Radiohead Television a.k.a. The most
Gigantic Lying mouth of All Time (2003-2004)
Director Chris Bran
Writers Chris Bran, Stanley Donwood and Radiohead
Producer Dilly Gent
The presenter Chieftan Mews
The most gigantic theme by Tim Bran
Artwork by Stanley Donwood & Dr Tchock
Music by Radiohead
In 2003 Radiohead commissioned their fans to produce videos to
their music. Later that year the band launched their own TV channel
on the Internet including new material and fan-made stuff. Full
credits can be found here.
Available at radiohead.tv.
Clips of the episodes are also featured on the 2+2=5 DVD single.
Bodysong (2003)
Written
and directed by Simon Pummell
Produced by Janine Marmot
Music written and produced by Jonny Greenwood
A Film by Hot Property Films for FilmFour and The Film Council
"Bodysong
is the epic story of love, sex, violence, death and dreams.
The story of our lives, told through moving images from
around the world. From
newsreel to home movies, from births to deaths, footage taken from
across the last 100 years of cinema cut to an ambitious score by
Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead. Bodysong
is both a theatrical film and a website.
The site www.bodysong.com gives us the stories of the people
portrayed in each of the extraordinary images in this powerful debut
feature."
Bodysong was released on DVD in the UK on February 16th
2004 after touring film festivals around the world.
Special features on the DVD release include 2 short films by director Simon Pummell, weblinks, and an exclusive interview with Jonny Greenwood regarding the writing and recording of the score. DVD sleeve is designed by Graham Temple.
Artwork
for the soundtrack was made by Stanley Donwood.
Available on the Bodysong DVD. Soundtrack also in stores.
Sit Down. Stand Up (2003)
Director Ed Holdsworth
Available on the 2+2=5 DVD single and Episode 1 on Radiohead
Television.
Go To Sleep (2003)
Director
Alex Rutterford
From The Mill website:
Competing in the music industry is tough work. Quite
often an amazing promo coupled with a great track can
propel the song/promo package into the limelight.
Radiohead’s fantastic new release together with
staggering CG, completed by The Mill for their music
video, is such a combination, destined for
chart-topping success.
The video, Directed by Alex Rutterford of Black
Dog/RSA, features a virtually generated Thom Yorke
performing the bands latest release ‘Go to
Sleep’.
The fully animated clip is set in a fictional,
regency style, town square. The promo opens on a red
flower, the only colour used in this largely
monochromatic film. The flower moves gently to the
opening bars of the track as Yorke sits on a park
bench in the middle of the square. Office workers
storm past going about their mundane routines unaware
of Yorke sitting on the bench.
As the track builds up, the location begins to
dramatically transform. One by one the buildings
surrounding the square begin to self-destruct and
turn to rubble. Oblivious to this, the crowds of
people continue to go about their daily grind,
unaffected by the falling masonry.
As Yorke’s performance builds, the strewn rubble
of the fallen buildings begins to reform itself into
an almost Bauhaus style of building - flat roofs,
smooth facades and cubic shapes. The historic and
opulent regency style façade is replaced with flat
faced, concrete, modern architecture. Throughout this
transition people walk straight past buildings
without noticing a change, their route un-deterred,
their focus directly on the path ahead. The promo
ends as it began with the camera pulling back to
reveal the red flower.
The style of the film is photo realistic in movement
combined with stylised polygonal faceted textures in
look. Yorke is therefore fully realistic in his
performance, while at the same time being a stylised
version of himself. The buildings have no real
texture, yet the dynamics of their collapse mimic
reality and an actual demolition.
Around twenty Mill professionals, both 3D and 2D,
worked for approximately eight weeks to build and
animate the final promo. The process began with
Director Alex Rutterford’s lo-fi CG animatic,
which entailed the video. The Mill team then used
this as a guide to build on, updating the animatic
with the latest scenes as they developed.
Along side this, some of The Mill CG team set about
modelling the various buildings, both old and new. In
the mean time, others were responsible for the
animated characters that were to inhabit the
environment. These were split into two areas:
generating the crowd characters; and of course, Yorke
himself. Finally, all the CG elements were combined,
lit and rendered before various layers of CG were
composited in flame to create the finished film.
