The unique vision of Johnny Hardstaff has been seen in groundbreaking promotions for Sony Playstation such as The Future Of Gaming, but it could almost be guaranteed that his first major music video project would be for Radiohead. And it is characteristic of the band that rather than just let him do one clip, they would let him work with considerable freedom on two of the tracks from last year’s Amnesiac.
Hardstaff's visual style is so religiously graphic, it is a push to think of many bands who would embrace it - although Super Furry Animals did for their DVD album. In fact his double video for the tracks Push/Pull and Light Spinning Plates has allowed him to develop his look and previous themes, to integrate live action into it, and blur invisibly the division between live action and 3D. Push/Pull and Light Spinning Plates are about man and machine. What looks real is patently not...
The first part is about the creation of the machine: the 3D projections of a design framework, growing and moving to the machine-gun beats of the track; the second part is the huge machine itself, extraordinary and mysterious and set in a white space, the purpose of which is unclear until it looms over an infant - or is it two? In fact, to the delicate ethereal sound of Light Spinning Plates, conjoined twins are literally spun apart by the centrifugal force created by the machine.
“To be honest I was never a huge Radiohead fan,” admits Hardstaff, who was approached by Radiohead’s commissioner Dilly Gent and offered his choice of tracks from Amnesiac on which to write a treatment. “In fact I liked two tracks. Light Spinning Plates felt nervous and fragile, but beautifully orchestrated - even after months of hearing it I still really like it. I'd seen a documentary about conjoined twins not long before and that had the same kind of quality as the music.”
Hardstaffs concept, with Light Spinning Plates providing the main action and Push/Pull the preamble, required a combination of live action and 3D work - in fact, it was mostly CG but one would be hard pressed to distinguish one from the other in the finished video.
“I'm not a big fan of CG in its general context, so I was trying to build CG elements that weren't over-textural and more like a 3D Photoshop model,” says Hardstaff. Interestingly as soon as he had created a preliminary print of the model, people were mistaking his creation as photos of a real object.
Partly this is to with the fact Hardstaff has created something akin to industrial design rather than traditional 3D work, and clearly he put considerable effort into the design element of the video. “I really enjoyed working out every facet of it,” he says.
Dealing with live action is a different matter, and the video required a motion-control shoot in order to create the illusion of the ‘twins’ - in fact a single baby - spinning. Using the Cyclops motion control rig at The Mill’s MC studio in Shepperton, the baby was shot in multiple positions with the camera rotating around him shooting at various frame rates - which took longer than originally planned.
“Apart from the CG work it also allowed me to work with modelmakers for the first time, which was great,” says the director. They built the black ‘nappy’ he designed to hold the baby - about the only real piece of machinery in the video. However, it was predominantly a case of creation by computer: The Mill’s Flame team worked to composite the shots together to create the illusion of there being twins, and composited all of the CG machine components; Hardstaff’s machine designs were modelled and animated by Pictures On The Wall in Glasgow.
Editor JD Smythe had the unenviable task of making approximately 1,200 cuts in Push/Pull, to follow the percussive effect of the track. It starts with blacked-out killer whale footage shot by producer John Payne, but then gets into the developing plan for the machine. Hardstaff put basic 2D wire frames through dated software, then shot it on a monitor on DV to mess the image up further, before he sent, in his words, Smythe “quietly mad”.
In addition, Hardstaff reworked the music in Push/Pull to the extent where he removed all of Thom Yorke’s vocals. “How many people would let you take out their lyrics?” he says, “put Thom was more than happy to let me play with his tracks. They are like patrons of the arts. People like us are able to slip under the net because of them.”
PRODUCTION: Black Dog; director: Johnny Hardstaff; producer: John Payne; prod manager: Emma Cairns; DP: Stephen Blackman; motion control cameraman: George Theophanuos, Digna Nigoumi at The Mill MC Studios; gaffer: Dominic Seal; prosthetics: Harrison Hill Effects.
POST: telecine: Paul Harrison at The Mill; offline editor: JD Smythe at RSA; Flame artists: Phil Crowe, Barnsley, Paul Marangos, Dave Houghton at The Mill; 3D: Aron Hjartarson at The Mill & Pictures On The Wall, Glasgow. Mill producer: Alistair Thompson.
