Playlist: Vaughan Arnell

Last week saw the great and the good of the music video world congregate for the annual UK MVAs. This year’s awards saw Vaughan Arnell join the likes of Jonathan Glazer, Julien Temple and Jonas Akerlund in picking up the much lauded Icon Award.

shots caught up with the Moxie direcor to discuss his inspiration, his views on the industry and his body of work, which includes promos for Robbie Williams, George Michael, The Spice Girls, Take That, any many, many more.

What’s the best promo you’ve seen recently and why?

Perhaps a bit of an obvious choice, but Romain Gavras’ film for Jamie XX [Gosh] (below) was incredible in terms of its ambition and scale.

In terms of sheer creative madness and ‘where did that come from?’ Pedro Martin Calero’s work for Hinds [Garden] and Ian Pons Jewell’s Deep Down Low [for Valentino Khan] was brilliant.

What’s the first promo you remember being impressed by?

Zbingniew Rybczynski really had a massive impact on me. He was a Polish multimedia artist, a pioneer of video compositing and of HD video. This was like 25 years ago! Everyone else is working on film and this guy is playing with multi-layered video, although now when you look at it feels rather elementary.

One of the videos that springs to mind is one he did for Simple Minds [All The Things She Said, below], where he has multiple takes of Jim Kerr populating the screen as the camera moves between them in this virtual space, and every version of Jim is clearly a different take. It was mind-­‐blowing. The mathematics of it is unbelievable. You can’t look at a lot of those iconic [Michel] Gondry videos without seeing his influence

What’s your all time favourite music video?

I think my favourite one is U2’s Streets Have No Name (below). It is the one shot on the roof where they do their best to get the streets closed down. It’s less a music video and more a documentary of a spectacular event. It manages to capture the excitement and the emotion of that band at that moment in time. It’s so simple and uncontrived. That’s the stand-out piece of work for me, and I still enjoy it.

The other all-time favourite is probably John Maybury’s video for Sinead O’Connor’s Nothing Compares To You (below) It’s deceptively simple, but there’s so much in there and it nails a mood and an emotion in her performance perfectly. I have so much love for that video.

What other artists/directors do you look to for inspiration?

I don’t look for inspiration, at least in music videos, but I do admire stuff. In my work, the band, and above all, the music is the inspiration. That’s where it has to come from. And that’s what tells the story.

I always think of it like cutting a suit. You’re making a bespoke suit for that one artist to wear and that artist only. Your one job is to look at an artist and what this moment in time means for them in their lives and career. Your job is to crystallise that. 

In terms of directors whose work I’ve admired recently, I love the video that Nez did called Walking with Elephants. That was amazing. Of course it was Nez, so I’m biased! And then Daniel Wolfe’s Iron Sky (below) is remarkable. But again it’s not a matter of inspiration but just of appreciating what they do. I try to never copy. 

You’ve just won the Icon award at the UK MVAs. How does that make you feel about your career?

When I sat there and watched all the films I’d made and all the people talking about me, it felt a bit unreal and detached. It was as though I were watching somebody else’s award! It was a weird experience.

As a music-­video director, all the things I’ve done are for other people. At the end of the day, I’ve given the films away to the artists and I don’t necessarily connect with them personally after they’re done. So I’m watching these other films on screen that belong to other people, and it didn’t quite go in that this was all about me!

But knowing all the other people that have picked the award up before Glazer, Temple, Akerlund. They are genuine legends, and so being part of such a small list of talent is genuinely humbling.

So, yes, I’m honoured to be given such recognition and praise. Whereas before I might have doubted it, but now it’s official! I have come away from the experience energised and eager to make more work. It doesn’t feel like the end of the story, just the beginning of a new chapter.

What are you listening to at the moment?

I listen to a guy called Rhino Soulsystem (below). He’s a mash-­up mixer out of Germany. He’s amazing and he blends contemporary and old-­school sounds and makes these two-hour mixes, which he puts out on SoundCloud.

I was a Soul Boy back in the day, and that was my whole background. We all used to go out clubbing.  It was the days of things like Earth, Wind and Fire, and there was really good dance stuff from America and England too.

What’s your favourite bit of tech?

It’s definitely the iPad Pro. The image quality is amazing. I’m never disappointed. And there’s so many brilliant, useful apps on there too. I use the pen a lot: drawing on documents, writing quick notes on post-­production works in progress, and you can pull it out anywhere. That’s the thing that’s really revolutionised my process recently. 

Which artists would you most like to work with and why?

I’d say U2 because I think they’re timeless. They were there from when I first started and they’re still producing tracks that inspire me - the sounds and the atmospheres they create. They seem to have managed to reinvent the “cinematic” soundtrack in so many different ways, across different formats and genres.

How do you feel that the music-­‐video industry has changed since you started in it?

I think that now, the way that technology has moved on is wonderful. Before you’d have to process the film, grading was clumsy and laborious and everything took so much time. If you didn’t get it right and if you didn’t know what you were doing, then you were fucked. And you absolutely had to know exactly what you were doing. There’s new filmmaking technology emerging every day. The quality of it is unbelievable. Of course, you can’t hide behind the technology. You still always need a killer idea, a compelling story or a good script. 

On the other hand, the scripts and briefs just aren’t as good and the tracks aren’t as good, but the technology liberating. Everything’s lighter, cheaper and smaller. You still need all the good people around you.

Budgets have changed too. Everything’s got smaller, and I feel for the young guys coming through who need to make a living and pay the rent, but at the same time technological change has made production a lot cheaper and more nimble. The sky’s the limit in terms of artistic ambition.

The big change for me is that producers are much more important now. It used to be acceptable for a producer to look at an idea and just say “We can’t make that happen”. There’s more of a can­‐do attitude with younger producers these days. The producers are the dreammakers. They are the people who say it can be done and this is how. I think that’s what the MVAs are about celebrating.

Music videos have had a resurgence of late. Where do you see the industry being in five years’ time?

I think they’re just going to get better and better and stronger. The whole sector is diversifying and there’s a huge variety of different way of making 'music­-film'. Traditional three-minute music videos will stick around for a while, but they won’t be the main event. This isn’t just about 'content' or music videos as short films.

The line between feature and short is being blurred. I think we’ll see many more musical films being made in many different ways that echoes the explosion of documentary on Netflix. It is going to be a very exciting time.

Tell us one thing about yourself that most people won’t know?

I had the biggest recorded head measurement at Kingsland hospital in 1961.