Charlotte Gainsbourg featuring Beck "Heaven Can Wait" Dir: Keith Schofield
Pretty amazing. Not sure I understood what it was going for but the footage looks beautiful.
respost!!! kudos for quickest repost ever tho
versions are not the same
This is the best video ever made, I feel like my mind has been scooped. Great job Keith!!
BRAVO!
Lot of William HUndley inspiration:
yeah, i like the screencap in the middle too, but this video looks too random, like the director spent too much time looking through his FFFFOUND folder this schofield has yet to amaze me
Schofield just gave the advertising world a look book of ideas that will soon become a number of lame ass commercials for a number of multinational brands like trident, aol, and that fuckin foul ol' yogurt that kills your stomach and tastes terrible...
i don't understand, why throw in rips from hundley if you obviously spent hours thinking of the most random shit possible? surely you could throw a dart and fill those frames.
props for making gainsbourg look do-able though.
Bravo. Will be seeing this again and again.
here's the label's edit lavideotheque.wordpress.com
three guesses what KS thinks of it?
wirklich abgefahrenes video, eines der ersten bei dem ich sehe dass qualität, die auflösung, des videos selber wirklich einen unterschied macht.
Thanks progosk for reposting my link! This one is better with photos.
Interview with KS (just in case you didnt read it!): lavideotheque.wordpress.com
After months of mostly dull productions Two shit hot clips within a week or so!
robodrug, what's the other one? Gaga?
Captain: The Lenny Kravitz + Justice- Let love rule, I guess!
def some cool imagery, but so random. deosn't feel like any effort was made to link it all together.
Lame. Obvious rips from Hundley and looks like a commercial. Only redeeming feature is Gainsbourg who looks lovely.
re: the randomness - It helps if you just pretend that this is a trailer to a bat-shit crazy movie. LOVE that shot with the guy on the field running from the axe. I want to see that movie.
I like the Ax shot and the Fruity Pebbles in the bathtub. Q: Why in the heck don't they have the American version of Pebbles in Canada? Canadian Fruity Pebbles are huge, too hard and taste like ass. Thank you. -j
legion's on to something (tho i liked the video) it's almost as if keith's had this idea of making a cinematic montage of his fave internet/art images for a while, and he just starting saving 'em in a folder on his computer – and now... voila
what if we found out that each shot was an homage to some img? (methinks it'd make it better)
after all, ever seen a low-concept schofield video? post more; some of them seem so familiar.
edit: changed the last one
I am witnessing history. I almost pissed on my pants. Greatest. Video. Ever.
amazing
That. Was. Great.
Very nice. Obviously it's a homage to Keith's favorite 'fffound' etc images and I think Bunny Greenhouse is right knowing this makes the video far more interesting conceptually. I would like to see the treatment for this. Can you show us Keith?
Fantastic use of generic images.
kansas: shhh.... (not the only one, actually.)
thanks p
Great work! Exquisite cinematic scenes for the attention span of an internet audience. Perfect execution of low fi meets high art which is what Beck has been doing musically since 1994. Really like how this is fantastic to look at but speaks conceptually about things outside each scene. Reminds me of the sitcom Alf vs Olaf Bruening vs the infinite canals of instant visual gratification web crap. Look forward to what Schofield does next..
WELL, let's not just start googling shit, waldar. i'm talking about notable images of some artistic/memetic merit. and "generic" isn't exactly a word i'd use to describe this mv...
re: treatment - i can only read that as a tongue-in-cheek "fuck y'all i'm not gonna reveal all the images figure it out yourselves." i'm sure blogs & message boards will uncover more snippets of inspiration as this video gets posted and reposted. it's self-parodic! it's meta-viral!
i realize that most of the people commenting on this video (the positive reviews) endlessly troll the internet and there's nothing wrong with that practice
i do, however, have a problem with directors/filmmakers/artists taking what should exist as merely the seed of an idea and instead of embellishing it and taking it to a conceptually-evolved place prefer to merely plunk said image(s) into a larger piece without any context or tact
while this very well may be the point of this video i really feel this approach is not only easy, but lazy, and a ultimately sad comment on the current state of ideas/creativity in general
i'm all for employing non-sequitur imagery and hodgepodgery (in fact, Beck, one could argue is one of the best lyricists to this approach) but when you simply rip other folks' work--whether they be 'found' images or the work of a trained eye--without weaving them into a heightened tapestry, then, well, you're left with something incredibly hollow
if i see one more 'cute' video im going to claw my eyes out
oh, lighten up francis
Gainsbourg's attitude on this video seems quite unsettling if you've seen 'Antichrist'.
masterpiece. seriously when's the last time you saw something this good?
Quite correct Capt, tho' tommy, the Lenny Justice dope, aint half bad either!
@Bunny Greenhouse Well: I posted the half bearded man out of the same reasons as you did with the Spongebob-kid, don’t you agree? He got quiet famous with this beard.
Talent borrows, genius steals? Apparently so; I hope none of the source photos were done by aspiring directors. That would be a drag. -j
Here's a concept: Lets JUST STEAL IDEAS WITHOUT ATTRIBUTION!
so lame.
i'd rather see that video directed by any of the people who had those ideas in the first place.
i'm guessing hundley would have loved to have done it. instead some dickead does his own version of hundley.
BOO HISS!
I'm against it.
@merkley & chupacabraface: keith schofield is an obscene hack. kudos for pointing out his baseless and amoral video.
both of you display enviable courage to tackle and destroy a fraud who is slowly corrupting this industry and the country. it's no coincidence that keith's two videos have been released within weeks of the stupak amendment and sarah palin's new book.
our country could use more brave patriots like you.
oh my oh my.
You guys are soooo naive. What you call "stealing" has actually been the never-ending power force of creation since the dawn of ages. You should probably be also insulting James Joyce for stealing Homer.
Hard to believe how members of such a great fandom community as antville can be so... naive. Yeah, there's no other word for it.
Beautifully shot, fun while it lasts, but I fear, for me at least, instantly forgettable as it really leaves no feeling behind it. Gorgeous and disposable.
"Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don't bother concealing your thievery-celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: "It's not where you take things from-it's where you take them to."
-Jim Jarmusch
oh fuck jarmusch and his stupid philosophy. lame artists have been rationalizing their own lack for centuries. what else is new. doesn't make it any better just because some filmmaker you like says it is.
i just emailed hundley and he had no idea his images were so blatantly ripped. i would repost his email but i'll let him do that if he so chooses.
you people making excuses for this hack are doing nobody any good. get on board or get out of the way.
schofield has the audacity to put himself in the ranks with spike jonze and others. HE IS AN EFFING HACK!
my email to schofield: ripping off hundley and others without attribution. you are a HACK and do a terrible disservice to the entire art community.
a sincere FUCK YOU -- go get hit by a train and stop calling yourself an artist.
merkley???
AMAZING video.
what y'all gotta remember tho is video people aint artists dem video people are in the business of selling records but bein scared a da cold instead of selling dem CDs on da street like da rest of us they sell em with lil films and when they need an idea for them films they look around a fink, man done that, man done that, man done that but i like that and man aint done that yet in a selling CDs but not in da street film. 
What blows me away is the execution of it all. Great photography, great editing, everything is perfect.
here is hundley's flickr post on the subject:
"Someone is using my ideas..... look familiar?: www.flickr.com/photos/williamhundley/508882059/in/set-721...
Also, there is a floating fabric form in this video very similar to my work.......
Help me spread the word on youtube and vimeo that keith schofield apparently can't come up with his own ideas or at least give me some credit.....
vimeo.com/hd#7703592 www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP-nVpOLW88
justice video was better... alot better.
Some of these comments are the most ridiculous things I've read lately. And that includes the shit I've stumbled across on YouTube.
Jarmusch and designers like Ian Anderson are spot on in their analysis of idea appropriation. Concepts are not sacred; remakes and covers are standard fare and always have been. Remember that this is not a case of someone using another's artwork directly. It's a reinterpretation and it's a damn good one.
Hundley should meet someone who's had their work genuinely stolen. Dude sounds like a priss.
Recreating these photos was obviously the concept. There is no pretense here, this is fffffound the video. Consider it homage - Romanek style.
Ironically, Hundly's work is best known because it's been reposted a bazillion times on tumblrs and design sites, often contextless and without credit. I've seen his pictures a few times on different sites and assumed they were simply internet memes. I suspect Keith thought that same thing, as he referred to them as "found photos" in his treatment. I mean cmon, if you see a picture of a skateboard resting on cheeseburgers, i can't blame you if you think its just some silly picture that gets posted on funny picture message boards.