COMMISSIONER: Dilly Gent at Parlophone.
Hardstaff's visual style is so religiously graphic, it is a push to think of many bands who would embrace it - although Super Furry Animals did for their DVD album. In fact his double video for the tracks Push/Pull and Light Spinning Plates has allowed him to develop his look and previous themes, to integrate live action into it, and blur invisibly the division between live action and 3D. Push/Pull and Light Spinning Plates are about man and machine. What looks real is patently not...
The first part is about the creation of the machine: the 3D projections of a design framework, growing and moving to the machine-gun beats of the track; the second part is the huge machine itself, extraordinary and mysterious and set in a white space, the purpose of which is unclear until it looms over an infant - or is it two? In fact, to the delicate ethereal sound of Light Spinning Plates, conjoined twins are literally spun apart by the centrifugal force created by the machine.
“To be honest I was never a huge Radiohead fan,” admits Hardstaff, who was approached by Radiohead’s commissioner Dilly Gent and offered his choice of tracks from Amnesiac on which to write a treatment. “In fact I liked two tracks. Light Spinning Plates felt nervous and fragile, but beautifully orchestrated - even after months of hearing it I still really like it. I'd seen a documentary about conjoined twins not long before and that had the same kind of quality as the music.”
Hardstaffs concept, with Light Spinning Plates providing the main action and Push/Pull the preamble, required a combination of live action and 3D work - in fact, it was mostly CG but one would be hard pressed to distinguish one from the other in the finished video.
“I'm not a big fan of CG in its general context, so I was trying to build CG elements that weren't over-textural and more like a 3D Photoshop model,” says Hardstaff. Interestingly as soon as he had created a preliminary print of the model, people were mistaking his creation as photos of a real object.
Partly this is to with the fact Hardstaff has created something akin to industrial design rather than traditional 3D work, and clearly he put considerable effort into the design element of the video. “I really enjoyed working out every facet of it,” he says.
Dealing with live action is a different matter, and the video required a motion-control shoot in order to create the illusion of the ‘twins’ - in fact a single baby - spinning. Using the Cyclops motion control rig at The Mill’s MC studio in Shepperton, the baby was shot in multiple positions with the camera rotating around him shooting at various frame rates - which took longer than originally planned.
“Apart from the CG work it also allowed me to work with modelmakers for the first time, which was great,” says the director. They built the black ‘nappy’ he designed to hold the baby - about the only real piece of machinery in the video. However, it was predominantly a case of creation by computer: The Mill’s Flame team worked to composite the shots together to create the illusion of there being twins, and composited all of the CG machine components; Hardstaff’s machine designs were modelled and animated by Pictures On The Wall in Glasgow.
Editor JD Smythe had the unenviable task of making approximately 1,200 cuts in Push/Pull, to follow the percussive effect of the track. It starts with blacked-out killer whale footage shot by producer John Payne, but then gets into the developing plan for the machine. Hardstaff put basic 2D wire frames through dated software, then shot it on a monitor on DV to mess the image up further, before he sent, in his words, Smythe “quietly mad”.
In addition, Hardstaff reworked the music in Push/Pull to the extent where he removed all of Thom Yorke’s vocals. “How many people would let you take out their lyrics?” he says, “put Thom was more than happy to let me play with his tracks. They are like patrons of the arts. People like us are able to slip under the net because of them.”
PRODUCTION: Black Dog; director: Johnny Hardstaff; producer: John Payne; prod manager: Emma Cairns; DP: Stephen Blackman; motion control cameraman: George Theophanuos, Digna Nigoumi at The Mill MC Studios; gaffer: Dominic Seal; prosthetics: Harrison Hill Effects.
POST: telecine: Paul Harrison at The Mill; offline editor: JD Smythe at RSA; Flame artists: Phil Crowe, Barnsley, Paul Marangos, Dave Houghton at The Mill; 3D: Aron Hjartarson at The Mill & Pictures On The Wall, Glasgow. Mill producer: Alistair Thompson.
COMMISSIONER: Dilly Gent at Parlophone.