Task 3- Music Video Director Research

Here is my director analysis, here I will be covering all aspects of my chosen directors life and work. the director I have chosen is Chris Cunningham who has been working within the media since 1989.
Cunningham was born is Reading on October 5th 1970 however later grew up in Suffolk. Chris was always very good with technology and robotics in 1989 he work on various projects including Spitting Image and later on Alien 3.

It didn’t take long before Cunningham was noticed in 1994 Stanley Kubrick hunted down Cunningham to work on the film A.I. which kept Chris occupied for another year of his life in the media.
After the success of A.I. he left to pursue a career as a music video director to date Cunningham has produced numerous music videos, but perhaps his most famous work would be for the artist Aphex Twin.
Chris directed Windowlicker, Come To Daddy and Rubber Johnny for Aphex all of which are exceedingly popular, Cunningham’s directing skill has proved so popular he has even released a DVD of his work.

Chris Cunningham however has not just stuck to working as a music video director; he has also branched off into a small amount of music production, photography and even commercials.
All of which are still dark much like most of his work along with all these areas of media he is still very much at large for his robotic skills and special effects, he is frequently called by many companies asking for his help when it comes to special effects.

Cunningham has even attended live events including a performance in Japan where he played a 45 minute audio/ visual piece of media art there was a phenomenal audience of over 30,000 fans showing the extent of Cunningham’s popularity in the media world.

Perhaps Cunningham’s most famous moment would be from 1997 where he released Come To Daddy, this very odd music video gave us a great incite into the mind of Chris Cunningham. The music video for Come To Daddy came from Cunningham’s past where he was chased by a large group of kids as we see in this video although evidently twisted this story to make it ever so more disturbing.
Come To Daddy really landed Chris on the map from then onwards he found it much easier to find work, even directing videos for Madonna and Bjork. Cunningham’s video for All is Full of Love by Bjork is another famous video the robots featured within the video where entirely designed and made by Cunningham himself we see from this video that Chris likes to much almost every detail perfect, the video seems immaculate it really is spotless, a true spectacle in the music video world.

Moving on to 2005, Cunningham produced possibly one of the strangest videos ever, Rubber Johnny. This video is so very disturbing, the mise-en-scene, the narrative, the camera shots/ effects it is all very odd, anyone who has watched this video will understand that Chris Cunningham’s mind is an extremely dark place. Rubber Johnny is a six minute epic of pure genius and it has certainly sparked a lot of attention bout online and in the media.

So after all this is Chris Cunningham appreciated I would say he is judging by these comments from the popular video hosting website youtube,
“I love chris's videos and music. Their quite interesting and unique.”
“Chris Cunningham he just got it!! such a genius in visualisation”
“video is done really well (it is cunningham though) works with the song“
So as you can see Cunninghams work is being well appreciated I gathered these comments each from different videos to get a wider spectrum and found his work is exceedingly appreciated however there where so many people commenting on the music. Obvoiusly I’m not complaining it is a music video but it seems like sometimes people aren’t taking into account the people behind the video, this goes for all music video directors I feel more people shoul be aware of the likes of Chris Cunningham, Michel Gondry and many others.

Overall it has been a pleasure studying Cunningham, I have admired his work ever since I saw Rubber Johnny back in 2006, he is a strange individual with a unique mind and that is precisly why I like him. All of Cunninghams videos set themselves outside the box and explore the darker avenues of life. Cunningham is also reported to release a feature film for the cyberpunk novel necromancer I am egerly awaiting this as who knows what a Cunningham feature would look like, will it become a cult classic or none the less fade away I guess only time will tell, we will have to wait and see what the future holds for Cunningham.