And yes, Hundley sounds like a total whiner and opportunist.
Precisely. And here he had an opportunity to see his work gain additional exposure in a positive light if he'd handled the situation correctly.
Hell, the guy could have contacted Keith and discussed ways in which to cross-promote (through additional videos, shows, etc). I mean, obviously Keith liked the images enough to take inspiration from them.
But that reaction -- it's just so fucking lame. Any interest I had in looking into his work is gone.
The Jarmusch quote is pretty fitting; his references have always been obvious and always recontextualised and filtered through his personal vision, whereas many of Schofield's references here are carbon copies without any context or substance, which makes the godard quote "It's not where you take things from-it's where you take them to" completely appropriate in a way bryanmatic didn't intend.
I dunno, I did find the video kind of fun, but I guess it's frustrating in a way knowing that the images aren't really originally from schofield, and that therefore they have no real relationship with one another. I think it's unfair to call Hundley a 'priss' too, I mean, I guess it's natural to feel bitter knowing that schofield will get the credit for his ideas and yep, got paid for it too. Unless, I'm missing how well known the images are in the first place (I'd not seen them before).
i saw him being compared with joyce, homer, and jarmusch (oh, my). but what about this schofield guy and thierry henry?
hundley's work is well known because it is GOOD and ORIGINAL.
in another thread on the subject jennifer jordan wrote:
wow... i just looked at that thread again. seems to me some people have a really sophomore understanding of appropriation. i appreciate the role of appropriation, collage, pastiche, etc in art... but james joyce appropriating homer is quite a different thing than this music video director recreating the work of an emerging photographer. for appropriation to function properly, the audience has to be in on the joke... the problem here is that most people won't look at this video and think "oh he's paying homage to hundley et al." this video is aimed at an indie music audience, most of whom probably aren't familiar with hundley's work. if famous cindy sherman photos were being recreated, it might function more properly as an appropriation... i don't know, i feel there is a definite line between stealing and appropriation, and you can't throw just whatever you want under the umbrella of "appropriation."
JENNIFER IS SPOT ON.
familiar, hundley's work doesn't require your admiration to still kick ass. your loss.
Shrug. The rabid protectionist attitude of fans and fanatics can't be argued with. It's hard to have a discourse when you realize you are being talked AT instead of spoken to.
That said, if I hadn't seen this video I would never have heard of Hundley. And yes, I think he is a priss. And yes, if I was the originator of any of the images used in this video I would see an opportunity for positive exposure, not use it as leverage to denigrate a piece of work in an entirely different medium that borrowed from my ideas.
Also: Appropriation does not require an educated or informed audience to work.
I think some of you are being really unfair to Hundley. Struggling, emerging photographer gets bit by major label and well-paid/wealthy director. He is entirly justified to be annoyed that Schofield didn't credit him or contact him, considering especially that Schofield has reproduced the images so exactly.
Again, to most people (and most likely, to Schofield) Hundley's "work" is just a viral internet meme. The explanation seems pretty reasonable: Keith saw the photo somewhere online, thought it was just a goofy internet meme, and put it in the video to be funny. I mean, look at the other pictures he used, spongebob being arrested, fat kid with guitar, etc- it's just a big found photo collage.
familiar doesnt understand this type of reasoning. it goes way back when she would beat up on the younger kids and steal their lunch money. she had a label to launch.
I dunno Alex - I wouldn't think this is a big guy vs little guy thing. I understand why he would want credit or why he might feel that Keith should have sought him out. But at the same time, his name is not a big one, and here is a chance for him to potentially expand his audience.
Why is he complaining so publicly and in such a harsh manner?
even if schofield did assume hundley's image was just another viral internet meme, hundley still has a right to be irked.
i work with photographers and artists every day, and i can't think of a single one who wouldn't react the exact same way.
however, i can think of some who hesitate to put their work up on flikr for exactly this reason...
This reminds me of people who accuse Owl City if ripping off The Postal Service. Who the fuck cares? Don't dislike the kid for taking inspiration and creating new music on the groundwork laid before him: Dislike him because his music is utter shit.
But here, the results are wonderful, and the mediums different. So...
no, schofield took a number of his photos, schofield KNEW.
Familiar, had you not been alerted HERE on this post, you would have attributed Hundey's ideas to SCHOFIELD. see how that doesn't work? No matter how much Hundley does now, nice or not, most people will walk away from that video thinking about the genius of BECK, CHARLOTTE and SCHOFIELD.
hundley is for hire and easily reachable.
Not sure how you can't see how thats not right.
Bottom line is that Schofield doesn't have good ideas. others do. yeah, really, there are actually people who have great ideas. SHOCKING.
Schofield takes them and makes money. rationalize all you want.
maybe you aren't in the business of ideas. who knows.
I am. I have a horse in the race.
Actually, I frequently give away a portion of the work I do under Open Source licenses (see also: Creative Commons). I feel that my ideas are fleeting and if someone else wants them, they are welcome to them. I'll have a new idea, and another new one after that.
It's inspiring to see others take inspiration from something you do.
Obviously we all have different perspectives here.
I'm judging this situation based on intent.
If Keith were purposefully recreating someone's artwork without giving credit, that's wrong. But read his treatment, he was working with what he thought were "found photos".
In Keith's mind, Hundley's photos were probably no different than the various silly photos he'd found online. If not, why would he include a few "fine art" photos in a video otherwise filled with "found photos"? It wouldn't make sense.
Hundley should have emailed Keith before going on a rampage and basically calling him a hack. It was obviously a misunderstanding based on misinterpretation of Hundley's photos (Keith thought they were found photos, Hundley intends them to be art). And please, it's way to easy to try and apply a big guy vs little guy narrative to this situation. CALM DOWN angry fans of outsider art.
Case closed.
Any professional maker of images should know by now that one can find out where found images appear elsewhere on the internet. with services like tineye.com it couldn't be easier and that skateboard image links directly back to hundley's website on the first result. i have found the originators of many images on fffound.com and others have found me that way.
if schofield even had a concept that was original and not just based on complete "appropriation" of good ideas made by others he might get some sympathy but the complete lack of any attempt to contact the originators, especially hundley, is inexcusable and brings about high suspicion that he is a total douchebag.
at the very least schofield owes an apology to hundley, (and maybe a little cash) certainly NOT the other way around.
"case closed" gimme a fucking break
I like this video, the concept is to recreate these photos - possibly artists could have been contacted...
It is kinda weird that the treatment from Keith's site posted by progosk last night is totally different now to what was there when it originally went up? Anyone notice why? or have I gone mental.
This video is pretty brilliant. Keith did, obviously, reappropriate images. That however does not make him a hack, it was Keith (and his crew obv) who shot all the Re-Appropriations, and put them together, that alone makes each image a new creation. Keith should have reached out to Hundley if he knew it was an original creation and not just an internet meme. Hundley however maybe should have emailed Keith before psting a public statement like that however as well. Was Spike Jonze being a hack when he placed Weezer into ACTUAL FOOTAGE from a well known fictitious Television show?
spike jonze re-baking weezer as a pop-cultural mainstay like happy days and schofield biting an emerging artist's obviously effective, viral worthy images are worlds apart, it would be insulting to everyone to have to explain why.
like uh, really.
and funny you should mention Weezer who recently mashed up, er, appropriated, the world of youtube for their own video. seems they were quite able to find, and include, the originators of THOSE ideas. It ain't that hard to not be a total DOUCHE.
HI GOOGLE!
Hundley has done nothing wrong here. might be hard to put that shoe on your foot if you're not in the idea game.
Directors Cut? or not. Absurd. (two edits of one video. why?) vimeo.com
This video is far from stealing. This is Keith bringing together some of his favorite ffffound images on tour for everyone to see. If your included thank your curator.
Keith Schofield has been open about his use of ffffound.com and other sites in interviews over the last few years. I'm sure he has introduced this site to some of you.
Part of the reason why Keith has done so well in the viral world is because he fully embraces the concept of the internet as a shared place. He is one of the few directors out there who openly post most of his treatments on his site for everyone to view. He explains and reveal many of his techniques for others to study and yes copy.
For pete's sake Merkley, calm down.
Even if Keith Schofield purposefully stole some dude's ideas for the sole purpose of ruining their life, at least he didn't spend an entire day on the internet saying all kinds of horrible things about a person he doesn't know without even knowing the whole story.
Why, in these sort of situations, are we supposed to automatically assume some awful big guy vs little guy story about an evil hollywood director stealing from an innocent internet photographer? Shouldn't Keith at least be able to respond before some dude (who's photos, btw, look like they've taken some liberties with some of david lachapelle's work) goes on an assumption rampage on the internet?
