An afternoon with the lads from Sheffield.

Quicktime

         

i love the cinematography.... loose and feels like real film. I still think Roman's a great director from all the fantastic clips he made in the 90s; but I'm curious what his take on the industry is now. He seems to be tired of gimmicks and his work of the last few years just seems so different.

         

erm... beg to differ on this'un.

         

embarrassing sub-student shite, know for a fact that half of london pitched on this video (maybe half the western world?), and this is all they could come up with?

         

my name is roman cackoppola.. gis a job

         

shame

         

so bad. why did you post this tripe

         

You kids have to calm the fuck down and stop putting down shit. I Don't think Roman Coppola went out trying to make some super creative video here. It is what it is. At least appreciate when people create something. To often do i see projects pissed on within this website. Have some respect and appreciate the hard work and efforts put in from the ones that create projects. It's much easier to say then actually do.

         

Feels effortless in a good way. Works well with the music. Leaves room to breath. I really like it.

         

Needs more clever stop motion animation set-ups and groundbreaking in-camera effects. Why wasn't it made out of legos?

         

After seeing the arctic monkeys play splendour, i realise their very young, very big and pretty much all business. The clip works, it's straight forward, shot on film by the looks and doesn't dwell on any sort of textural coolness. This is wher u can see the solidness of direction he is working with "stars" but he manages to portray them personally and honestly. Performance videos are not my favourite things but this is more like a documentation which is fine.

         

24vs30... why DIDNT roman set out to make something 'super-creative' here? the monkeys are one of the few genuinely exciting bands in the world today, for which any number of directors would sever their arms below the elbow to work with. this is also, by anyones standards, a great track. shouldn't someone have brought more to this? 'it is what it is' is not fucking good enough. you put something into the public domain, you have to be prepared to take some shit. harsh criticism from anonymous bloggers just might tell you something about yourself, and what you've created.

oh... and if it feels effortless, its because it probably was.

         

As spit alludes to above, the current template for music videos was set by Gondry et al. and its fustrating to watch MTV2 sometimes as sometimes it can feel like a channel of videos made by people who have recieved their idea of what a music video is from that generation. I'd rather watch a video like this DONE WELL (done badly they are a chore above all others), than a derrivative, sub par animated/stop frame/tricksy video that uses mirrors and split screen for no real reason. That is not creative... Kris Moyes is creative.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that at least this is done well, and I think the most important thing for me, is that videos are 'done well'.

I think that there is room in the arctic monkeys no doubt long career for this video. We've had narrative videos from them, performance, and now this. I think it refreshing and the right thing to do at the right time.

Only my opinion.

         

oh and... captainmarc says: "i love the cinematography.... loose and feels like real film."

2007: the year we officially starting hankering for the lost art of shooting on film.

         

Unfortunately when it comes to making music videos, there are many other things you have to deal with. Money, record label, Band, etc. These things sometimes get in the way for a director to have full creative control over a video. How do we know the band didn't just want him to film them in the studio? How do we know The record company didn't want this song as a single, yet the band wanted it? How do we know how much money was given to make this video? How do we know Roman didn't just want to document them, and then the band liked it and wanted to release it? How the fuck do we know the band weren't little bitches that just wanted a director to film their idea they came up with? How the Fuck do we Know? Stop being a little bitch and acting like your shit don't stink. Have some fucking heart for poeople who have to work hard and deal with shit like i stated above. You don't have to like everything, but be respectful to the people that are doing it.

         

here here 24vs30!

         

Why R.Coppola is now making perfomance video? Because that's what labels want with major bands like this. To secure the asset. Why R.Coppola is not making weird/conceptual videos? Because labels don't want to throw any money into it and/or don't want to risk it.

         

Then why major label no pay for make-up person to cover asset's facial blemishes?

         

Listen, dont get me wrong. I totally appreciate whats been done here. I appreciate budgetary factors, label factors, how much time and effort and soul goes into a video blah blah blah, but I cant help but feel almost any director I know could have made this video and probably made it just as well if not better. Unfortunately it is very very mediocre. It just looks like it could easily be a £5k video for pretty much any band north of london's first video. Good cinematography? Come on....

         

24vs30:

get off your high horse:

budget: 30,000UKP

brief: completely open

band: up for most anything last i heard.

have you seen any of their other videos?

who do you work for anyway?

since when was domino a major label?

does your shit stink?

         

I could have so done this video! Still sort of like it....sort of....Oh well...

         

on second viewing: it's pretty faultlessly shot&edited. and the kids are likeable (but then they always have been, methinks.) erm... that's it. nonetheless: interesting how it gets everyone's goat. (oh, and: spit? in your attempts to be funny, could you be a bit less of an asshole? kthxbai.) that u huse? any opinions on this?