Yorke’s’s character was one of the
trickiest and technically difficult areas of the
promo to complete. Once his stylistic look was
established, Thom Yorke himself was required for a
very technical shoot and scanning day. Firstly
Yorke’s head was scanned in several poses to
generate a very accurate CG model of his head. His
movements and performance were then captured using
motion capture. The first part of the process
recorded his body movements, the second, concentrated
on his face, with Yorke wearing around seventy
markers on his face alone. This raw material was then
combined and finessed using actual video performance
of Yorke and Radiohead, to create the virtual but
realistic performance seen by Yorke in the promo.
To generate complex crowd scenes, The Mill’s
team were able to use new beta software
‘Massive’ - originally designed for the
large crowd scenes in Lord of the Rings -
commercially for the first time. Massive allows the
animator to generate crowds of people that have
virtual interactive intelligence. Each character was
initially animated using motion captured walk cycles
and movements. Massive then gives the individuals
their own little brains to detect such things as
terrain, so in this case the curbs and pavements. It
also allows them to detect other individuals, so
allowing them to realistically avoid each other. This
means complicated interacting crowd scenes of
infinite sizes can be created. While several of the
periphery characters in the crowd scenes were hand
animated, Massive was used to generate the large
groups of people needed to fill the square.
Once the modelling of the buildings were complete,
Mill animators set about creating the dynamics to
allow them to be both destroyed then rebuilt in a
different form. Rutterford was keen to get a very
realistic feel for the buildings that were to break
and crumble. Therefore, the Mill CG team used
reference material from real demolitions and
destructions as a guide to their animations. They
then created the deconstructions using a combination
of hand animation and computer dynamic simulations
combined with layered particle animation effects.
In lighting the final piece, the team used its
in-house written light dome shader, to give the film
a very ambient realistic lighting feel. This enabled
them to create the realistic shadowing and light
fall-off seen in the film. Extra details were also
added to Yorke’s face in several shots to create
the low poly look created by a mesh reduction
technique. This was achieved using a plug-in
developed by Mill 3D’s R&D team.
The finished rendered animation passes were then
combined in Flame. Live action smoke and dust was
composited onto the buildings to enhance the illusion
of them collapsing and rebuilding. The flame team
added drama to the darker scenes by adding light
emissions to the streetlights, along with smoothing
out the transitions from solid buildings to cracked
ones. They also finessed areas such as depth of field
and adding of subtle motion blur to Yorke’s
movement to enhance his performance.
The final touch that Mill Flame operators worked on
was creating the camera shake effect as the buildings
collapse. This significantly helped to increase the
scale of the impact and weight of the CG in these
scenes.
The finished film is one of high audiovisual impact.
If Yorke’s realness both in form and performance
doesn’t absorb the viewer then the dramatic
changes occurring in the background bound to stir
viewers’ emotions.
Production Company: Black Dog Films Ltd
Producer: John Payne
Director: Alex Rutterford
Artist: Radiohead
Record label: Parlophone
Commissioner: Dilly Gent
The Mill
Production: Stephen Venning, Shannon Hall, Satoko
Iinuma.
3d team: Ben Smith, Robert Kolbeins, Jordi Bares, Rob
van den Bragt, Russell Tickner, Hitesh Patel, Andrew
Proctor, Rob Petrie, Ivor Griffin, Tom Bussell,
Ludovic Walsh, Paul Taylor, Jan Walter, Dave Levy
Flame team: Led by Dave Birkill; Neil Davies, Jason
Watts, Paul Marangos, Adam Grint, Lorraine
McLaughlin, Daniel Morris, Gavin Wellsman
Thom on
the video:
"i had to wear the stupidest bobbly node suit.
there were no cameras just infrared scanning light
things. it was very strange. but oh yes thats me. i
was mapped into it. from the movement data and hi res
scans. much like TRON."
There There (2003)
 
Director
Chris Hopewell
Collision Films, a company in Bristol, did the video at
the Bolex Brothers studio. The video is a mix of
live action and animation. It was filmed at 1/3
speed, so it's really quirky. Thom is featured
walking through the woods, seeing all kind of
animated animals and weird things going on around
him.
From an
interview in The Telegraph:
If you go
down to the woods today, you're sure of a big
surprise. For there you'll find Radiohead's Thom
Yorke - often cast as prime grump in Britain's most
angst-ridden rock band - making a pop video. He's
enjoying himself, too. It's a scorching spring
afternoon in 50 Acre Wood outside Bristol. Not a
creature is stirring, save a small chap striding
along a forest trail with exaggerated, deathly
stealthy steps.
