Playlist: Ryan Staake

Having recently released the brilliantly entertaining promo Wyclef Jean for Young Thug [below], Pomp&Clout executive director and director Ryan Staake lets us know what's on his Playlist.

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

Bonobo - Kerala (Dir. Bison). Oh my god it is so fucking good. The effect of slowly unveiling a story with that staggered edit method, and the performance of the actress was just incredibly moving. I can’t get over it, I’m going to watch it now.

Slightly unrelated, but I remember hearing a story about Larry Levan spinning at The Paradise Garage way back in the day and he was projecting this film strip of a dove flying out the window, and the projectionist kept looping it back again just before it got through the window, and the crowd was transfixed by it while dancing—when he finally let the dove exit the window, and Larry transitioned into a new track, the crowd just burst into cheering jubilation. To me this video does that over and over, it is incredibly satisfying to watch.

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

I think The Chemical Brothers - Star Guitar (Dir. Michel Gondry). I saw it while I was in college/university, and I was floored by the purity and relatability of the concept, as well as the execution. I loved that you could almost feel Gondry coming up with the idea: he’s riding a train in France, listening to Star Guitar on his MiniDisk player, or Diamond Rio MP3 player or whatever we were using at the time, and he has this epiphany as he gazed out the window. Then we get to see it.

And what’s your all-time favourite music video and why?

This is always too hard, and I already said Star Guitar. I’m going to say Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer. It’s one of the oldest videos I can remember, and I’m still blown away by how they were able to pull off Peter Gabriel’s stop-motion singing. It’s also just so 80s, so tied to the time, the tools, the aesthetic, the way of thinking, and they probably did a ton of coke making it. I love the idea of music videos as pop cultural totems tied to a time, and this video is 100% what I imagine 1986-1987 was like—even though I was 3 at the time. My favourite recent music video is Tiga - Bugatti (Dir. Helmi)

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

Megaforce, Helmi, Sam Pilling, Video Marsh, Fleur & Manu, Paul Trillo, David Helman, Andrew Ruse and everyone on Pomp&Clout’s roster.

What are you listening to at the moment?

I’m constantly playing Beats in Space mixes in Pomp&Clout’s offices.

What’s your favourite bit of tech, whether for professional or personal use?

iPhone 6plus and our SmallTree TitaniumZ16 10gbe server. Both are critical.

What artist(s) would you most like to work with and why?

Anyone who will let me put a motion capture suit on them, because that’s what I want to do next. Bieber?

How do you feel the promo industry has changed since you started in it?

The emergence of tech companies as content creators has added a huge influx of cash into the industry, I think it’s great.

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

I think we’ll be seeing a lot more spatial VR experiences moving in, and by that I don’t mean 360° video, that stuff is barely scratching the surface of the future. I’m talking fully volumetric experiences that the viewer can move through and interact with. It’ll be interesting to see how this changes the role of 2D-linear video, namely the music video.

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

I used to work at Apple as a Human Interface Designer, contributing to UI design on iPhone, iPad and MacOS X.