Skinny, boney person that looks a bit like a dead jesus with long hair and something that looks like a crown. The whole video always has people laughing and smiling and this merges with all the screams and distortion audio that is really confusing and just plays with your mind. I think it was a very well made video, and each frame always has something that just simply - isn't normal. The video in the end actually left me quite confused and 'creeped out' but I enjoyed it all.