The Finalists!

once again, the 'ville hath spoken - the following are the hive-selected nominees for the official antville Music Video Awards 2009.

DIRECTORS & PRODUCTION COMPANIES: PLEASE DO NOT POST BLOGS OR FACEBOOKS OR TWITTERS IMPLORING FANS TO "PLEASE VOTE FOR ME!" This is not a contest to see who has the most friends who can vote for them, but rather an objective poll for fans who regularly watch music videos here on antville.

most fun video
Kasabian "Vlad The Impaler" Dir: Richard Ayoade
Lily Allen - "Fuck You" (Dir: AB/BC/DC)
Metronomy - "A Thing For Me" (Dir: Megaforce)
Sour - Hibi No Neiro (Dirs. M. Kawamura, H. Kirkland, M. Nakamura & M. Nakamura)
Tiga "Shoes" Dir: AlexandLiane
best animated video
Air "Sing Sang Sung" Dir. Petra Mrzyk & François Moriceau
Coldplay "Strawberry Swing" Dir. Shynola
Flairs - Truckers Delight Dir. Jérémie Périn
NASA « A Volta » directed by Logan
Oren Lavie - Her Morning Elegance Dir. Oren Lavie, Yuval & Merav Nathan
best performance video
Animal Collective - "My Girls" Dir. Jon Vermilyea
Beast “Mr. Hurricane” dir. Benjamin Steiger Levine
Grizzly bear - Two weeks (Patrick Daughters)
Kanye West - Welcome To Heartbreak (Dir.: Nabil)
Two Door Cinema Club - I Can Talk Dir. Megaforce
best narrative video
Depeche Mode - Wrong (Dir. Patrick Daughters)
Mum - "Sing Along" (Director: Kevin Phillips)
Oasis - Falling Down - dir. WIZ
Oh No Ono "Swim" Dir. Adam Hashemi
Poni Hoax - Antibodies - dir. Danakil
Hype Williams Award (for Best Mainstream rap video)
Ciara – Work Dir. Melina
Kanye West- "Welcome To Heartbreak" (dir: Nabil)
Kid Cudi - Day and night directed by So-Me
Kid Cudi - Make Her Say Dir. NEZ
MIMS "Move (If You Wanna)" dir. Keith Schofield
best choreography
Lady Gaga - Bad Romance Dir. Francis Lawrence, Choreographer: Laurie Ann Gibson
Peter Björn & John - It Don't Move Me - dir. Andreas and Filip Nilsson
The Presets - If I know you (Dir. & Choreographer: Eva Husson)
Franz Ferdinand - "No You Girls" Dir. Nima Nourizadeh, Choreographer: Steven Hoggett
best art direction
Charlotte Gainsbourg & Beck - Heaven Can Wait - dir. Keith Schofield, PD: Megan Fenton & Philip Godwin
Department of Eagles - No One Does It Like You - Dir. Patrick Daughters, PD: Jeff Everett
Mum - Sing Along Dir. Kevin Phillips, PD: Erin Staub & Megan Fenton
Yeasayer - Amblin' Alp dir. Radical Friend, PD: Megan Fenton
best editing
Chairlift - Evident Utensil Dir. Ray Tintori, Editor: Bob Weisz
Franz Ferdinand - Ulysses Dir. ThirtyTwo, Editor: Mason Storm
Röyksopp - This Must Be It Dir. Andreas Nilsson
Mum - "Sing Along" Dir: Kevin Phillips. Editor: Kevin Phillips and Eli Born
best cinematography
Depeche Mode - "Wrong" Dir: Patrick Daughters, DP: Shawn Kim
Fever Ray - "If I Had a Heart" Dir: Andreas Nilsson, DP: Jallo Faber
Fever Ray - When I grow Up - dir: Martin De Thurah, DP: Kasper Tuxen
Glasvegas - "Flowers and Football Tops" dir: Martin De Thurah, DP: Lasse Frank Johannessen
Teenagers In Tokyo - Black Bones - dir. Rhett Dashwood, DP: Ari Wegner
best unknown/unsigned director
Danakil
Jesse Ewles
MasashiKawamura & Hal Kirkland & Magico Nakamura & Masayoshi Nakamura (the Sour guys)
Kevin Phillips

best new director

Danakil
Megaforce
Kevin Phillips
Radical Friend
Special Problems

director of the year

Patrick Daughters
Megaforce
Andreas Nilsson
Keith Schofield
Martin de Thurah

best music video of the year

Charlotte Gainsbourg feat. Beck - Heaven Can Wait Dir. Keith Schofield
Depeche Mode "Wrong" Dir. Patrick Daughters
Kanye West - Welcome To Heartbreak Dir. Nabil
Poni Hoax - Antibodies Dir. Danakil
The Presets - If I know you (Dir. Eva Husson)

Voting will close on Christmas Day!