         

Prog: With all of the crazy trash talking and harsh language on this post I get called out for trying to be funny? Did you miss the guy who called the video "embarrassing sub-student shit"?

         

embarrassing sub-student STINKY shit

         

"i love the cinematography" in the sense it feels like a BBC documentary film on a band shot in 1982. Of course it's not comparable to a big epic piece of cinema....

sounds like this has become a forum of a lot of venting. But when have the Arctic Monkeys themselves ever done anything but play in their videos?

         

Obviously there are some bitter people here who pitched their ideas but were then passed on. I'm sorry to hear that.

Domino became a major label when Arctic signed with them and they sold 225,000 albums the first week out.

Maybe the band just wanted to make The Strokes" Someday" over again.

         

I'm normally first in line to hate the haters on this site but I have say that I expected a bit more from a Roman Coppola video. This looks like an EPK. I can't imagine Roman being so desperate for video work that he does a poor video because he was told to.

         

"Domino became a major label when Arctic signed with them and they sold 225,000 albums the first week out."

Don't really care too much about this argument, and don't care about the band enough to bother watching the video -- but this statement is dumb. Yup. Dumb enough that I had to be ass enough to point it out. Ugh.

         

I really, really enjoyed this video, although I can't really say why and I certainly can't formulate an argument to convert the staunch non-believers. For me, there's something about it that strikes a similar note to A Hard Day's Night. Maybe it's the intense back lighting or the hand held or the extensive use of long/zoom lenses, but all that aside, it manages to convey a casual sense of subtle intimacy with the band, which is much, much harder than an aesthetic punch in the face from an over the top gimmick that exists only to serve the director's ego. Again, maybe I'm in the minority, but for what it is I think it's great.

         

forget all the bullshit above, did anyone here even know what the arctic monkeys looked like (or even acted like) before seeing this video?

roman = mission accomplished.

30f clocks in, in 3...2...

         

Had to weigh in on this one... pretty amazing that a video like this is causing so much controversy...

I reckon this video is totally creative absolutely because it is so different from the post-Gondry/Jonze/Cunningham videos that we see on this site everyday. When was the last time anyone saw a video like this? I think captainmarc is probably right with his 1982 estimate... That is exactly why we're all talking about it.

Full respect to Coppola for pitching an idea that says 'this track doesn't need gimmicks' and to Domino for saying 'yeah, you're right'

P.S. to kevathens - please don't now make me look like a dick by posting up a list of 30 videos all made in the last week that look exactly like this!

         

hello

in response to some points made:

vs "did anyone here even know what the arctic monkeys looked like (or even acted like) before seeing this video?"

I shot two videos with the band in - I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor and Brianstorm...so i guess maybe people knew what they looked like from those vids. The band werent really into being in their videos at first but gained the confidence to perform in Brianstorm which was almost 2 years after Dancefloor...

24vs30 "Obviously there are some bitter people here who pitched their ideas but were then passed on."

I didnt pitch on this video (although i would have liked to) so im trying to give a balanced opinion, and my opInion is that its an average video that without doubt does the job. I wonder if there would be any of these comments had it been for an unheard of band and an unknown director

Hey this antville stuff is fun.

huse

         

"forget all the bullshit above, did anyone here even know what the arctic monkeys looked like (or even acted like) before seeing this video?"

Unfortunately, yes. They were impossible to avoid for a while. Blame the NME.

         

best video i have seen in ages. really liked it all through. just seemed to fit the track and the character of the band nicely. normally don't like performance videos that much . However in this case i can't imagine anything fitting the track better than this does.

it's nicely shot and put together. a diamond. Perhaps its because the band are worth filming, perhaps its because roman coppola is actually quite good.

         

I agree that I've never really seen a video of these kids as, well, kids, but I also agree that there is a giant misappropriation of funds at work. Unless it's worth 30,00 pounds to hang out with the co-writer of Darjeeling Limited. (I know I'd drop that kind of cash if I had it to burn.)

I guess I feel like it's more the band/label's fault than it is Roman's. He obviously accomplished what he set out to make in a pretty compelling, and artful way.

But yeah, it's definitely the sort of thing that one of their friends could have shot for 20 bucks and ended up with pretty much the same results. Good for Roman. He got a trip to the UK out of it and got to hang out with some neat guys.

Everybody wins, except us whiny, snivvling, green-with-envy music video directors.

         

I liked it. It's refreshing to see such unprepossessing superstars.

It probably takes names as big as the Arctic Monkeys and Roman Coppola to pull something like this off. Who needs big production values, when you have The Arctic Monkeys on camera? The Coppola name is the seal of quality on an essentially ordinary idea. Perhaps getting to make stuff like this a privilege of having 'made it'.

It doesn't shake my world, but there's plenty of place for videos like this.

