Task 3 - Music Video Director Research

I have chosen to research the work of a group of directors called "Shynola".

Shynola first came together when Gideon Baws, Jason Groves, Chris Harding and Richard Kenworthy met at The College of Art and Design in Maidstone, Kent and began working together on joint projects. After graduating, they moved to London and Chris began work as a CG animator while Gideon worked as a freelance illustrator, and Jason and Kenny continued their education at the Royal College of Art, and although their career paths seemed to differ, they continued to collaborate and their separation was short lived.

When Kenny’s film ‘The Littlest Robo’ gained recognition from the likes of Channel Four, the group immediately knew they were on to something. And sure enough, soon after the success of “The Littlest Robo” the four duo each quit their day jobs to focus on collaborating under the name, Shynola. The group went on to make animated music videos for the likes of Morgan, Grooverider and Unkle, and soon grabbed the attention of the music video well, although it was their contribution to the “anti video” blip campaign for Radio which helped secure Shynola’s success as one of the most creative forces in directing.

In October 2008, one of the four Shynola directors, Gideon Baws died, and the rest of the Shynola directors would not create another music video until 2009, when they created the video to “Strawberry Swing” by Coldplay using chalk drawings and stop animation.

Shynola working on the "Stawberry Swing" Video.

The following is a list of Music Video's Shynola directed, and what year they directed them:

1999/2000

• UNKLE - Guns Blazing (Drums of Death Part 1 Instrumental) (originally used as substitute to an acceptance speech by James Lavelle at NME Brat Awards and subsequently for UNKLE's live shows)
• Quannum feat. Lyrics Born & The Poets of Rhythm - I Changed My Mind (Stereo MCs Rattlesnake Mix)
• Grooverider vs. Cypress Hill - On The Double
• Morgan - Flying High
• Radiohead blips: 'Basement Bear', 'Bear Witch', 'Dead Air', 'Drown', 'Eyes', 'Geese', 'Giant', 'Planes', 'Scarecrows', 'Six Million Thom', 'Stars', 'Thom Over Planes', 'Valley', 'Wake Up', 'White Mountains', 'Yeti'

2001/2002

• Radiohead - Pyramid Song
• Stephen Malkmus - Jo Jo's Jacket
• U.N.K.L.E. - Eye for an Eye
• Lambchop - Is a Woman
• Athlete - You Got the Style
• Morcheeba - Otherwise

2003

• Queens of the Stone Age - Go with the Flow
• Blur - Crazy Beat
• The Rapture - House of Jealous Lovers
• Blur - Good Song (co-directed by David Shrigley)
• Junior Senior - Move Your Feet

2009

• Coldplay - Strawberry Swing

Seemingly from looking at Shynola's work, they seem to tend to target there videos at older children and younger adults, as their videos vary from the type of childish visuals, seen in "Move Your Feet", to the more adult visuals seen in "Strawberry Swing".

These audience seem to mostly respond well to the videos directed by Shynola, for example, here are a few comments posted on the "Move Your Feet" video on youtube;

ShadowPrincess23 said "Best music video of all time"
Drag0nTrainer said "The video, this song and the 8-bit graphics are epic win"
and Lylaaz said "aww. when i was 7 or something this was my favourite video"

These comments seem to indicate that Shynola's work, and more specifically this video has gone over well to the intended audiences, for example Lylaaz's comment seems to indicate that when she was younger the video was her favourite and prehaps still is now she's older, which would show that Shynola are managing to attract to the audience which they intended to attract too.

Although, not everyone is a fan of Shynola's work and it has been critised in the past, for example the "Strawberry Swing" video recieved comments that it was strikingly similar to the video "Something Else" directed by Owen Trevor, and recieved some crisitism for its similarites, Shynola responded to this by stating:

“Having never seen Mr. Trevor's video before, we can categorically deny that his video was any influence on our video. Any similarities are purely coincidental."

In 2004, Shynola won four different awards for their videos, these awards being;

• McLaren Animation Award
• CAD awards - Best Animation in a Music Video
• D&AD Awards - Best Direction
• D&AD Awards - Best Animation
• British Animation Awards - Best Music Video

Two of these awards (McLaren Animation Award) and (British Animation Awards -Best Music Video) went to the video directed by Shynola for the band Blur for their music track "Good Song", additionally to these awards and further proving the success of this video is the response the video recieved from the audience watching the video, such responses included:

Pointofgravity: "LOL I LOVE THIS VIDEO"
559marty: "That was great :D"
Mullacy: "Great song, Great video!"

And finally, another music video Shynola directed, was to Queens Of The Stone Age - Go With The Flow music track, and unlike many of Shynola's other videos, this video focussed more on having the band performing on the back of a pick up truck and driving through the desert, while editing effects rendered the video into black, white and red. The video even won the video with the Best Special Effects at the 2003 MTV Music Video Awards, aswell as recieving a nomination for the Best Art Direction. In addition to this, the video also recieved good feedback from the public with youtubers such as;

Burns0060 calling it "one of the best music videos of all time",
P0cketfull0fsunshine saying "Best Music Video Of All Time? I think so." and finally,
coreo66 saying "good vid and good music. This music is KICKASS"

These responses from audiences on youtube once again help to back up that Shynola have good directing ability and overall success of the Shynola themselves as a group of directors, an example of this success is that they have directed well liked music videos for pioneering artists such as Coldplay, Junior Senior and Radiohead.