First off love Keith's videos. Here's an experiment: Replace Schofield's name with Sony electronics. Is it okay for a corporation to make money appropriating the work of indie artists? www.boingboing.net Contrast that with the Associated Presses baseless lawsuit against Shepard Fairey's Obama poster: boingboing.net I'm all for liberal use of influences, but you have to change context and composition. Recreating someone's work identically is cool as a gallery concept, but this a commercial for a huge Rock star. Hundley should be compensated.
oh i'm calm, i also have a head cold and am hopped up on theraflu so i really don't have much better to do today but sit here and issue a call out.
this is a discussion i enjoy and totally hate, i know where it goes, it's endless.
i'll be the first person to accept a GOOD excuse. i just can't think of what that might be.
keith has a blog and a website and i'm assuming a computer. i'm also assuming the fact that i was the person to inform hundley and not keith might mean he doesn't give a shit.
you are right! i am full of ASSUMPTIONS!
maybe he was in a sandwich accident and couldn't google.
keith has had plenty of opportunity to attribute in a forthright way.
and while this convo isn't about me, i am very clear about my influences. my stuff is clearly a sum of the parts. when i borrow, i credit, simple. look in my profile. no need to go into that here.
eventually i will fall asleep and you will have peace :)
Jesse, you might want to check the update to the Fairey story: www.designrelated.com
The argument that emerging artists should be placated by the "exposure" that they receive when their work is used for free by someone who IS getting paid is disheartening. Hundley is not whining when he is asking for credit, he is standing up for himself and others.
There is a clear difference between paying homage to internet memes and copying the work of an artist who is documented in many places to be the originator of this idea. In my opinion Schofield had a potentially interesting concept for a video which he then failed to put much effort into realizing. And that is just laziness.
merkley, good job ma man, someone has to fight injustice and theft, someone's got to stand up for the meek and feeble
this schofield guy is the nastiest the internet could ever create, some sort of linux, grabs all he can and spreads it around like some std, hes a real octopussy
bah
I think merkley is upset that Keith didn't re-appropriate any of his images in this video. The lady with gerbils and a cheesburger would have made an awesome scenario in this video. The gerbils would represent mans duality with himself and the cheeseburger would represent migrant workers beig abused by large conglomerate cable/fast food companies.
82!!!!
YOU GOT ME!
Hah thinkmad. Except you really need to get there before anyone else and go for "1st!"
This thread is quite entertaining lol I think that's proof enough this video is sucessful
Here's another guy who should have just shut up and been happy that a big artist deigned to steal his work. Whinger!
ZING!!
If Hundley wants to sue the label, I think he should. They're profiting off of his work, sure, whatever. But to call out Keith by assuming that he maliciously stole your idea and re-appropriated it as his own is unnecessary. It seems obvious that Keith saw Hundley's photos as just two in a series of found photos. Sure, there are ways to find out the name of an artist behind a particular work , but if Keith thought the photos were "found photos", why would he search for that information (like i said, i don't think its stupid to assume that maybe a photo of a skateboard on top of cheeseburgers that is routinely found on LOL meme sites is just a random photo)?
I don’t think it was malicious, but he should have contacted me.
I understand that this kind of stuff happens all the time and will continue to happen, but that doesn’t make it right.
I am not a priss, but I am broke. It just sucks to see someone financially gain by using my ideas (and others) without giving any credit or compensation.
I try and see the good and positive in all situations and I appreciate everyone’s input/feedback on this.
Anyone that sees this video and is not familiar with my work will credit the director for the visuals and they will never know my work. How can I see that from a positive perspective?
Why don't you contact Keith and talk to him about it instead of pissing all over him on the internet?
And if people are curious about the imagery in the video, they will look into it. If you had handled the situation with any tact, they could have potentially turned up commentary from you that wasn't along the lines of what can be found in this thread.
This isn't copying in a direct or traditional sense; the medium has been transposed, and the intent was not at all as vicious as you have suggested.
Here's some reading for you: www.boardsmag.com
I see no reason to redact my priss comment. If all you want is money out of this, there were other ways to go about it. (Also, I can assure you he isn't retiring on the money made from this.)
I wasn't going to chime in cause it seems like more of the usual. I can certainly understand why an upcoming photographer would be upset if they woke up one day and saw recreations of their work in a very exposed piece. That said, this photographer should also take it as a compliment. This is a very old argument in art really. However if a modern creator of any medium contributes to putting their works on the web as Hunley has with his own site, that creator must be aware of the open airwaves they are using.
Somebody above posted about intent. Personally, I think the video is absolutely about a certain randomness that makes sense to the creator. In interviews, Schofield has himself said that the way he concepts is by looking at a photo collection and seeing what sticks. Its logical approach. Many directors do this. In this case the idea was specially about that. Why does the creator have to clue the audience into context? I have no doubt that he knew whose images he was tipping his hat to but I think he was doing it with the best of intentions. Though I will say it's a bit odd that none of these ref images appear in the actually treatment. I wonder if Beck and Charlotte would've agreed had they seen the originals.
Again, I can empathize with the photographer but this calling Keith a hack is just silly. He is clearly a creative guy whose work is consistent in attitude and execution.
Some people need to re-read Walter Benjamin's Art In the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.
Three Words: Andy Fucking Warhol
And I for one recognized the image homage on first watch and thought that was half the fun. Nice one mate.
another image identified. further (more or less bitter) reading, tho pertaining to different realms: copy©unts, youthoughtwewouldntnotice.
dunno. certainly, attribution is part of what made kutiman awesome. and it could have been played - differently, but played all the same - here, too.
hundley,
I appreciate the sentiment. But I will say in Keith's defense that he very likely made a ridiculously small sum of money if any at all for directing this. That's just how music videos go these days.
If anything, you should capitalize on the fact your work is in there. Something which I'm sure Keith would be agreeable with. I know Keith somewhat discussed this work before it was released and can absolutely state he would never willingly reprise what was someone's fine art. He genuinely believed the images in this video to come from the ether, untracable, accidental ephemeral artful images that could hardly be traced to their origin but funnily enough do have an origin that's real. In fact that's the entire point of the piece. I really truly believe that having seen your cheeseburger images he thought they were made by an eccentric 60 year old in Van Horn Texas or something who never intended them to be fine art.
One could also say some of his career has been to replicate in an amusing way a mirror for our subconscious as we're all drifting half our time in cyberspace.
Conversely, the issues surrounding appropriation and the freedom with which everything is accessed on the Internet ironically means that Beck and Gainsbourg and their label are likely to see no profit from their entire musical enterprise in terms of selling records.
I think you should, if you can, reach out to Keith and discuss. I'll just vouch for his character having commissioned him to make a video years ago that Keith is one of the nicest, humblest people i've ever met in videos and very honest. And then Keith could point people to your work in this story, and everyone wins.
I say that, too, having had a knee jerk reaction believing that a video of mine was entirely stolen wholesale for someone's major label video. I understand how it feels to sit at your monitor and feel that such a thing has occurred.
But truly, Keith's one of the last people on earth who I'd ever think would purposely rip off another artist. Without a doubt his work is referential, but I really do believe - and he never even articulates or theorizes this - he just likes to play with what is our current collective unconscious.
The fact that there is a question as to what a fine art photograph in this day and age because of the mediums it traverses is very interesting....
And merkley, you have bad manners.
I do find it frustrating, in that boardsmag article Keith says: “I thought the best video in the world would be one where you just cut to a different, crazy scene,” but then he couldn't think up any crazy scenes so he just turned to his lucky fffound folder and voila. @ quixoticnyc didn't Andy Warhol have something to say when he was recontextualisting and reproducing images? He was deconstructing the original medium and passing comment on it. I don't think it can be considered the same thing.
Merkley मुझे एक लस्सी बकाया है. और Schofield है.
Looks like he also "stole" Hundley's cheeseburger.
This video is so amazing. Almost 100 comments! There's one visual quotation that really touches me deep, the Magriitte's painting:
you are making my point guys. thanks.
Most people watching this video won't know who Keith Schofield is either, let alone Hundley, and won't care.
who's making money?
Exactly.
Read the comments on that original Flickr link. There are some lols (i.e. going after Beck for cash). I had this idea with a friend once -- turn some of the best comments from social networking sites into a coffee table book.
yes, almo. (you are aware of the title? "réproduction interdite"!)
hey Prog, you wanna make this a classic? I think it's deserving...
