Because Ridley Scott Started With Feminine Hygiene Commercials

"This whole house of cards is going to come down, and somebody is going to be posting their résumé on monster.com when the bill comes for that $3 million video shoot with Naomi Campbell and the catamarans. You know, the video you watch in a little 2-by-2 pop-up screen on your computer while you IM your friends with jobs."

The Slate Music Club's Year in Music has been keeping me company at work since Monday, and when I read this quote I cringed. Then my computer froze from all the fucking pop up screens.

The recently released DVD compilations of Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry and Chris Cunningham provide almost a funerary eulogy to the genre of the music video. Imagine the ruckus it would cause to see Sofia Coppola performing gymnastics on MTV these days. But since I work in advertising, I watch a lot of directors' reels, and since most directors who do ads also do music videos I've gotten to see some ridiculously good work that outside of the Internet one could only see as the graphic animation in a Nike ad. I've come to the conclusion that aside from a few feather-wearing botox vials, Nike is actually single-handedly supporting video art in America.

My Favorites:

Hammer and Tongs The best part about these people is they are going to direct the movie version of The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. Yet another childhood classic.

Shynola did the art for Kid A and are experts at devising small hopping Princess Mononoke-esque animals of various sorts.

MK12 Hot Hot Heat animated video.

Lobo Brasileiros! Did videos for Gabriel o Pensador and Cidade Negra.

Notorious produced Capturing the Friedmans. I'm annoyed because the video I liked best from this production company doesn't seem to be online. But look anyway.

Nakd Look at Nike ad. Then look at all the other cool shit.

AV Club It seems you can only access their work through The Directors Bureau, which is the Coppola owned advertising company that has quite a few other notable directors on it's roster. But AV Club did videos for The Strokes and Pete Yorn and more.