Vaughan Arnell dominated the video nominations at this year’s BRIT awards and walked away with the prize for best promo for the ultimate strip tease, ‘Rock DJ’.
Arnell, one of Godman’s heavyweight directors, also won nominations at the UK music industry awards for All Saints’ video ‘Pure Shores’ and his ‘In Demand’ promo for Texas.
He beat videos by Black Dog’s newest signing James & Alex (Coldplay: ‘Yellow’), Bullet’s Max & Dania (Jamelia: ‘Money’), Hammer & Tongs’ Dom Leung (Moloko ‘The Time is Now’), The Pink Film Company’s Michael Geoghegan (Toploader: ‘Dancing in the Moonlight’), Max & Dania again, (Craig David, ‘7 Days’), Battlecruiser’s Ringan Ledwidge (Travis ‘Coming Around’), and Bullet’s Frank Voiturier (Sonique, ‘It Feels So Good’) to win the accolade.
It is the third consecutive year that British star Robbie Williams has picked up the award for best video, in 1999 he won with Vaughan Arnell’s James Bond-inspired ‘Millennium’ and again in 2000 with Dom & Nic’s ice-rink-side video ‘She’s The One’.
Amongst the other films Arnell has shot for Robbie are ‘Angels’, ‘Let Me Entertain You’, and ‘Supreme’.
“I give him the ammunition and he fires away, we spark off each other," says Arnell. "I don’t work with anyone else like I do with him, we think on our feet. It’s a real collaboration. It’s a bat and ball, like a game of ping pong.”
The ‘Rock DJ’ promo, storyboarded by French creatives Fred & Farid and posted at Clear, was censored from pre-watershed UK television for its visceral content. “We didn’t build it as a shocker. But when you see it on TV it leaps forward,” continues Arnell.
“It’s an extremely amazing position to be in when people like Robbie trust you with more money than many TV commercials get in this country. When you leave someone to it, they can bring something brilliant back.”
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