He's keeping time with a slowed-down version of
Radiohead's new single, the pounding There There, the
first from their sixth album Hail to the Thief. Five
foot six and dressed in a murmur of browns and
greens, toting a satchel, hair unkempt, face
unshaven, Yorke's head juts forward, funny left eye
flickering, nose twitching with mousey
inquisitiveness. He's like a hobbit, or a lost boy in
a fairy tale.
'Bugger,' he says good-naturedly as he reaches the
end of the marked-off section of trail. He looked up
at the wrong moment. 'Do it again?' he asks video
director Chris Hopewell. 'Yep, do it again.' He's
been doing this for three days, and there's another
one to go. Then Hopewell and his team will spend two
weeks integrating the footage of Yorke with
flickering, stop-motion animation. 'Thom gave me a
brief saying it should be a bit Brothers Grimm, a bit
[Czech animation legend Jan] Svankmajer,' says
Hopewell. 'It's Fifties East European genre
animation, overlaboured and naive.' 'It's Bagpuss,'
says Yorke.
And now? On a sunny day in the cottontail loveliness
of 50 Acre Wood, Thom Yorke is making a pop video for
a pop song. How? Why?
'Because otherwise I'd be doing interviews,' he
grins, indicating that while he's loosened up he's
still less than comfortable with the PR process. 'Oh
dear, who's got it rough? I'm staying at [a nice
hotel in Bath], the rest of the band are [in Europe]
flying to two places a day talking rubbish and being
asked about the war. So I think I'm doing all right!'
Really though, all this effort and acting the goat -
why? The singer smiles blithely. 'I was into it. I
just like the idea of doing videos.' Are Radiohead
willing to promote - sell - themselves again? 'Fuck
yeah! I'm trying to persuade the record company to
shell out on lots of singles. This is a pop record,
it's really direct. I'd love to know that it was on
the radio.'
Back in 50 Acre Wood, Thom Yorke is still striding
slowly up the path. In the video, his character is
attracted to bright lights in the trees. Every time
he reaches the source he sees another, bigger,
brighter light. He keeps going, consumed by greed,
oblivious to the dark shadows gathering around him.
In the end, he is running for his life, pursued by
carrion crows. He is petrified, almost literally: the
video ends with Yorke turning into a gnarly old tree,
face frozen in a scream. Crumbs.
Director
Chris Hopewell on the ‘There There’ video
(from the XFM):
The way we got involved was that Dilly Gents their
commissioner, saw some stuff on our website. She
trawls through websites looking for small companies
and she found us on there and gave us a ring. We
didn't return the call for about four days ‘cos
we didn’t know who she was. So we left it for a
few days, called her back and it was for Radiohead so
we said 'Yes, of course we'll try and do it!'
I've always been a major fan of the Radiohead videos
and the directors they've chosen, just because they
are so diverse really, they choose people who really
are the avant garde of film making. I'm an animator
and we're an animations company, but we also go in
for human animation, which is the pixellation stuff
and also proper film making stuff as well. But the
way I approach this sort of stuff is to make it like
a short film that goes with the music rather than
examining the music, breaking it down and saying
'Right, we'll change there, we'll change there'. It
was really just to write something that goes with the
music but is also like a short film in it's own
right.
The brief that we got - what they do is they give a
really basic sort of one line brief. And the brief
that they gave us was 'Bagpuss crossed with Yan
Spankmyer’, the Czech guy? And those’re
exactly my influences, that's what I've been studying
for the last ten years. They're brilliant; they're so
beautiful, they're so real, they're so rough. But
that was the brief; Spankmeyer meets Bagpuss with a
sort of slant towards the Brothers Grimm’. So I
went away that afternoon, went and looked through my
grimoire of Brother's Grimm stuff, got a basic gist
of how that stuff was done, had a look at a load of
Spankmeyer stuff and a load of Bagpuss stuff. I tried
to go to sleep that night, couldn't, went out on my
mountain bike over to the local woods, where we
filmed it. I went across the suspension bridge, over
into the woods, wrote the whole thing and sent it off
to the band. And they unanimously approved it, which
is - so I'm told - quite unique.