         

         

Someting's wrong with the poll system. It doesn't validate my votes...

         

Oh come on! What the fuck is that Nabil / Kanye video and that Presets / Husson video doing in the best videos of the year!!

Not to mention that Poni Hoax one.

I mean I liked the Poni Hoax and The Presets video's but they were no where near among the best videos of the year.

Also Special Problems have been making videos for atleast 3 years. I don't really see how they are new.

... and isn't Danakil signed?

There are some serious problems here and thats just to name a few. I can't be bothered voting. This is a sham.

         

no disrespect to whoever's putting this together (& i'm in no place to get mad seeing as i didn't nominate) but i'm with kansas on this one.

i mean, look at these 'ville.2k 2009 best of the DECADE winners (aside from Wrong) that'd be more worthy nom'd for best mv of the year...

15) Wrong
27) If I Had a Heart (!)
39) Shoes
41) Strawberry Swing
60) Life in Techicolor
73) Two Weeks
75) Heartbreaker
92) Evident Utensil
100)Treat Me Like Your Mother

...let alone 'ville faves Hickey Underworld (!!), This Must Be It (!), Mum (!), Major Lazer, Oh No Ono, Under the Pines, Metronomy, (or a handful of worthy animated videos).

i know, i know, i shoulda nom'd (woulda if i coulda :( )... & i won't be too mad seeing as either Schofield's or Daughters' deserving vids will inevitably get best of the year (tho Nabil's is good too), but, like the Oscars, it's the nom's that count, right?

edit: or, maybe i'm wrong, and ppl really love all those nominees, 'cuz as of now, the results are almost neck-n-neck. jeez, i'm voting.

         

kansas, I agree about the Presets and Poni Hoax videos - I'd love to hear someone come up and defend these.

Nabil's Kanye video is awesome, though! Definitely one of the best of the year. It's inevitable that one of the datamosh videos would make it, no?

I would swap out those last 2 with Nilsson's Fever Ray, Megaforce's Metronomy, the Hickey Underworld, maybe the Mum video - then I think that would b a pretty good representation of the most loved clips of the year.

But what can ya do, every year's gonna have a "Crash" in it. As long as it doesn't win best picture....

         

I voted for the Presets video. It doesn't have any fancy effect tricks or quirky viral stuff, but I thought the synergy between the music and image was well done. Plus ballet school kids get so few props. :D

         

Hickey Underworld and Major Lazer being absent is absurd.

         

i find the presets video quite weak. its ballsy to put ballet in an indie/electro video, but it comes across as quite pretentious. in the same realm, that RJD2 vid by joey garfield way better.

HOWEVER, there's so few female directors in this industry. Nice to see one getting noticed.

         

Best video of the year: Hickey Underworld
Best edit: Jennifer Lopez directed by Akerlund, Mum
Best cinematography: Hickey Underworld (Nicolas Karakasanis), Mum (Kevin Phillips)
Best newcomer: Megaforce
Best unsigned: Kevin Phillips
Most Fun: Metronomy
Best Art Direction: Yeasayer
Hype Williams award to: Kanye, Make her say
Best Animated: Evident Utensil, Major Lazer

And why not a category for Best female director....? Melina, Eva Husson, Kinga, etc

         

Um I agree with everything said above. I know "awards" did a lot of work trying to tally the nominees in a fair way but I would suggest revamping this list with two changes:
1) For the best video of the year take out Presets or Poni Hoax and swap it with Hickey Underworld after all it did get more votes that either video (they were discarded as "new account votes" for reasons that we discussed beforehand).
2) Danakil is signed, take them out of the unsigned category to give the other guys a chance (by the way isn't it weird that danakil is close to winning 4[!] categories right now?)

As much as I'd like to see a really strong fifth contender for best video of the year it's not worth messing with at this point. If people wanted it they should have nominated, Hickey Underworld is the only one that actually got the votes.

If you ("awards") want to change the list do it now before the voting gains momentum. Otherwise fuck it, nothing's perfect. Thanks by the way.

