Tuesday, 18 September 2012

Director study - Chris Cunningham


Basic bio and early work:
  • Chris Cunningham is a British music video film director and video artist. He was born in Reading, Berkshire in 1970 and grew up in Lakenheath, Suffolk.
  • After seeing Cunningham's work on the 1994 film version of Judge Dredd, Stanley Kubrick head-hunted Cunningham to design and supervise animatronic tests of the central robot child character in his version of the film A.I. Cunningham worked for over a year on the film A.I., before leaving to pursue a career as a director.
  • His earlier work in film included model making, prosthetic make-up and concept illustrations for Hardware and Dust Devil with director Richard Stanley, as well as Nightbreed. In 1990–1992 he contributed the occasional cover painting and strip for Judge Dredd Megazine, working under the pseudonym Chris Halls, the surname of his stepfather.





Music video work:
  • Videos for Aphex Twin's "Come to Daddy" and "Windowlicker" are perhaps his best known.
  • His video for Björk's "All Is Full of Love" won multiple awards, including an MTV music video award for Breakthrough Video and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Short Form Music Video. It was also the first ever music video to win a Gold Pencil at the D&AD Awards. It can still be seen at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. And was voted #26 in VH1's 100 Greatest Videos (August 2007).
  • His video for Aphex Twin's "Windowlicker" was nominated for the "Best Video" award at the Brit Awards 2000.
  • He also directed Madonna's "Frozen" video which became an international hit and won the award for Best Special Effects at the 1998 MTV Music Video Awards and was voted #22 in Slant magazine's Top-100 Videos. (19th January 2003).
  • Cunningham also came out of a seven year hiatus from making music videos to direct the video for "Sheena Is a Parasite" by The Horrors.


Other music video work:
  • Music Video for Square-Pusher "Come on my selector" (1999)
  • Directed music video for Portished "Only You"(1997)
  • Directed music video "36 Degrees" by Placebo.
  • Directed music video "Back with the Killer Again" by The Auteurs(1996).
  • Directed music video "Dubstar" by The Auteurs.
  • Directed music video "Light Aircraft on Fire" by The Auteurs(1996).
  • Directed music video "Personally" by 12 Rounds(1996).
  • Directed music video "Second Bad Vilbel" by Autechre(1995).
  • Directed music video "36 Degrees" by Placebo(1996).
  • Directed music video "Another Day" by Lodestar (1996).
  • Directed music video "Space Junkie" by The Holy Barbatians (1996).
  • Directed music video "tranquilizer" by geneva (1997).
  • Music Video for Leftfield "Afrika Shox" (1998).
  • Directed music video "jesus coming in for the kill" by Lifes Addiction(1997).
  • Music video for The Horrors "Sheena is a Parasite" (2006)


Other work:
  • Directed Television commercial for Play Station (1999).
  • Directed a series of 3 television commercials for Nissan("Statistics", "Engine" and "Brake Assist") (2000)
  • Has illustrated many issues of the British comic book 2000 AD, under the name Chris Halls.
  • Directed TV commercial for ITV Sport ("Sport Is Free").
  • Directed TV commercial for Telecom Italia ("Quiet").
  • Directed TV commercial for Levi's ("Photocopier").
  • Directed TV commercial "Mental Wealth" for Sony PlayStation.
  • Directed TV commercial for Flora by Gucci
  • Directed a short film called Flex (2002)
  • Directed a short film called Monkey Drummer (2002)
  • Directed a short film called Rubber Johnny (2002)
  • Worked for a year and a half with the late Stanley Kubrick on the sci-fi project A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), creating a head prop.
  • Designed the sleeve artwork for Autechres EP, Anvil Vapre.


Distinct style:
  • Cunningham also edits most of his own work
  • Frequently works with Aphex Twin
  • The onscreen actions and editing are often synchronised to the beat of a song
  • “I love anatomy. I love the human form, I always have. That's why I got into painting and sculpting, that's why I got into doing prosthetics, that's why I got into making films about bodies. But the one thing that I hadn't been able to incorporate was sound. And that was my favourite love of all. And as soon as I started doing that in film, that was it for me.”
  • Very dark and sinister style the pushes the boundaries – Aphex Twin ‘Come to Daddy’ was banned

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