The actual shoot with Thom took four days, which was
not bad. We shot him one day in location in the woods
and then three in the studio in front of a green
screen. And he was brilliant. He was absolute star.
And he's such a bloody good actor, if he ever gets
bored of singing he should move into that sort of
area, ‘cos he takes directions really, really
well but he also brings so much of his own character
to it. The character that he plays in it, even though
it's only a five minute thing there is some character
development, you can see him becoming more greedy as
he goes in and Thom did do that so well. That's the
advantage of doing something over such a short
period, it is quite intense and I think he did really
get into the role of it really. I think he thoroughly
enjoyed it too. I hope he did.
"There
There" received the award for "Best Art
Direction In A Video" at the 2003 MTV Video
Music Awards. The video was nominated for four awards
in total.
Pulk/Pull Revolving
Doors/Like Spinning Plates (2001)
Director
Johnny Hardstaff
There is
a huge amount of information on this video floating
around the web. Here are some articles I bumped into:
The Mill and NME.
A snippet
from an article in Creative Base:
The track
is close to eight minutes long, a combination of Push
Pulk and Like Spinning Plates, from the band's
Amnesiac album. Opening on a black screen, brief
flashes of the white markings of killer whales flit
in and out of view, before the video cuts to a
diagram of mind-jarring complexity, the line drawings
of a complex machine of indeterminate purpose.
Hardstaff's signature graphic style is exploited to
full disturbing effect as the camera pans along more
complex diagrams detailing various elevations of
threatening machinery, tools and implements. As a
huge white machine is examined from every angle some
kind of medical purpose becomes apparent: something
is being closely monitored. Our attention is
gradually drawn to the focus of all this technology,
a small cylindrical chamber containing a pair of
Siamese twins, joined at the pelvis and held fast by
straps around their abdomen. As the rotating capsule
slows down to a halt, their evident distress tears at
your heart strings, and soon the centrifuge starts
spinning again as the machine continues its obscure
task. The final sequence shows the result of the
distressing treatment, as the babies' chest strains
and distends, before the delicate white ribcage
emerges, its fragility emphasised by the distinctive
blue Wedgwood pattern it bears.
Hardstaff
himself describes the video as "an exercise in
emotion, an emotional extraction. Last year I saw a
documentary on conjoined twins that felt very
resonant and was particularly touching," he
explains. "When I heard Like Spinning Plates it
had that same quality. It felt like an exploration of
fragility and vulnerability, a state of extreme
nervousness. The band had preferred to give no brief,
and no leads as to the meaning of the song. It was
only on completion of the film that they revealed
that the song was a direct reference to the
vulnerability of children caught up in conflict.
Maybe lucky, but I think this coincidence has a lot
to do with Thom and the boys being able to convey a
very specific atmosphere without needing to spell it
out in direct lyrical references."
From The Mill website:
The Mill
has helped create outstanding 2D and 3D visual
effects for Radiohead’s latest double promo for
their combined singles Pull/Pulk Revolving Doors and
Like Spinning Plates.
Directed by Johnny Hardstaff at Black Dog Film, the
promo is predominantly made up 3D computer graphics,
which have been modelled and animated more in the
manner of intricate industrial design than that of
traditional CG. As a result the promo can perhaps be
viewed as a beautifully crafted piece of video art
rather than the usual narrative experience of a
conventional pop video.
The centrepiece of the promo is a gigantic machine
set in the middle of an ambiguous white space. Within
a centrifuge created by the many moving parts of this
machine are a pair of conjoined baby twins who are
dramatically separated from each other as the forces
created by the machine pull them apart.
To create the effect of the two conjoined twins, part
of the live action shoot took place at The
Mill’s Shepperton based Motion Control studio.
Using the Cyclops motion control rig, a single baby
was shot in multiple positions with the camera
rotating around him shooting at various Frame rates.
The Mill’s Flame team then worked to composite
the shots together to create the illusion of there
being two conjoined twins. The team also composited
all of the CG machine components. These were modelled
and animated by 'Pictures on the Wall' in Glasgow and
designed and textured by Johnny Hardstaff. There was
also work carried out to composite the prosthetics
designed by Harrison Hill Effects, which were used
where the babies ribs, modelled and designed in
porcelain by The Mill’s 3D department, begin to
petrude through the babies skin.
Additional flame work included the lengthy task of
matting out the white panels from Killer whale
footage which John Payne, the producer from Black Dog
Films filmed at an aquarium in Nice expressly for the
promo.
