Playlist: Douglas Bernardt

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

I saw the latest one from Coldplay - Trouble in Town, directed by Aoife Mcardle. So good… A beautiful modern tale. The characters and the relationship with the animals… the track is amazing and matched perfectly with the melancholic atmosphere that she created. The message it passes is so important for the times we are living as well.

I love videos with meaning and that are food for interpretation. Music videos for me are also a door for perception and I love when things go deep in a way you wanna rewatch again and again to comprehend and relate yourself to the world that was expressed there.

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

I guess it was The Chemical Brothers videos that opened my eyes to music videos as a form of telling stories as well.

I grew up watching MTV at the beginning of ’00s and at that time all the music videos were pretty much about the artists performing. They were all so cheesy and made specifically for fans.

I remember watching Chemical Brothers - The Test and loving that girl, the whale, her journey… And how the track worked together with the visuals creating something much bigger.

What’s your all-time favourite music video?

That’s a hard one… I will choose two if you don’t mind... 

Portishead - Only You from Chris Cunningham. I’d say everything that Chris Cunningham did was extremely inspiring for me. With him, I understood how music videos are also a form of art and directors as artists with their very own style.

Paolo Nutini - Iron Sky from Daniel Wolfe because it changed things in our era… It created a whole wave and new style for music videos and made me believe that I could do my own as well.

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

I try to avoid the “Vimeoland" and somehow put myself away from what’s trendy at the moment.

I look a lot to street photography , journalism, TV documentaries, etc. to get inspiration for my stories. I try to start from reality and then transform it into fiction or whatever.

If I could choose someone to say that inspires me as a director it would be Spike Jonze. Not only because of his videos but also by who he is and how solid his career is.

What are you listening at the moment?

A lot of Brazilian stuff. Caetano, Cartola, Baden Powell. But from abroad Four Tet's latest is still on repeat in my Spotify for some months.

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

Noise-free headphones. The only way of living in peace in São Paulo.

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

Shooting something for Aphex Twin is in my bucket list lol. But also James Blake, obviously.

Those guys changed my life in terms of music.

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

I guess more people are doing it since I did my first. At least in Brazil, a lot of directors are doing music videos now. Investing their own money on promos in the search of creative freedom.

Since The Blaze won Cannes I also see a lot of advertising directors trying to get into music video looking for recognition as well.

I think I’m starting to see all the different sides now... I started putting money on independent artists, small labels, big labels, binned videos, successful videos. So I’m still understanding it as an “industry.”