@gregsinora : I personally think Warhol was asking all kinds of questions. I don't know that he had tons of answers. I'm not the biggest of Warhol fans - I tend to believe pop art has left us in a place where fine art is now at large without any movement or school of thought like there had been in the previous several hundred years. Fine art and commercial art are fairly inseparable. Though it is an interesting notion that in this age of fast information and technology, art may be more of a dialogue, more of a back and forth of ideas, appropriation and reaction than ever before.
Oh and sadly nobody is making $ and if they are - good luck sustaining that. Try big banking if you want money.
damn. keith updated his website. But no words about "antville" and the discussion. First time he ignore "us".
His website is great. And I hope he will contact some artist... I mean. Right know I think that he's really busy answering emails. I hope he will put some statement out... on his blog. soon.
Let's say a chef uses A1 sauce in a recipe, he is not ripping off A1 since it's an element of the whole. If this video was solely a shot of a skateboard on cheeseburgers you all would have a point, it's not so you don't. Mark Romanek did the same thing with his nin closer video referencing joel peter witkin photography. The main difference was that was before the Internet was this large.
th'opera ain't over til the fat lady sings. (but yeah, i hear ye, fam.)
Spence I do agree with you. An interesting thing I've heard about the NIN Romanek video is that Joel Peter Witkin was very annoyed apparently. And while Mark had built a career in which he often referenced the works he loved whether it was Robert Frank, Klimpt or Magritte he had never actually felt the need to credit an artist until he did the Red Hot Chili Peppers video in which he includes a frame of a sign that tells that the project was inspired by the works of Irwin Wurm. Just any interesting choice at that point.
if he had intended to be upfront about this he would have included the images in his treatment. he didn't even mention fffound. the whole thing read like he was trying to come off with a stream of consciousness approach.
i think we can all smell the rat here.
he didn't use the images in his treatment because that would have likely started a discussion he didn't want to have and apparently still doesn't.
TWO images by ONE artist.
the mathematics of that happening innocently or randomly just don't compute.
my guess is that he would have preferred to appropriate the more popular "chihuahua on cheeseburgers" but we all know about working with animals.
this theraflu isn't working. i should be asleep.
i agree that calling the director a hack is a bit harsh, especially given that this image is so ubiquitous on "teh internets."
but i also see why it's a big fat bummer for hundley.
and no offense, but dragging walter benjamin into every conversation about contemporary art practice is SO TIRED.
i get it-- the frankfurt school's take on high vs. low culture is certainly a useful lens through which to consider this very dilemma... but it seems to me that too many people who went to decent art schools or graduate programs feel the need to assert their authority by namedropping the same old people again and again and again... but maybe i'm just bitter. ;)
edit:
Jennybug - no offense taken. I just actually felt the need to learn a thing or two in art school and I do think theory has it's place of value.
Cute, Bunny. Cute.
Agreed with Spencefilms. I thought of Mark Romanek too when I watched this, and how until Can't Stop he never gave credit to his inspirations. I'm not giving a pro- or con- on this one, I'm just saying... don't piss on Keith's parade without recognizing that this happens fairly often in music videos (admitted, Keith is taking it a bit far from here)... This is kinda like the upscale version of Pork & Beans video.
@panopticon: but the Pork & Beans video is significantly different in that the director recruited the participation (and permission) of the people whose clips he adapted/used.
There's being inspired by, and there's thieving. It's one of those things that's hard to define in absolute terms, but like pornography, you know it when you see it.
@gregsinora:
"which makes the godard quote "It's not where you take things from-it's where you take them to" completely appropriate in a way bryanmatic didn't intend."
Actually, 99% of why I added that quote was because of the Godard quote at the end.
In regards to the Jarmusch quote I think simply by the selection and grouping of these found images Schofield has recontextualized them to create his own artistic vision. Not to mention the tone, atmosphere, slow motion, medium, editing (order of the images) etc... Whether it was Schofield's intention or not all of these things are his choice and thus he is breathing his own life into these images in reference to the whole video.
Besides this its overtly obvious that much of the last 60 years of art, film and culture has included appropriation on a conscious conceptual and aesthetic level.
The internet is an environment just like any other and for Schofield its obvious that a large part of his life and thus research evolves around this environment. So ofcourse this is where he draws inspiration and appropriates from. We all do it in some way. Schofield has just brought it to an obvious conclusion.
This is one of the best videos I have seen in a long while. It makes complete sense to me aesthetically and conceptually. It has restored my faith in the music video world.
So to Keith I say thankyou and well done.
Hmm discussion is good. Apparently it's about the hopscotch of ideas rather than the video itself. If the name Spike Jonze would be attached to the credits it would be a different story at Antville, and that's what I find surprising enough.
Not to the discredit the above statements, but the internet IS a shared place and given birth to appropriation of imagery from all places. It's the single biggest change in music videos this decade, and if making something your own (beautiful nevertheless) makes you a fool here then let it be what it is, a great video it is. Statement concluded friends.
It's doing it's job which is getting people TO TALK.
David Fincher was actually sued by the Frank estate for A Billy Idol video. The main difference there is that most the video was "inspired" bu Robert frank photos. The other difference is it was Robert Frank, not Internet photos. The photos in question in this video actually have a viral quality to them and I can definatelt see Keith having absolutely no idea that they were "art" pieces
The video definitely goes for a still photo look as well
too many people on here that don't understand that they don't understand
I agree with Merkley 100%. I am ashamed so few of you get it. What a bunch of children. Hundley gets his photos ripped off and most of you try to find reasons to justify it. He has every right to be pissed, and every right to feel violated. This is his work we're talking about. He's not dead. He's a struggling artist and he doesn't consider it flattering, nor would anyone if you are honest. Compensation is only part of the issue. Hundley is upset he stole them at all, and rightly so. It's his style and ideas. Schofield is using a higher visibility medium with a high profile artist, Beck, to step over Hundley's work and benefit himself.
As to what if-it-were-me's...Familiar, who wants to copy your crappy work so your open source is b.s.. Aaron Stewart Ahn, the only thing anyone can plagiarize off you are incoherent, long winded internet tirades. Obviously written by people who never had anything worthy of being copied in the first place. This is shot for shot plagiarism. Artists shouldn't condone this kind of behaviour. I like Schofield's work on occasion but this is not the 90's anymore.
There have been previous discussions on this site as to whether music video directors are plagiarizing, appropriating, homaging or simply referencing the work of other artists. Romenek was the king of it and more recently people like Kris Moyes have had the finger pointed at them for it. I'm sure their are many more examples. I don't think Keith has done anything worse than many other directors. The fact that he has made it blatantly obvious as to what he is doing is the point that people are missing here.
THIS IS A BLATANT RIP OFF!!!!
You should be ashamed Schofield. Great way to screw your credibility .
i think the word here, keith, is: BUSTED
KEITH SCHOFIELD MUST DIE
seriously, this is the WORST video I have ever seen in my life!
He should be RAPED, MURDERED, and then RAPED again!!!
Where does he live? Let's go throw rocks at his house!
And then RAPE. And MURDER him.
Merkley, lead the way. You will be our leader!
I bet you are GOOD at delivering JUSTICE!
Seriously, he ripped off a shot of a skateboard on cheeseburgers.
THESE ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES.
rape, murder, etc.
- im glad i was the first to notice something was very rotten about this video and i wanted to say something like 'the emperor's new clothes'; but then i thought to myself - what emperor?
2.@aarvark81 - hahaha
@bryanmatic, ok maybe we're on the same page; (maybe I was too vague) I guess I was saying, yeah I think the jarmusch/godard quote is a valid statement about art by that it doesn't seem applicable here, as the video isn't so much inspired or influenced by the pictures as just quoting them.
I don't feel that he's recontextualitising the quotes either as they assume the context they have on the ffffound website which is none. I just don't think it's the same as being inspired by a photo and using it as a starting block to your own ideas.
I enjoyed the surreal absurdist connections of the video until I realised that NONE of the ideas or images have come from the directors imagination.
I'm with bearkley on this.
Anyway, it's always fun when the coterie visits Antville.
The Hollow Earth - Thom Yorke video from Raymond Salvatore Harmon on Vimeo.
the differ3ence between aknowledging one's sources and stealing: "This is a music video for Thom Yorke's single the Hollow Earth, feature on NME, Pitchfork and Rolling Stone.
Directed by Raymond Salvatore Harmon raymondharmon.com
Featuring works appropriated from Banksy™"
Let not forget that the actual idea to do this video isn't even original. Remember Pork and beans by Weezer? Motion Theory re-created youtube videos, the only difference there is they got the actual artist or web stars to be in the video, so the outcome was genius rather than a failure.