Dir: Johnny Hardstaff
Production Company: Black Dog Film
Production Company Producer: John Payne
Post Production: The Mill
Mill Producer: Alistair Thompson
Mill Flame Artists: Phil Crowe, Barnsley, Paul
Marangos, Dave Hougton,
Neil Davies, Dave Smith
Mill Flame Assistant: Salima Needham
Mill Telecine: Paul Harrison
Mill 3D: Aron Hjartarson
Mill Motion Control: George Theophonous, Ray Moody,
Jay Mallet
More
video captures:
 
 
 
I Might Be Wrong (TV
version) (2001)
Director
Sophie Muller
I Might
Be Wrong was shot in New York in August '01. It was
directed by Sophie Muller, who has previously worked
with the likes of PJ Harvey (This Is Love, A Place
Called Home, Good Fortune) and Björk (Venus As A
Boy). The video's cinematographer Harris Savides
("The Yards", "Finding
Forrester") shot with a multiple pinhole camera
lens to create a "historical box camera
effect".
It's
really really beautiful but it doesn't seem to have a
plot or anything. I kinda miss that but hey: I might
be wrong! You be the judge. The video features only
Thom and Jonny. Jonny is playing guitar and Thom is
singing. The images are really, really blurry. Blurry
but in a nice way. The mood of the video is very dark
(which fits the song just fine in my opinion).
Here's a
snippet from an interview with the director:
?: How
were you commissioned to direct Radiohead’s
‘I Might Be Wrong’ video? Sophie: I made
these five videos inexpensive videos for a band
called Sparklehorse, It’s just myself with a
light and a camera. Radiohead really liked them and
Dilly Gent who commissioned ‘I Might Be
Wrong’ knows my work. They wanted to make a
video that wasn’t a big deal, that wasn’t
going to cost millions of pounds. As Thom said to me,
he felt that the approach to the album and the
artwork was very much like found bits of things put
together. So I said, ‘Do you want to do a kind
of video that’s like a found bit of film?’
Which is where the initial idea came from I suppose.
It was a sort of lost piece of film that someone had
unearthed. Though I’m not sure it turned out
like that, but that was the kind of original
thinking. And it was going to be performance based,
but wasn’t going to have the whole band because
they were only going to be there six hours. It’s
quite stressful, if you’ve got five people, to
film them all. It’s much easier to work with one
or two people, so that’s why there was only two
of them in it. I just went, ‘Well, it’s a
guitar song with a singer, so I’ll just have the
guitarist and the singer, please.’
Dilly
Gent (Radiohead's music video commissioner (fancy
title)) also talked a bit about the video's rotation:
?: Could
you give a few specific examples of how you found
some of your directors? Dilly: ...I remember a few
years ago you’d see some really interesting
people signed up to production companies. They’d
have a chance to sit there and develop and
they’d get little $10, $20-grand videos that
would pop up on TV every now and then and it would be
worth keeping them on. And slowly they would grow and
someone would give them a bit of a break, but now
they’re just not. There’s no outlet for
them. Even with a Radiohead video. Sophie’s a
well-known director, but we did a very experimental
video, and yeah, I didn’t expect it to be all
over daytime TV, but I think it got played six times
or something. MTV2 America is playing it a lot more.
MTV2 in America is still really good and they’ve
been very good to us. But there used to be a time
when MTV would play everything we chucked at them and
now definitely not.
I Might Be Wrong
(Internet version) (2001)
 
 
Director
Chris Bran (of the Vapour Brothers)
This
video features animation (the adorable crying
minotaur! a star has born!) and some black &
white Thom-footage (you're lovely too, Thom.) Doesn't
seem to have a plot.
Chris
Bran explains how the video was done: "the video
began as a 5 minute sequence of the minotaur floating
through different scenes and moods. i used various
programs and devices which caused the minoatur to
shift and distort according to the sound or video
signals i played under it. i showed this to thom,
along with some colour scenes that i'd been working
on and he suggested combining the two and shooting a
sequence of himself performing the song. because it's
an internet exclusive video it was never mastered to
tape. it was created completely on my laptop and then
delivered straight to the internet."