         

lusk, why didn't you post your nominations earlier? You guys could have had your precious Hickey Underworld in there.

For everyone's bitching that the video should have been in, why didn't anyone nominate it? Only otc actually put it in his nomination. That, plus 3 votes from a bunch of garbage accounts (commishme, bob.k, and disco stick) that might as well have been Joe Vanhoutggen himself. Or his production company. Or otc. It wasn't too hard to see how certain videos were doing and then adjust your nominations to push something over the edge before the nominations were closed.

Presets and Poni Hoax actually got 3 votes each from regular or semi-regular contributors. That's better than the Depeche Mode and Kanye West videos.

Danakil may be signed in France, but is he signed in the US? In London? If so, is he "known"? I don't think most people have heard of him. If you don't think he should win the category, don't vote for him.

         

"It wasn't too hard to see how certain videos were doing"

By doing a word search, I noticed Hickey was in there like 18 times. Wareheim was in there 7 times. Thus I wasn't worrying about them being left out. I was not aware some of these were "garbage accounts."

My bad for being too busy that week I guess.

         

BITCH,
BITCH,
BITCH,

Great job pulling it together from the members that contributed, obviously a THANKLESS task.
As for any one else, PFFT.

Don't necessarily agree with the finalists here as "the Best", but it's a process & a popularity contest at that. Keep kicking myself for not remembering worthy candidates that could have fit into any number of categories:
videos.antville.org
videos.antville.org
videos.antville.org
Just to name a few.

The meager number of votes in these things vs. the large critical response is indicative of the lack of actual participation on this site. There are way more nay sayers than actual contributors.
Because THAT'S easy.

Concerned parties COULD always make there own lists to post. It'd be more democratic anyway. Hell, do your own election. Made a top 100 of the decade after I felt some stuff had been grossly over looked earlier this year. Probably won't post it due to the EFFORT required, but then again I'm not bitching or debating the outcome.

Just keep counting.

         

so sorry to see the 'ville choosing to bitchfest on the awards. it's fucking tough enough to get you all rounded up - give 'wards some credit for taking it upon hisself! as regards skewed nominations, you all have nobody to blame but your own lazy arses. plus: stuffed noms will get voted out, or else stick out like sore penises and be called out just the same - so why are you all getting your undies in a twist? get active before, when there was time to. and if it's bitching you need, i dunno, fucking twitter it.

         

antvilleawards: you're absolutely right. I didn't send in my noms and it's my fault. Much respect for putting this together. Nods.

         

Just watched the Hickey video. Good stuff. :) Should have gone in the "most fun" category I think. So it goes.

         

jeez prog. never seen you swear like this before. you alright mate? everything cool at home?

         

and best foreign language nominees? no?

         

it's that i can never quite grok why the labour o' love that some put in here gets so readily pissed on. (tho i do know who to fault - for having done too much by m'self&i.)

         

I'm not pissing on the person who put this together. Good job and yes I was absent from nomination. However I think there's something askew here especially since so many people agree with me. Whatever... progosk is right we should just vote and get rid of all of the anomalies.

BTW Nabil's data mosh vid for Kanye is lazy. I would rate Evident Utensil over that one but given a choice I wouldn't vote any of the data mosh videos into the best video of the year category.

         

Should The Hickey Underworld video be eligible for the Best Video category?

	Yes, since it got more than enough votes.
	No, some votes are better than others.
vote Results

         

         

meanwhile, promonews'pick
www.promonews.tv
maybe it's easier to make decisions alone by yourself than to waddle democratically.
antvilleawards ought to call the shots, regardless of 'villeans interventions as long as the votes are alright.

         

^ Democracy by committee never satisfies, one thing legion n' me can agree on....
lusk's suggestion 'Best female director' is a category that should be included in any future awards

         

@Capt., HA! Very nice.

RE: BEST FEMALE. Not opposed, but WHY?
Not trying to over think it but isn't the distinction in & of itself a bit sexist?
Kinda, "Pretty good...FOR A GIRL." What's the deal? Could be construed as diminutive. Perhaps some of the female users here could validate the idea.
Kansas, Mandy Warhol ?

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE would be nice for sure as we see so much work from all over the place & some of it quite nice. Ya know, for a bunch of foreigners.
;)

         

is it too much to ask that, considering this is a respectable and authentic 'awards' pole, that we could be providd withe the actual PEOPLE who are nominated in each catagory.

ie. the names of the editors, choreographers, art directors, dops etc?

its a bit rude and a little amatuer that these names are ommited, dont you think?

