Sorry Tim, you are not referencing those videos at all. What you have done is copying, reproducing, biting, ripping off, plagiarising. Plus I had a chuckle when you mentioned Universal Motown NYC, of course, also known as MTC in Newton. I don't get why you'd bother making videos when you are biting so hard.
I wish the ‘hater’ would give his name publicly – so I could talk to him directly. I’ve given my name in my responses and I don’t have a problem talking about this kind of stuff. I know that he works at Fish n Clips which is a big company that makes more videos a year than I could ever hope to, and for way bigger budgets. I can not convey enough how frustrating it is to have someone you know socially talk about you in important forums like this and not have enough balls to say who they are. They may as well start some facebook-based (or more likely bebo-based) abuse thread. Sorry for not replying earlier, Simon – I was at the Vodaphone music awards where I was nominated as best music video director for Sola Rosa’s ‘Turn Around’, alongside Chris Graham for ‘Brother’ and Sam Peacocke for ‘I Can’t Stop Being Foolish.’ I’m sure if you scoured the internet for long enough you’d find something that had some kind of abstract resemblance to the Turn Around video so I can be accused of more horrible things. I’m just a guy trying to make the best video I can for the best musicians in the country. If I get some cred for it then good on me. At the end of the day the question is, are the bands happy with their videos? So far the resounding answer is ‘yes’, they love them – that’s why they keep asking me to make more and that’s what makes me a lucky and happy person.
On a broader level, what’s at stake here seems to be a fundamental misconception about the nature of the music video form. If I subscribed to the logic of making videos without references then all that would be left would be cliche. I work with Universal Motown in NYC and when they want me to do a video they give me specific references – I’m given briefs such as “I want this video to be a fusion between Smack My Bitch Up and Terry Richardson photography” and that’s what I give them. If you’re looking for the music video chain of influence, watch the videos that I quote in my above response: The Dukes – “Vampires” vs Dexter/TrueBlood intros etc. If this kind of borrowing is taboo, next thing people will be copy writing slow motion or black & white footage or narrative intercut with boring shots of a band playing… which is most of the stuff on TV. I think if you subscribe to the idea that you shouldn’t use references then by default you think you are a genius when in reality you’re naive and inexperienced. What this comes down to is that a director at a bigger company who works with bigger budgets (all but 2 of my videos have been 5k) is trying to attack me, most probably out of jealousy. I support other people whose work I like – Joel and Cam at Special Problems, Shahir Daud for the awesome work he did with Perceive and PNC, Andy Morton for his MTC vids, Sam Peacocke who’s done some great work in the last year or so – and believe that a culture of mutual encouragement and support is the best thing for everyone. CONTINUED (I think I messed this up)