This is made without integrity and without originality, Keith isn't a filmmaker or an artist, Hes a creative director at a viral Ad Agency who goes around stealing ideas from other artists. Im sure you could trace back all his videos to another artist or idea.
I'm sure Schofield is nice, charming and has every good intention in the world, but that doesn't justify being lazy and blatantly stealing from a struggling artist. The pacifist in me doesn't want to go up in arms like Merkley, but he's right. Appropriation, when done well and respectively, can be absolutely brilliant and even surpass what it's taking, borrowing or stealing from. What's important is how you do it and I blame everything Pop that's warped many of your minds. There's a time when it's appropriate and there's many more times when it's lazy, dirty and straight dick. Was Schofield in this case being a dick? I personally don't think he even thought about it and that's exactly wherein lies the problem. If he had he would have been much more clever and/or sensitive about disguising his theft. Hundley has every right in the world to be upset and I'm truly sad that not most of you agree on this. Just because Romanek, Warhol and millions of other very successful artists have made a career of appropriation shouldn't cause the public to accept it blindly. That said, I wish both Schofield & Hundley (could that become their future firm, please?) great success (though I hope Hundley gets the prettier girl).
btw Aaron Stewert Hahn, pull your head out of your ass or should I say "ether".
Keith's treatment read like this...
"I will recreate a series of images that I ffffound on this really cool website."
He had every intention of ripping of those photos...If you want to call it homage, or recreating it doesn't matter, but he def and directly used those images. Im sure he even went as far as to print them out and show them to the art director and said, "Make it look like this..."
Wake up man, just cause you guys are buddies doesn't mean he didn't do it. Don't let your friends off the hook that easy...next thing you know they'll steal your girlfriend (or just make one that looks exactly like her)
i just read the treatment!? it reads like he thought up the ideas???
now i think that is quite bad and a little naughty naughty, no?
do you think he steal all his ideas for videos and tv commercials? i could easily steal some ideas if someone want to give me a job...call me!
The video is really good but I have difficulty buying the artistic appropriation argument when the images are straight copies from the work of other artists. Sure, we can say that almost nothing is ever truly original, however, I'd argue that artists should still avoid directly ripping off work and instead, if someone else's creativity inspires, they should riff of said creativity.
That said, I think I would consider it fair play if an artist took bits and pieces of windows, mac, and other operating system beeps, sounds, and notification noises (corporate in use but still the result of someone's creativity) and then joined them together to create a song. So, I have trouble deciding which side of the fence to come down on with this Schofield video. It seems to me that he is doing something similar.
He took still images that he liked (i.e., artist X takes sounds from several OS'es) and then he combined them in a moving medium to create a new whole (i.e., artist X combines sounds to make an actual song).
Of course, the most obvious difference in my example is that mac, windows, et. al., are large corporations but I don't think the issue is whether you're large or small - the issue is whether the taking is right or wrong.
In the end, Schofield may not actually be wrong but, to me, this kind of straight copying doesn't feel right.
K
I find this particarily hilarious "Just because Romanek, Warhol and millions of other very successful artists have made a career of appropriation shouldn't cause the public to accept it blindly. "
art as we know it would cease to exist. What do you think the general public does other than accept things blindly? Everything you see, A movie or on television had been done before in some way or another, EVERYTHING, and what artists exactly did Schofield rip off (name someone other than hundley) it wasn't art schofield repurposed, it became art once he repurposed it. This video is succesful at it's base which is FINDING art in the random. Do you all really believe that Keith thought he was ripping off an art piece of a skateboard on cheeseburgers? Or do you think that maybe he saw what he thought was a random picture and thought it would make an interesting edit in a video full of random?
Spence, but I guess what's annoying is that he couldn't come up with his own 'random' ideas, from what it sounds like there's not one shot in there that was the directors own idea! That's crazy.
I guess it does work though as a parody of 'ffffound' the hollywood remake, filling these abstract shots with ott emotion and slow-mo.
Seriously how hard could it have been to think up his own abstract images.
Spence, What's truly hilarious is your reading comprehension. We're not talking about a caveman taking his neighbor's creation of fire and turning it into a phoenix. Schofield has taken identical images from a young photographer's portfolio without his permission. Is the context that these images are edited within other random images (that don't belong to the director either) validate the use of them? Fuck no.
What Schofield has mistakenly done, which I believe will continue to be a popular trend, has taken the internet to fully construct an idea. Not everything is for the pickings. To defend it because, "EVERYTHING has been done before" is the most pathetic whine that exists in the art/advertising world. You take your inspirations and turn it into your own. If you think Schofield has succeeded in this, your standards are so incredibly low it's not worth continuing this with you. Sorry . . .
In the end I don't think this should turn into a full out attack on Schofield because he's obviously still growing and should be applauded on how well he's done with the small amount of time he's been around. But, most importantly this shouldn't be twisted into accepting this type of behavior. The beauty of the arts is that it's ALWAYS been a community where ideas one week old can be merged with one a thousand years old. It's then the artist's duty to be responsible and respectful to the author.
Goodness I watch this video every time I catch up on the new comments! And honestly I love it more each time!
Can we vote this in as a classic post yet?!
And to think maybe all of this could've been avoided if Schofield and co. put a title that read "inspired by... or thanks to blank and blank's images for inspiration... or taken from..." at the END of the video a la Romanek/Chili Peppers
checking it out again the skateboard is clearly sitting on hamburgers Not cheeseburgers, als skateboard is a different style and the shot is a moving shot against a rock wall as oposed to a still image against a white wall,
hahahhaa
Merkley has passionately defended W.Hundley and it seems that Merkely's comments are being confused as coming from W.Hundley. Here's looking at you @familiar
@aaron stewart ahn, your diplomacy is appreciated. You're friends with Schofield. That's cool, I'm friends with Hundley. But Hundley says it himself very clearly, "I don’t think it was malicious, but he should have contacted me." I really think that a lot of this heat could have been averted had the video shared the main source of all the images recreated in the credits.
There seem to be a lot of Schofield fanatics here. What Schofield has done here is akin to what Shepard Fairey does in the print & design world. Fairey is known to use copyrighted images as his own without the appropriate rights. There are also a lot of Fairey fanatics(in the world). They let him get a way with wrong-doing because of misguided beliefs and especially because of a misquote that has already been mentioned a couple of times in this thread: Picasso: Good Artists Copy; Great Artists Steal
Because Schofield has transcribed these internet photos into video clips, he seems to be trying to protect himself with "Fair Use." Did he transform the work enough to make it his own?
With multiple uses of one artists work (meaning he has done research in search of the most appropriate images to use), I'm gonna say no he hasn't. Schofield has violated Hundley's copyrighted photos.
But since Hundley is my friend, I'm gonna take another look...
Nobody confused Hundley's comments as coming from Merkley. Hundley (evidently) commented here himself.
Schofield didn't see the images as high "art". I had no idea the images were "art". It's a skateboard on hamburgers. It's a piece of fabric in the air. You see art, I see an internet meme that - on it's own - really doesn't do much for me. But in the context of an image aggregate like fffound, or 4chan, or within this video (the concept of which is to expound on the image aggregate theme), they become more than the sum of their parts.
That is all.
Hundley has stated that he wants "compensation". He has mentioned money. Hey, let the guy go after what he wants.
If Schofield decides to hunt down all the requisite credits and drop them into the end of the video, fine. But you know what? I - and many others - wouldn't care one way or the other. I have no vested interest in Hundley as a friend, and I thought his method for handling this was pretty lame.
The internet seems to have made everyone an "artist", and everything "art". Someone said we don't live in the '90s anymore -- damn straight. Time to move forward, guys. There are a lot of talented artists out there; if it wasn't a skateboard on burgers, it would've been something else. Basically: get over yourselves.
EDIT: Also, to the folks who keep saying Schofield doesn't have his own ideas -- the IDEA behind this was to take found photos and create something from them based on the images within those found photos. It's weird how some people can't wrap their heads around this.
"Schofield didn't see the images as high "art". I had no idea the images were "art". It's a skateboard on hamburgers. It's a piece of fabric in the air. You see art, I see an internet meme that - on it's own - really doesn't do much for me. But in the context of an image aggregate like fffound, or 4chan, or within this video (the concept of which is to expound on the image aggregate theme), they become more than the sum of their parts."
Exactly.
The more I think about this mess, the more I think the conversation should really be about the role that the internet plays in "art", especially work that toes the line between art and silly internet meme.
