Playlist: David Wilson

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

I feel like I’m going for a heavily praised one that has had a lot of tongues wagging recently, for good reason. That’s for The Blaze Territory. I also really love their video that came before that: Virile. Not only is it beautifully executed, it’s a window into another city I don’t know much about. It’s set in Algiers. There are the three key ingredients that make me excited for a promo: there needs to be something I haven’t seen before, an execution that’s fresh, and a visual that makes me feel.

Hitting on that third point, I was really struck by how tactile the men are with each other; the brotherliness, the hugging. Especially in Virile, where there are two men dancing around an apartment, and it’s a tactile nature between heterosexual men that struck me as something very beautiful. Something that is absent from the world in which I inhabit in London and in LA.  It’s a piece of work that I continue to process.

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

The one that really sticks into my head is Kylie's Come Into My World by Michel Gondry, the one where Kylie is walking around Paris and in every verse and chorus she meets another Kylie, culminating in four or five Kylies interacting and weaving around each other. What really impacted me, and still impacts me, is Kylie’s beautiful performance in this highly technical piece. She’s so free, easy, casual, and yet everything intertwines so beautifully. The reason why I remember being so impressed by it is that it’s not only a master class in a beautifully executed technical piece, but it was released at a time where I had not seen anything like it. It was really pushing boundaries. 

I remember being about 16 and on a geography field trip, coincidentally also in Paris. As I was getting dressed in my room at the hostel we were staying in, and this promo came on the TV. When I came down to breakfast, it had impacted everyone that had had the TV on, including my geography teacher. The excitement and hubbub around a music video over the breakfast table was something I hadn’t experienced before. The people that had caught it were so excited to talk about it and the people that didn’t were just intrigued and amazed by what it was that everyone was describing.

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

This is always going to be a very personal question to answer, because it’s all about the timeline: where you were, what impacted you the most at a specific point in time. I’ve written down a few answers -and I was thinking about this last night -and I’m going to have to say another Michel Gondry piece. The White Stripes' Hardest Button to Button is so unique and completely masters a technique to the extent that it renders it untouchable. Unrepeatable.The commitment from the crew and band to pull that off is on another level.

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

This shortlist of four director names gives a good idea of where my head’s at most of the time, pinging off each director like a pinball machine: Paul Thomas Anderson; Steven Spielberg; John Waters; Satoshi Kon.

What are you listening to at the moment? 

The band I’ve most recently connected to is the R&B duo Rhye. Oh, and the new Charlotte Gainsbourg.

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

I bought an analogue video glitching device the other day. It was going to be used to mess with the footage on a music video I was due to shoot in January (it all fell through 10 days before the shoot date). I need to get my head around it, and get my hands on an old cathode-ray TV to get it to work, but I’m excited to experiment with that.

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

Beyoncé. Why?… Beyoncé!

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

Music videos remain vital, and I feel have grown in their importance dramatically since 2009 (when I was first signed as a music video director). More recently ‘content’ has become ever more important. The consideration of how the music video will be edited into a 1 minute, 30 second, and 15 second trailer for social media is more vital than ever--sometimes, even being part of the music video brief.

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

Five years’ time is 15 years in the internet world. Therefore, to be asked to predict five years in the future is a bit scary. However, I see music videos being stable. I don’t see them going anywhere. That feels really refreshing to say. It hasn’t been that was for a while. They have become a truly indispensable tool for the promotion of bands. 

In the current trends I see narrative videos decreasing in popularity. It’s already happening. Performance is rising. But, I see the next wave being a resurgence in technique-based videos. It’s been a while since they were popular, and I think that’s due for a renaissance. One thing we do know is that everything comes in cycles!

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

I live in London. I still get asked on an almost weekly basis how LA is...