         

^ I agree 100% give the credit when the credit is due. If it's a tech award, give it to the person responsible for it.

Abolish the thought of a "best female" director guys. This is incredibly ridiculous. Men or women it doesn't matter. A good director is good director.

Oh Antville. Let's just stick to music videos please.

         

Awesome! Who wants to track down all the credits? I'll repost the updated links.

         

DPs
Depeche Mode - "Wrong" Shawn Kim
Fever Ray - "If I Had a Heart" Jallo Faber
Fever Ray - "When I Grow Up" Kasper Tuxen
Glasvegas - "Flowers and Football Tops" Lasse Frank Johannessen
Teenagers In Tokyo - "Black Bones" Ari Wegner

Editors
Chairlift - "Evident Utensil" Bob Weisz
Franz Ferdinand - "Ulysses" Mason Storm
Röyksopp - "This Must Be It" ?
Mum - "Sing Along" ?

Production Designers
Charlotte Gainsbourg & Beck - "Heaven Can Wait" Megan Fenton & Philip Godwin
Department of Eagles - "No One Does It Like You" Jeff Everett
Mum - "Sing Along" Erin Staub & Megan Fenton
Yeasayer - "Amblin' Alp" Megan Fenton

Choreographers
Lady Gaga - "Bad Romance" Laurieann / Laurie Ann Gibson
Peter Bjorn & John - "It Don't Move Me" ?
The Presets - "If I Know You" Eva Husson
Franz Ferdinand - "No You Girls" Steven Hoggett

         

Mum "Sing Along" was edited by Kevin Phillips

         

the inimitable kayser...

         

nice work

         

Röyksopp - "This Must Be It"
Ed: Andreas Nilsson

         

Múm "Sing Along" was indeed edited by the director, Kevin Phillips. With some visual effects by Eli Born. Thanks for the nom. TEAM G / DANDY DWARVES

         

Can't say I agree with most of the nominations and the current winners on a lot of the categories are blowing me away (I personally loved "When I Grow Up" but did not expect to see it get any love, especially not in Cinematography). None of my favorites are in Video of the Year, but I put my nominations and votes in and the 'villers are speaking so I can't complain. Thank you nameless awards guy for putting it together.

People's Choice awards are always going to disappoint the regulars and more knowledgeable and music video awards are especially ripe for skewing when people subconsciously are voting somewhat on songs they like.

That said, Coldplay over Oren Lavie in animation particularly makes me uncomfortable. I'd agree the Coldplay vid took the idea to extreme, but it still feels like the director saw the OL vid and all he had to do was expand on it. Do you reward the originator or the advancer? The simple or bombastic?

         

best animated video was land of talk - it's ok, by we were monkeys; mixed technique, good story, top notch production; but hey, the majority always wins. equally surprised to see if i had a heart didnt make the list for best video of the year, but ,after all, antville is a keith schofield-loving bunch :)

anyway, kudos to antvilleawards for setting this up

         

twin: as previously noted by captm22, shynola coldplay plagiarism accusations (gallagher's video) and rebuttals....

minor point, 'wards: for the sake of future search: run a spellcheck on the main post? shylona, mrkyz, p. daughter, et. al.... kthxciao

         

major vote stuffing in the "best director" category... Megaforce went from 6 to 13 votes in a few hours.... guys c'mon don't you want to win fair and square??

It's interesting - everything has about 37-47 votes, with about 41 being the average... except the Best Director and Most Fun video, which both have 60 votes. And yeah, Megaforce again winning that one.

Sorry guys, Megaforce = Megavotefraud?

         

poo on megaforce for cheating.

its crazy that there's so few votes. I think i remember prog saying that the site gets something like 5k visits per day...

         

visits = 1 thing, votes = another. major polling success ≃ 100 votes. so: looking on par, right now.

         

Hi Antville mods, why you've deleted my user rankings post?

         

natsu: antville doesn't have mods. might be something's up with the antville.org mothership server (thought i saw a ghost comment disappearing just now). just put your post back up.

         

Thanks, prog. I'll relaunch it.

