Welcome to the second edition of AirplayUK, the programme that brings you the very best music videos being produced in Britain today, and also profiles directing talents making a big impact in this highly creative area of filmmaking.

This time around we have videos featuring a wide range of artists, music and visual styles. We also talk to members of the London-based directors collective called Minivegas, who themselves create all types of work, from live action band performance videos to entirely CGI-created animated wonderscapes.

But we start with the video for a new band, The Hoosiers, who gained immediate success in the UK with their first single Worried About Ray – in no small part due to this highly enjoyable combination of live action and special effects by Diamond Dogs – the directing team comprised of Phil Sansom and Olly Williams. Sansom and Williams were inspired by the song title to create a mini-monster movie in the style of legendary fantasy filmmaker Ray Harryhausen. In the video ‘Ray’ is a member of the band who creates a model of a one-eyed monster which comes alive, becomes huge and then rampages around London, rather like a creature from the Harryhausen-animated Jason & The Argonauts or Sinbad films.

That is followed by another tour de force. Videos filmed in one single shot are no longer that unusual, but a video comprised of no less than nine single takes, all featured on the screen together, is a different matter. That’s what director Dan Lowe has achieved with his video for the Dub Pistols, featuring guest vocalist Rodney P, and their cover version of The Stranglers classic Seventies single Peaches. Shot on the South Bank of London’s river Thames, Lowe’s video also comes together satisfyingly at the end.

Then comes the new video for Roisin Murphy, former lead singer with Moloko, and her new single Let Me Know, which displays a winning fusion of reality and fantasy. The video by Daniel Wolfe is set in a quintessentially drab British ‘greasy spoon’ café. But as the extravagantly-attired Murphy enters, the place undergoes a transformation that befits the strong disco influences on the track.

Then there is a return to the genre of one-shot videos – just a single shot this time, but this one is special due to the feat of endurance by its subject, Jack Penate – currently a rising star in the UK. Penate attempts to perform his catchy song Second Minute Or Hour while simultaneously running full pelt along the seafront at Brighton, on England’s South Coast. It’s a challenge set by Tim Pope, one of the pioneers of music video in Britain, who has directed classic videos for The Cure, Neil Young, and many others, as well as recently directing the video for Penate’s breakthrough single Torn On The Platform. You can see for yourself how young Jack faces up to Tim’s challenge.  

We then break from our selection of the best of recent British videos for our profile on Minivegas, and to show some examples of their excellent work over their five year career. We interview four members of the collective – Aoife, Chris, Grant and Dan – at their studio in Shoreditch in the London’s East End, which is renowned as a hub for artists and creativity.  The Minivegas members talk about how they started in music videos, their method, and how their ideas and styles change from job to job – all liberally illustrated by examples of their work, in part or in full.

We feature their debut video for Plaid, a precocious mix of 3D animation and live action, their breakthrough video for Bloc Party, which sees animated versions of the band travel through perilous sci-fi worlds, Amp Fiddler and Corinne Bailey Rae’s If I Don’t, where they are supported by a band of weird and wonderful undersea creatures, The Elektrons’ Get Up, a combination of stock footage and graphic cartoons and their new video for Maps, where a group of people gather in a sun-kissed field to commune with a strange object.

That takes us back to our selection of recent British videos, with the cheeky and risqué effort for Dragonette’s Take It Like A Man. Director Ben Taylor has recreated the sleazy world familiar to viewers of cult movie Boogie Nights, but with a crucial difference – in Taylor’s tongue-in-cheek interpretation the main protagonist is female: Dragonette’s sultry lead singer Martina Sorbara who gives a smoulderingly sexy performance.

The next video contains another fairly simple idea, featuring the new band Satin Peaches performing the song Well Well Well Well, and their antics around London. It has a relaxed and carefree feel reminiscent of the French nouvelle vague, with similarly excellent use of locations – and was directed by Albert Kodagolian, who is new to music videos but has a track record in commercials.

It's followed by a more conventional performance in the new video for Badly Drawn Boy by up-and-coming directing team OneInThree, but it is impressive nonetheless. While Damon Gough (aka Badly Drawn Boy) plays piano in a darkened space, a huge number of lights and lamps of every size, shape and design, light up the room in different sequences. It’s gently beautiful and graphic, proof that a simple idea well executed is often the best accompaniment to a song.

As we approach the climax of the programme, the video for The Horrors’ She Is The New Thing could hardly be more different: it’s classic animation in a sense that its totally comprised of drawings, but the content is far from Disney: cartoon versions of the black-clad band are menaced by a variety of fearsome creatures, none more so than a female human-monster who is out for their blood – and gets it in bucketloads. It’s a remarkable achievement by director Corin Hardy – with the considerable assistance of illustrator David Lupton – but we must warn you this does contain extremely violent imagery that could shock and offend.

We end this programme of Airplay UK with more animation – just as brilliant, but far less horrifying. The working relationship between dance music veterans The Chemical Brothers and Dom & Nic, the directing partnership of Nic Goffey and Dominic Hawley, goes back more than a decade. The Salmon Dance is their sixth video together, and possibly their best of all, where a young man wakes up to find that the tropical fish in his fishtank are putting on a show that makes him think he’s still dreaming. It’s entertaining, life-affirming, even educational – lots of fascinating facts about the remarkable salmon –and a fantastic conclusion to this edition of Airplay UK.

AIRPLAYUK #02
Tracklisting

1. The Hoosiers - Worried About Ray
Directors: Diamond Dogs
Prod co: HSI London

2. Dub Pistols feat Rodney P - Peaches
Director: Dan Lowe
Prod co: Partizan

3. Roisin Murphy - Let Me Know
Director: Daniel Wolfe
Prod co: Partizan

4. Jack Penate - Second Minute Or Hour
Director: Tim Pope
Prod co: Merge@Crossroads

Director Profile: Minivegas
Minivegas are represented by Agile Films, London

5. Bloc Party - Helicopter

6. Amp Fiddler featuring Corinne Bailey Rae - If I Don’t

7. Daniel Johnston - True Love Will Find You In The End

8. Elektrons - Get Up

9. Maps - To The Sky

10. Dragonette - Take It Like A Man
Director: Ben Taylor
Prod co: Merge@Crossroads

11. Satin Peaches - Well Well Well Well
Director: Albert Kodagolian
Prod co: Black Dog Films

12. Badly Drawn Boy - Promises
Director: OneInThree
Prod co: Colonel Blimp

13. The Horrors - She Is The New Thing
Director: Corin Hardy
Prod co: Academy

14. The Chemical Brothers - The Salmon Dance
Director: Dom & Nic
Prod co: Factory Films

Please click here to read more about AirplayUK Reel 1.

Please click here to read more about AirplayUK Reel 3.