Welcome Huse, btw. :)

         

ted - Only two high profile in-studio vids in the last year, really: Milk's U2/Green Day vid and Bruce Springsteen's Radio Nowhere. More than enough room for this one.

         

While this is not reinventing the wheel nor is it stimulating us with some oh so clever conceit, it is absolutely appropriate filmmaking. Making something that so flawlessly feels like a document is not so easily done.

Yes Huse has made some excellent videos with the band in the video so this isnt the first time we are seeing them, however; its also true that the band is older and in a different place. Hence it works as a bit of a time capsul. If Radiohead had never done Meeting People is Easy that would've been a shame. Same goes for Hard Day's Night etc. And knowing the immense popularity of this band in Europe its probably quite wise to make a behind the scenes style video.

I really enjoyed it. There is only one choice I really thought was a bit much. The choice to not clean up the singers acne really was a bit distracting (maybe too real even for a pop star)

         

reminds me of Godard's Sympathy For The Devil. no?

         

yo demis on antville at last!

are you coming to snowy's party tonight?

         

There's too much heat on this video to not chime in. I found it honest and refreshing. Well shot and superbly edited. I have trouble sitting through a lot of gimmicky videos that try to hard, but this one held my attention throughout. Sure it isnt going to blow any minds, but its nice to see a great band in their natural element doing what they love to do best...playing music.

         

so y'all are saying this is roman back to basics? could be... could be...

         

Tis' true Progosk. Not sure if it's already been noted but the audio is actually a live mix. Roman recorded some of the audio and the rest is actually the song being performed live in the space recorded through the sound board. The band nailed it perfectly on the 2nd take.

         

i really enjoyed this video, it is pro musician and not just about the director and his vision. great editing and shooting. this video actually makes me respect roman c. this kind of filmmaking is not as easy as it seams. sometimes it is easier having some crazy idea and hiring a special fx expert - but the results are often empty and boring. i hope this video opens a new aera. acne didn't bother me, it is cute.

         

a new era!?!? isn't it getting a little suspect that every time a video gets posted by a director signed with or in any way affiliated with the directors bureau - all kinds of people appear out of the woodwork to let us know just how amazing it REALLY is. Fakers.

         

I wish I were somehow affiliated with the Director's Bureau, but truth is, I just like the video. I watched the whole thing with ease. I think it's an excellent example of craft over style. Not to say that it doesn't have style, but it's not necessarily the type of project that would lead me to think that Roman Coppola directed it if I didn't already know, but I would still think that it was a well versed director behind the camera.

         

difficult to believe that the cost of this promo was 30.000 UKP... hmm, but maybe the crocodile-puppet was bought at christies...

         

All this zit talk does bring into question the name of the song. Is "Teddy" Brit for giant-festering-lesion?

         

teddy picker: fairground machine where you grab a teddy with a mini crane, I think.

Maybe a reference to the arbitrary and transitory nature of celebrity.

         

I like the idea of the Arctic Monkeys (not so much the video itself) starting a new era where things are much more relaxed than they are now. This is just my genius brain talking, I think, but it seems like everyone is trying to out-compete each other, trying to reach some height (COUGHgondry) that none of us can reach.

Ben said, "It doesn't shake my world.." Right. And it doesn't really need to.

         

I don't understand any of this. It's like this video exists in a vacuum where in-studio performance vids have never been done before, and bands are never portrayed as affable and easy going.

Am I the only one who feels that this video and band are NOT worth all the discussion? It's catchy British pop written by post-pubescent teens, who do it just fine, and were lucky enough to get a pop-culture push when thousands of other bands of the same ilk didn't. And it's a performance video of that band. By a guy with a name that looks good on paper.

I find all this analysis confusing.

         

Let's face it: This is interesting because it's the Arctic Monkeys. It would have been lucky to get 2 comments on this site if the same were made for an unknown band.

The fact is, this stuff is being made all the time. It's called 'content' and covers everything from the ubiquitous making-of to backstage interviews, gig footage etc. It uses cheap production techniques, minimal crews and myspace and youtube as its chief distribution platform.

Nothing wrong with that, but we have to realise that it is of overriding interest to fans of the band, hungry for any type of media contact with their heroes....and generally of much less interest to anyone else.

Kev: I think it's dangerous to wish that directors all started to try a little less hard and a bit general to categorise anything conceptually ambitious as somehow sub-Gondry. Interesting and experimental videos are, as they always have been, in a tiny minority. It's a tribute to videos.antville that we collectively manage to dig up so many exceptions to the rule that we're tempted to think otherwise.

In the meantime, 'content' is proliferating while budgets are falling away from music video at an alarming rate. Ideas are hard to have, harder to get the go-ahead on and harder still to achieve on today's tiny budgets.

I wouldn't wish too hard for more videos to follow the Teddy Picker pattern, because you and I will be the first to miss the good stuff when it's gone. :)