         

Hi guys,

Sorry but we don't know anything about this major vote for us in the last hours, we didn't post any message asking people to vote for us.
Anyway, we know Keith will rock this category even if we had asked all hour friends to vote for us! Let the votes talk!
Cheers

MEGAF☯RCE

         

minor correction: röyksopp "this must be it" directed and edited by both andreas nilsson and filip nilsson; and: choreographer on choreographer on pb&j "it don't move me"? you guessed it: andreas nilsson and filip nilsson.

         

K Alan 'Best director' encompasses all sexes but BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE has got to be flagged for next awards

         

^ Robo that's a terrific idea. It could open up new videos from foreign artists seldom seen here.

         

but does that mean foreign videos don't compete in the other categories?

         

hey guys! woohooo.. guess who i'm voting for? being compared to Hype is my dream, and i'm sure it is for all of you! sorry to all you who didn't make it under the glorious umbrella! :/ anywayz..thanks either way ! Antville IS great. and creative criticism is always a way to push things froward.. i'm so 3008 your so 2000 and late.. ummm .. merry x-mas and happy new year to all antvillians...

         

RE: Forn. Lang. Vid.s.
Think the distinction would be language as opposed to country of origin.
For instance JUSTICE or FEVER RAY would be "mainstream" since that's the market they are aimed at where as a SPANISH, FRENCH, or GERMAN clip presented in that language would put it in the FOREIGN LANGUAGE category. I don't see why such a clip couldn't be in other categories, but I think the idea is to promote awareness & acknowledge works that might otherwise go unnoticed by some due to the "LANGUAGE BARRIER". M2C.:)

         

foreign language video: it's a great idea, why wait til next year? Why not do a 'call for nominations' post and then a vote? I'd be curious to see what stuff is there.

         

more vote stuffing: a quick surge for Danakil for best new director. Looks like the last 10 people to vote all thought he was the best. And funny, because this was the one Megaforce category they seemed to have a fair lock on.

         

into the final stretch, 'wards, a steady rein's the best.
as regards future editions, i'd stay away from minority (women, foreign, et.al.) categories as part of the main awards, where their effect would always be depreciating. captm's suggestion's spot on: want a niche tally? call a vote! (maybe right now's not the best moment, tho...)
but i do think there is a category that could fit well, and add another side to the wealth of judgement that gets passed here: best artist, in the sense of best body of videos commissioned in one year. with the decline of the record co's, seems to me that it becomes more and more an artist's responsibility, indeed, part of their artistic profile as a whole, to produce visual complements to their musical creations. a number of candidates would come spontaneously to the 'ville's hive-mind, i'm sure. recognising/honouring them would seem altogether relevant, especially from the motley (but singularly high-carat) 'ville assembly. Best Commissioning Artist, or Best Body of Videos - whatsay?

         

as our final day comes to an end.... anyone have any final thoughts on the process? I can understand voters skipping categories like best choreography and best unsigned director. But it doesn't really make sense to have the Best Director category get 92 votes and best video of the year get 75. That means almost 20% of the "unique" voters skipped the best video of the year category.

         

love that idea progosk.
people like Fever Ray, Kanye West or Miike Snow... deserves it.
and as a french girl, I 'll never vote for categories like "not so bad for a woman, a foreigner"...

         

'wards: totally normal/physiological, that, and of no concern when finalising results. also, where necessary, ex-aequo's are nothing new, as are undecided contests, wherever you've seen excess fishiness.

         

Re: Ex aequo et bono

Anyone care to make a case for the winner any of the categories?

Specifically, Director of the Year, Best New Director, Best Unknown/Unsigned Director.

         

The most fair thing imo seems to give Director of the Year to Megaforce, Best New to Danakil and best Unsigned to Kevin Phillips.

I wrote a much longer, more detailed defense of this but antville deleted it and I don't care to retype it. Basically this way everyone seems represented (because KS is getting Video of the Year) and there are no redundant awards (also Kevin Phillips is more legitimately unsigned and would benefit more from an award). Plus megaforce rocked this year so that seems deserved.

         

@Prog.: Like the "BODY OF WORK" notion & agree with the rationale heartily.

@Forever.: NO OFFENSE INTENDED WHAT SO EVER.:)
Your response actually illustrates the concern I had.
Apologies if it came across wrong.
This belated HOLIDAY message is for YOU & ALL other ANT PEOPLE, HAPPY HOLIDAYS!:

         

otc, that all sounds good. calling it.

         

hipgnosist : no offense, I was joking.
non non rien a changé, tout tout a continué...
merry xmas.