Music Video: Corin Hardy

Once again this week, I did some student events with music video director Corin Hardy, who works for 
A+/Academy Films  in London. His work on their site can be seen here

Corin is known for his imaginative animations, often making music videos that don’t feature the artist at all. His approach is heavily influenced by his interest in the horror genre, fuelled by viewing lots of horror films in his teenage years, when he first started experimenting with animation. His first short film, Butterfly, is available to download for £1.49 on iTunes, and is well worth the investment. He currently has a number of horror projects in pre-production, which will ultimately lead to his feature film debut!

Some of Corin's early videos were for the band Keane, including this one for Bedshaped:




In a  workshop project one weekend, Corin worked with a group of beginners to produce a video response to the track Fuzzbox by Bomb the Bass featuring Jon Spencer. With no budget but complete freedom, Corin was able to get the group to formulate their ideas and pull together a bunch of props to make a highly imaginative and borderline pornographic (!) animation. ‘Fuzzbox’ referred to the guitar pedal, but the group gave it a sexual meaning and this is the result.



Corin’s video for the Prodigy’s ‘Warriors Dance’ saw him return to a technique he had used as a teenager, cutting up cigarette boxes to make figures to animate. The band were unavailable for the video, as they were on tour, which once again gave him free rein. In this case, they are like ants dancing in the bar while the humans are away.



For an earlier video for little known band The Horrors, Corin used a different animation technique; this time, the band were present- shot against a white background, having to imagine what might happen to them if they were under attack from various creatures. He then printed out every third frame of the video on paper, creating a pile 1500 sheets high, spread the paper around his living room and with large quantities of ink drew and splattered the sheets to create this amazing spectacle. Corin is proud of the success of this video- which you will note has close to 2 million hits on youtube- not bad for a little known band!



His video for Paolo Nutini takes some inspiration from the 1987 video for Jackie Wilson's 'reet petite' (which the sound echoes in some ways). this time he has made a complex mixture of live action and animation and as with his Horrors and Prodigy animations, it ends with the creation being destroyed. This witty play with Nutini's song and even with the image of the artist is another indication of why Corin can be seen as a really creative talent.



here is 'reet petite':



To make animations like these is a very lengthy process and on a low budget, which most of these videos are, that means the work is not that well paid!

A more recent music promo for Biffy Clyro is live action, but draws upon his interest in horror, with reference to films like 'Deliverance' and 'The Wicker Man' as well as the Mexican festival of the dead.



From his website, the 'making of..' video is quite illuminating

Corin's website is here  Follow Corin on twitter 

If you are making a music video for your A level (or another media course) it is well worth considering the option of animation which might allow you to take it into really different and unusual areas; but beware, it is an immensely time consuming process- even if the performers don't answer back!

Here is his Olly Murs video for 'Busy'- rather a change of image for Olly!



His most recent video for Devlin's interpretation of 'All Along The Watchtower' is here. It is pretty amazing!



Finally, Corin has done some little 'viral' horror projects. This one is pretty gruesome and had some people thinking it was real snuff...