Are the photos on awkwardfamilyphotos.com art or memes? Are the silly found photos on 4chan art or memes? If it all goes down to the photographers intentionality, does that all go out the window when the photos are recontextualized ad nauseam on a million twitters and tumblrs?
Hundley can be mad if he wants, but his photos were republished (most of the time without credit) all over the internet before Keith probably even saw them. It seems he was only mad when someone took his silly photos and used them to create something incredible.
Taking a photo of a skateboard on cheeseburgers and calling it art is a consciously subversive act. When someone comes along and re-contextualizes your "art" as eerie melodrama, they're playing by the same rules. Asking for money seems to weaken the subversion of the original act.
See, that is a more interesting conversation.
And this Jennifer Jordan woman clearly doesn't watch many music videos: "[ ... ] if famous cindy sherman photos were being recreated [ ... ]"
Been done by Jaron Albertin for Roisin Murphy. (And in a little game of "2 degrees from Cindy Sherman", Schofield did a video for The BPA feat. Byrne, and Byrne is married to Sherman).
I'm guessing the people (including Hundley) making the financial implications don't work in the music industry either.
You know the mention of Cindy Sherman makes me think of this music video. I am wondering if 'stealing' an artist's concept, in this case the artist dressing up as various female icons of popular culture is considered the same as 'stealing' an artist's image?
For me Schofield's video is more about the concept and his selection of images rather than the actual images.
All day I've been thinking about this topic of appropriation. And I can truly understand and emphasize with both sides of the argument here. But this is popular culture. The images are not stolen, they are appropriated. Perhaps remix is a more likable term. The images are surrounded by other images in an entirely new context and format. Perhaps this is just too close for many people but that is the reality.
I don't think there are any real rights or wrongs, no black and white here - popular culture is always in flux, so it would make sense that our attitude about art and borrowing would be as well. I'm quite sure much of the hip hop I grew up with and loved borrowed a ton of material without crediting. Was it wrong?
Since the word stealing has been throw around so much - I wonder if a single person on this site has paid for all of the music on their hard drives. I bet not. And truth told thats also taking from artists. So clearly our opinions about this are a changing thing.
I thought I'd share some interesting links on the this cultural topic of appropriation:
Recent documentary that was on PBS - Rip! A Remix Manifesto: videos.filmintuition.com
and
Interview w/ DJ Spooky on WNYC in promotion of his book which deals with remixing culture: www.wnyc.org
Budget and Familiar have really put what ive been trying to say into eloquent terms. I just remembered the scene in Ghost World @ the gallery with the found art. Going deeper; are the people who found certain images and show them on their respected websites now artists?
@familiar:
you say: "the IDEA behind this was to take found photos and create something from them based on the images within those found photos."
There's no evidence that this was the directors intent, in the boardsmag interview he says: “I thought the best video in the world would be one where you just cut to a different, crazy scene",
He doesn't describe the concept as you have.
Neither does he writer of the article: "The concept comes from the random imagery Schofield encounters on websites such FFFFound! and blogging platform Tumblr."
He just suggests that Schofield is influenced by seeing lots of images out of context and not that his whole idea was to add up and dramatise his favourite memes.
This is something we've read into it. Maybe he did intend it to be a hollywood adaptation of ffffound, maybe he just thought he could convince people he had a great absurdist imagination.
Personally I didn't recognise any of the images or quotes so I my first impression was 'wow some pretty cool surreal imagery and so many ideas'. So you can see that it kind of sucks to find that none of the images were invented by his mind, and then to have people say 'who cares, he thought to put the images together'.
The fact that there's more than one cut is also quite disconcerting.
Maybe Schofield should've made an interactive version and we all make our own cuts of the video, I think that'd be even more apt.
Anyway, no one here knows of Schofield's intent with the video. So....
Read his treatment. It was linked from the Boards article. It's right here.
[ animatic redacted ]These are all funny and bizarre found photos I've collected over the years. I'm not implying that we would necessarily recreate these literally, but this is the randomness I would love to capture. Of course, in our final version, everything will be live action shots, not still images.
It will be a mix of slice-of-life scenes, surreal scenarios and bad science fiction. When I see these photos, I wonder "Wow, what a weird photo. I wonder what the story was behind this shot?" And just like that, we're cutting to the next scene.
There is often more than one cut of a video. The label, the band, and the director don't always see eye-to-eye. When working with an artist at the level of Gainsbourg, you will be forced to deal with major label marketing types, and label managers who are intent on getting "involved" with the creative process. It happens all the time. There is nothing disconcerting about it (well, except for the director who has to deal with it).
You missed out the start:
"My idea for "Heaven Can Wait" is to do a video where we cut to a radically different scene every 2-3 seconds. Over the course of 3 minutes, that will be about 60 different self-contained scenes. It will be completely bizarre, funny, random and like nothing anyone has ever seen.
I put together a very rough animatic of what it might look like."
Man, that doesn't read to me as "I've collected funny and bizarre found photos over the years, we would recreate these photos literally".
To me the treatment reads like he sold it to them as completely original ("like nothing anyone has ever seen"), and not we'll recreate well-known found photos and insert emotion where there wasn't originally.
It seems to me that he just uses the found photos in the treatment as an example to explain his no-context vignette concept and not the recreation of found photos as the concept.
I get the feeling he wanted to make un chien andalou as directed by paul thomas anderson, but then couldn't be bothered to come up with his own imagery.
And why has he written the second piss-take treatment then?
My understanding comes from someone who talked to him about the treatment. Whatever you want to read into the words and take from it, is your choice. My initial interpretation (prior to the joke treatment being put up, and prior to me discussing it with someone who had talked to him) was already in line with what I was told. That said, it's second hand information so take it with a grain of salt.
I read it as "these are the kinds of images we'll use. But these aren't the exact images." He also talks about how they won't all be direct recreations.
I would also like to point out that concepts do change between treatment and execution. Maybe that happened here. Or maybe his intentions just aren't clear enough. At this point, do I think it would be worth it for Schofield to respond? I would say no, but maybe he will.
The second treatment was a joke. I guess some people are very rigid in their thinking and/or didn't find it funny.
I realise the second treatment was a joke, I just asked why would he post it.
I also realise concepts change between mind, paper and the shoot, but to go from "I'm not implying that we would necessarily recreate these literally" to the finished video is quite something.
Although, I guess maybe they liked his treatment and asked him to recreate well known ones for internet geeks to have fun pointing out.
I guess we'll never know.
I do like the video, it's well executed, but I just found it annoying that the images are nothing but homages and re-creations, when initially I was excited by the imagination of it all.
The fact that none of the shots look like internet photos, but actual slices from actual blockbuster films show Keith is no hack. You can all claim he ripped off a particular artist or several but the fact remains this video is pretty spectacular, in a technical way, an emotional way, and a passionate way (as this thread demonstrates, any, one know how many similar threads there are?). Also people are starting to get a little carried away with claiming that nearly ALL the shots were lifted from the web (id like to see someone do a shot for shot display). But knowing the process of mv's and filmmaking in general this all was no small feet to pull off. There are more LEGITIMATE setups in this video than any ever made i would risk saying. Practically each shot is a new setup and in some ways im sure it was harder to make stupid internet photos look that good than it is to think of a random shot and making it look good.
@gregsinora
"I do like the video, it's well executed, but I just found it annoying that the images are nothing but homages and re-creations, when initially I was excited by the imagination of it all."
Indeed.
Well I liked it better because the images were homages and re-creations. I felt that gave the video more of a voice, and more of a concept. Then again, I'm not a big fan of straight up absurdist and surrealist imagery these days -- it generally bores the hell out of me. Maybe it's because I'm getting old.
Strangely enough I completely agree with you familiar. Who would have thought...
it doesn matter what schofield presumably thought about these random images. someone must've created them, and they deserve to be credited. its not like the internet itself created these images and waited for schofield to fffffind them and get the full credit. i wonder what people would've said about this shot by shot 'appropriation' if these photos had been created by some famous artists. to me, it doesnt matter where you steal from - its theft nonetheless. this video, together with that one that ripped off 'holy mountain' are the most blatant cases of directors capitalizing and cashing in on other's people art. (by the way, remmber what the game companies had to say about the machinima creators' appropriation of visual renderers and digital assets.) fucking parasites.
so everyone here who's casting stones has never downloaded an album, watched a copyright violation youtube clip, set artful images they didn't create themselves as wallpaper or posted them as jpgs to facebook or attached it in an email, listened to a mashup, quoted lines of dialogue from a movie, recut a scene in a film... again, the notion of what a work of fine art is part of how it's mediated.
if you want to see why there's a director's cut, just watch the label's version. simple as that. i think it'd be funny to make a short film about the bizzare hydra mediated version of Keith Schofield you've assembled here by taking his quotes in boardsmag way too seriously.
The endless visual references around us redirect, join, blow and improve the spontaneus creations in our minds.
To me, the video is mediocre.
Schofield should have told William Hundley, because his appropiation is just an accurate copy, not inspirational.
I copy and paste photos in my blog, connecting different images without saying where they come from. But I do say they aren't mine.
hey check out this video i found of keith schofield portrayed by a major hollywood star
@asa: " everyone here who's casting stones has never downloaded an album,... quoted lines of dialogue from a movie... "
what kind of fallacy is this? it's beyond hilarious
^^^^ agreed. congratulations asa that may be the dumbest comment I've ever read on antville
so personal private selfish entitlement is justification for repurposing cultural artifacts that can now be exchanged and replicated in ways never before conceived, but anyone else who does so creatively is a parasite? are hip hop artists parasites for sampling rock songs in ways the songwriters never intended? this whole debate is already dead, settled by what's been made possible.
You're missing the point.
When hip hop artist sample a song they pay the original artist royalties and put their names as credit in the liner notes of the album.
I'm not hating on Keith because it's only a crime if you get caught. But what he did is essentially the same as finding a great demo song by an unsigned/unknown band. Re-recording it in a professional studio with a much higher production value. Then putting out the song as if he created it completely himself.
I realize the mediums of photography and video are different but in this case I don't think enough is added to justify that argument.
@asa: cultural appropriation and repurposing cultural artifacts is me trying to grow a black man's dick (i'm caucasian ) or me knotting my hair in dreadlocks. first and foremost it's borrowing, and not stealing in some cases, giving them a whole new meaning (marcel duchamp? now, going back to this schofield guy, what culture does he borrow from, this time? and what new context does he put the photos into? besides, its not like he had to aknowledge the countless individuals that shape a culture, but a bunch of lesser known artists whom he's stolen from. what if instead of photos, it would've been shoes? or dresses? would you then tell schofield to stop parading them around?
and yeah, even good ole dre had to pay royalties
Keith Schofield = Girl Talk?
okay, lets get this straight...
its a skateboard... ontop of cheesburgers...
ontop of a bunch of cheeseburgers, a fricken skateboard was placed...
4 wheels, 4 burgers, each wheel sat atop its own burger...
its a large piece of fabric, with the person jumping inside of it... photoshopped out.
...no wonder hudley makes no money, i'd love to hear what someone like Ben Lewis would say about his work... rip its to shread's no doubt.
...calling Schofield a 'master of transgressive nonsense" is a bit of a stretch, no?
If he has any decency, Schofield HAS to add a shout-out a la Romanek / Chili Peppers... Because after all it's HIS name that is on the credits.
lots of interesting dialogue here about Art in the Internet Age, but i'm just amazed he got away with a treatment that said:
"This won't really work as a 1 or 2 day shoot; it needs to be a 10 day shoot."
truly a testament to K's ability to bring confidence to a project. if i wrote that in a treatment my producers would hunt me down and shoot me in the streets like a dog.
Hi antville, apologies for the delay. It has taken me a long time to write this up because I want to express myself clearly in the first pass; and there is a ton of ground to cover.
I sent an email to William Hundley a few days ago about this situation. Below is the same letter I wrote to him, rewritten in the third person to address the antville audience and elsewhere.
First off, I wanted to say I read antville everyday and I'm a huge music video fan. After toiling in obscurity for years, I can't tell you how happy I was when my videos started receiving more than a handful of comments. People always argue about good and bad work; but the worst thing that can happen to a video is it gets ignored. So, positive and negative comments, I'm glad people are watching.
Anyway, this video has sparked a long conversation and I owe it to everyone to tell my side of the story. So here it is, in a concise 2,495 word statement.
I've been a fan of found photos for a long time. In the pre-Internet area, a found photo was a snapshot you might find at a thrift store or flea market. It was some random family photo, of people you've never known from some bygone era. The appeal of the photo is the mystery. Why was it taken? Where are these people now? Why was this photo abandoned? Often, a finder would be left to imagine their own stories.
Online, found photos have evolved to cover all sorts of imagery: scanned photos, digital photos, photoshops, video stills, advertisements, art projects. But it's the same appeal – there is no context, and thus the viewer is left to imagine his own backstory.
The first site I found years ago was called 'what a quiet stiff.' It was the found photo collection of a Ruby programmer called _why. He unfortunately removed his entire archive online a few months ago; but I fortunately downloaded his entire collection. You can see a massive folder of his stuff here.
What I loved about why's site was that it was all very amateurish. Heavy on kitsch and tackiness. Look at the images of bad 3D. Or hilarious kid's drawings. Or bizarre photoshops.
And as I began my music video career, I looked through his site looking for inspiration. My first video inspired by a picture was for Death Cab for Cutie (for the Directions DVD). This was the image, the treatment, and the video.
keithschofield.com keithschofield.com keithschofield.com
I post all my treatments online, and I've never tried to hide the fact that I was inspired by a photo I didn't create myself. I'm also pretty sure that the person who took that photo was not the first person to do that, nor the last.
And as I continued to pitch on videos, I found myself scouring the Internet for new sources of found photos - like ffffound.com, and foundphotos (which scans file sharing networks for people's personal photos).
ffffound.com www.foundphotos.net
Found photos have even gone low-brow with fun (yet junky) sites like Explain this Image and Picture is Unrelated.
explainthisimage.com pictureisunrelated.com
I have about 3000 photos in a big folder on my desktop. Often when I get a music track in, I'll scroll through the pictures and see if anything sticks.
However, most of these images – as amazing and quirky as they are – aren't really the basis for a 3 minute music video. A photo like this is amazing...
...but what are you going to do with it? The whole band playing instruments with dollheads in their shirts? That's not a good idea.
And so, about a year ago, I was flipping through my folder while listening to a song, and I thought: the best music video in the world would be one where it was just a series of incredible, surreal scenes. Each scene would be vastly different, and we would never repeat the same scene.
In July of this year I was miraculously given the opportunity to do my dream concept. And with two amazing artists, no less. The budget allowed for multiple shoot days, the video wasn't due for months, and Charlotte liked my idea. And so, I began to work on ideas, by diving right into my found photo folder.
The great thing about this video was that the only requirement was that every shot was different. We found a bizarre mansion in the valley where every room looked like it came from a completely different place. We shot scenes at a ranch in Malibu that had a barn, a baseball field, a banquet room and a cow. On our third day we hopped in a van and drove to various places around LA.
I wrote scenes based on props and costumes we had access to. My friend, fellow director Josh Forbes has an amazing monster mask he used for his Myriad video, and I borrowed it for a bathtub scene. Various props are leftover from other video shoots I've done.
So yes, it was supposed to be completely random. And any shot could have been anything else. But this video was my love letter to found photos. And I wanted to faithfully recreate some of my favorites.
Which leads us to the works of William Hundley. Specifically, the "Skateboard on Cheeseburgers" shot.
I found that skateboard cheeseburger shot on some random website years ago. I thought it was funny so I threw it in my folder of found photos, and then saw it every time I looked through the pictures.
I always loved it. It made absolutely no sense. I imagined it was the work of a skateboarding teen who took the photo as some elaborate inside joke. I imagined this guy going to McDonalds and buying 8 cheeseburgers, setting them up and taking a photo. And then going skateboarding.
That's why I loved this photo. No context, so I could make up my own. Had I known that it was from a real artist and part of a series for an art exhibit, I never would have included it in the video. It wouldn't fit with the rest of the images, being comprised of found photos created by non artists.
I feel really conflicted about the whole thing. It cheapens the work and distracts from the other shots in the video. I know that some people who originally liked the video think less of it now. However, I can't quite regret my decision, because it was completely naïve. I saw a single photo of a skateboard on cheeseburgers, with absolutely no context, on a random website years ago – and assumed it was not the work of a professional artist. Whatever one thinks about my methods, I hope they can at least accept that explanation.
It was very sloppy and ignorant on my part to assume the photo was a found image. We should have looked into this and I regret that we didn't. I apologize.
But my motivations for using it were the furthest thing from anything malicious. I couldn't tell you how happy I was to put a skateboard on 8 cheeseburgers. It was so fun to recreate a photo I loved in real life, to film it, and to look at the confused expressions from the rest of the crew. Oh, and I ate two of the cheeseburgers afterwards!
Now – onto the Floating Cloth photo:
This one would fall under the category of images that were inspired by found photos, but not a direct recreation.
I should have realized it was done by an artist. It didn't have the same kitschiness as the other shots. It was artistic and beautifully photographed. The mistake I made was that I looked at floating cloth picture and thought "that would look cool in a music video."
It's just like the holding the sun shot. I saw something cool that spoke to me, and I wanted to do something similar. The one I used as a reference took place in an empty backyard.
The idea for the scene is that this bald guy (in the lower right) is at dinner. He's been continually haunted by a massive floating quilt that only he can see – like his own Harvey. He's transfixed as it appears again. Meanwhile, in the background, a young Italian man does a slinky dance while wearing a Cosby sweater.
Okay, sounds kind of stupid when you have to write it out. But that was the idea for the scene.
Now, what stinks is that two works by one artist were referenced in the video. I assure you, it's purely a coincidence – I had never been to Hundley's site before I saw the link on antville. But it's easy to understand how he could have many of his works pop up on found photo sites. He's got great ideas. I can see why they've gotten spread around the Internet.
But the video is out, and all I can do is explain my motivations. I'm not trying to defend the video – if you don't like it because of those two shots, I really can't convince you otherwise. It can't be un-released. I just want to make it clear that there was no malicious intent. I pride myself on coming with original ideas, and the idea here – 50 random scenes, never repeating, inspired by found photos – was an idea that I thought was good and original. I still do. But when a few of those photos are clearly not found photos – the intention suffers. And then the entire piece, and all the time and work that goes into it – gets cheapened.
And so, I apologize to you, Hundley. I should have looked into this and contacted you before the video was released.
Now, the fake treatment:
After the video was done, I thought it would be funny to write a fake treatment based on the final result.
The video was pitched as "we're gonna shoot a bunch of totally different crazy scenes!!" The whole fun of this project was that I had no idea how the final video would look. We changed up a lot of stuff as went along. There was no continuity, no story - so nothing could be out of place.
After it was finished, a few people commented that they found it a bit frusturating that they couldn't figure out what it was all supposed to mean. The idea popped in my head that it was based on the insane ramblings of an mental patient. And so I decided to write a fake treatment in character as a crazy person.
The joke here is that no commissioner in a million years would EVER greenlight a treatment like this. It is completely incoherent and impossibly pretentious. On top of that, the photos have absolutely nothing to do with the treatment. Clipse? Fruit Roll-Ups? Patton Oswalt???
I post all my treatments online, and they're very clear in explaining whatever gimmick I'm pitching. This video was something of a departure for my style, and I thought viewers may have wondered how one goes about pitching such a weird video. I often think this when I see works by guys like Jaron Albertin or Andreas Nilsson: "Amazing video - but what the hell did they write in their treatment?" I think so literally with music videos that I have a hard time conceiving how a director would pitch something abstract.
The other joke is that the treatment was so specific, it would perhaps appear that I had every single shot and detail planned far in advance. This would have been insanely expensive. The truth is, a good chunk of the shots were improvised on the spot. The latino 50s teenagers were watching us film the breakdancer scene, so we handed them a giant walnut and filmed a shot. To cast guys like that, do the wardrobe, etc- would have cost money. But they just walked on the set, and the shot was virtually free.
I thought the joke was obvious. I included statements like: "Side note: maybe we should include a some links to articles following the video? Or maybe a discussion sheet that teachers could use in their classroom?"
The intention was always to play a joke on the people who take an interest in the work and want to see how it was done. It was NEVER to try and claim that I invented all these images. The problem is that people unfamiliar with the treatment process won't get it. One twitterer hilariously wrote:
cpualani: reading the treatment for keith schofield's music video is making me really, genuinely angry. he gives me the sickness in the worst way.
"oh, here's a random image i got from fffound, and here's a BS paragraph of run-on sentences on what i' say it 'means.'" then, he jerks it.
.... anyway, I thought it was funny. I still do. But the joke is ruined when there's controversy about the origin of the shots. And so, the real treatment is here, as it was posted on boards:
So again, I'd like to reiterate. The joke treatment was a poorly timed joke. It was in no way an attempt to take credit for inventing every single shot.
....
That's basically it. I could continue on about my opinion on the nature of the Internet, or what defines a found photo, or comparisons to other works that I think this is or isn't like. But everyone's got an opinion, and to some degrees it's all subjective. I just wanted to give my side of the story.
....
After receiving a response from Hundley, I added his name to my website's credits.
And right now we're reaching out to boards, Creativity and shots with a new credit list, that would go something like this:
Charlotte Gainsbourg & Beck "Heaven Can Wait"
Director: Keith Schofield Director of Photography: Damian Acevedo Production Designer: Megan Fenton, Philip Godwin Stylist: Jacquelyn Moran
"Skateboard on Cheeseburgers" and "Floating Cloth" shots inspired by the work of William Hundley
Line Producer, LA: Nick Diaz Producer, Paris: Jules Dieng Production Company: caviar, Los Angeles; El Niño, Paris Executive Producers: Michael Sagol, Tom Weissferdt, Emmanuel Guiraud
Editor: Keith Schofield Telecine: Dave Hussey Compositing: Brandon Parvini
Commissioner: Nathalie Canguilhem Record Label: Because Music
....
So again; I'm not really trying to debate a person's opinion of the video; just trying to explain how this all came to be, and set things right with Hundley.
Thanks everyone.
-Keith Schofield.
Mucho props for explaining your side of the story Keith
Nice one Keith.
yeah. cheers. good to read.....
for some reason this reminds me the kevin smith film, can't remember the name but j and silent bob read a review about themselves online. a bad one. so they go and find these people, knock on doors...to get their own back... funny
a director that post his treatments online isnt trying to hide anything. i for one thank you for being so open about things. it helps me learn.
Hmmm..... Can't you come up with a bunch of incoherent/fun/surreal/nonsensical situations using your own imagination? I know ones' creative mind is always clouded and inspired by other works of art/random images... But in this case it's too much copy/paste action for my taste... Props on the success tho. :)
keith schofield = thierry henry hundley = the irish nation
this explanation = henry saying he thinks the game shoulda been replayed AFTER fifa had said it wouldn't be.
Actually, i never thought it was a very big deal. Crediting hundley for those 2 shots is all that needed to be done, so case closed.
And i also don't think Henry's handball was a big deal. Robbie Keane attempted 2 or 3 handballs in front of goal during that game. Only difference is he got caught.
keith schofield = thierry henry i already said that (and i dont mean only this video, but diesel xxx as well - how much he borrowed from paloma blanco)
but its good to see the man owned up to the 'appropriation' in such a polite manner it feels good to be fighting for the just cause
sorry legion, you did say it first. i guess i'm thierry henry for ripping off your thierry henry joke.
except actually, it was an hommage to your joke, not a rip-off. And i didn't think the joke belonged to anyone. i just found it on the internet and put it in a folder on my desktop.
HAHAHAHAHAAA
So is everyone happy now? will you be able to sleep at night?
right, then: classicked.
well it was good to see ks posted. and for those of you who think this isn't infringement or want to continue to quote jarmusch or want to claim that it's-just-a-skateboard-on-cheeseburgers-how-do-i-know-its-art, a court would certainly disagree with you.
the art rogers vs jeff koons case is a good example: "The Court found both "substantial similarity" and that Koons had access to the picture. The similarity was so close that the average lay person would recognize the copying. Thus the sculpture was found to be a copy of Rogers' work." en.wikipedia.org
and for some clarity - it's a relatively stupid photo of some dogs on a couples laps that koons turned into a sculpture. they sued. koons lost. norcal.gag.org
as an artist/imagemaker/whatever, ks should have known better. every image out there was made by someone - and you'd best find out who before you mimic it ("Changing the media or varying details will not avoid infringement").
ks is lucky he doesn't get sued.
a short email-interview about the video from spex, in german: www.spex.de
haha! the guy with cereal in the bathtub looks like this photo i took in college:
Keith Schofield put up a fake website with a fake biography and many ffffound images. So funny!
don't think thats a joke. just a different guy.
japanese article; previous mv-originality debate elsewhere.
What is amazing is that you are all adding to Popculture by adding comments. The vid becomes more worth the more you discuss.
I suggest to watching "Rabbit in your headlight" UNKLE directed by Glazer once more. That is some original imagery. S
ooohh theres a bit more PO(o)P. I think a generation of filmmakers are turning into researchers anyway. Homage, reference and to pay attribute to, has a difrent meaning with internet as a tool. But it is still pretty amazing what you can find at your local library and book store. (And D5 is the new Super-8 - (Hey thats my quote!!!!! by S.S.S)
ks speaks to p4k.
Still the best video of its kind.
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