From an interview with Chris Bran and Nigel
Godrich: The “I Might Be Wrong” video,
which features both animation and live action
footage, was made entirely on a PowerBook running Final
Cut Pro, After Effects, Videodelic and Hash Animation Master. It was animated, shot and
edited in May/June 2001. A “very old” Sony
PC7 was used for filming the video. The footage of
Thom Yorke was filmed at the band’s studio in
Oxford.
This is
an Internet-only video, available on the official Radiohead site or on the Vapour Brothers' website.
Knives Out (2001)
Director
Michel Gondry
From Director File:
"Knives Out," the second single off
Amnesiac is in Gondry's more surrealistic vein,
detailing the relationship between Radiohead singer
Thom Yorke and his "girlfriend," actress
Emma de Caunes.
Apparently shot in one take, the video is actually an
autobiographical look at Gondry's relationship with
his ex-girlfriend, which Gondry describes below. The
video is set in a small room of a city apartment. The
camera progresses three times between three different
locations: the TV on one wall, a bed laying on the
floor, and a life-size version of the Operation board
game.
Inside the TV is a cab in a passenger train, in which
sits Yorke and de Caunes. As the camera returns to
the TV throughout the video, their relationship
deteriorates from vacation camera flashes to
cartoonishly deadly fighting. During the fight, Yorke
shows a huge engagement ring to de Caunes, which she
accepts, then grabs her side in anguish. Then,
outside the TV, a hand touches the rewind button. The
two view their relationship in reverse in the train
window, and pass glib smiles to each other.
On the mattress in the middle of the floor is Thom
Yorke, looking largely afraid. Our second view of
this location is quite odd. Yorke reveals under his
sheets three people eating feverishly on his feet,
which are small roasted turkeys. The third pass of
the bed shows no Yorke, simply the previously
mentioned engagement ring on the mattress.
The Operation table is the busiest place in the
apartment, as it shows de Caunes being operated on by
a medical staff (one of whom is a walking screen,
showing de Caunes' vital signs). As de Caunes is
operated on, a red light shines on her face. The
light recalls the red nose on the Operation guy, and
her expressions of pain become the game's loud,
frighening buzzer.
At the final pass of the camera, there is no
Operation table: simply a skeletion with a huge heart
for a head, playing a guitar in front of a microphone
stand. The head-heart was also in the second pass of
the TV. Yorke had put a picture of his girlfriend in
his heart, but, in the final scene, the picture flies
out of the heart. The camera then pans to the
microphone, which has the head of a mousey Thom
Yorke, as related from the line, "Knives out;
catch the mouse."
The video has a cartoonish flavor, given much to the
slow film speed used on the set. Restored to normal
speed in the video, the characters' actions are
humorously encumbered, much like people in the films
of the early 20th century. The use of Operation,
walking monitors, funny wall decorations, and the
like also bring levity. In the context of the song
and story, however, it is an uneasy humor at best.
Much of this imagery is illuminated by Gondry in an
August 2001 article of Rebel, a French magazine:
"In the video that I have just finished for
Radiohead, Knives Out, I reconstructed my memories.
It's an autobiographical video. Emma de Caunes plays
the role of my ex-girlfriend and Thom Yorke
interpretates my role. I received the record the
moment we separated. The video, unlike the film, is
all based on memory. All these images just came to
me. I hadn't managed to have any others. I suggested
them to Thom who agreed. It is the story of my
girlfriend who had leukaemia and the time I spent
watching over her in the hospital. She is practically
cured now. The speed at which the illness progresses
is horrifying!
"It's terrifying, I watched over my girlfriend
in hospital for weeks and weeks. All that
medication… I have always had a thing about
that… I speak a lot about it because it was a
failure, not health-wise but from an emotional point
of view. We split up. Why? We had separated once
before her illness. I was so sad, I said to myself
that I couldn't do anything. She always spoke to me
of marriage, so I went to see her and offered her an
engagement ring. The next day she had leukaemia. She
must have already had it… the problem is that we
got back together for all the wrong reasons. She came
back to me because she was ill. We stayed three more
years together.
"She is much better now. She had the will to
live and excellent doctors. Guys who arrived at four
in the morning. Four of the best doctors. As we lived
at that time in Los Angeles, I had to play by the
system and paid for everything in cash. That was a
big problem for my girlfriend. She felt guilty that I
invested myself so much, in the literal sense of the
word. She turned everything against me,
unconsciously. It's unfair and that’s the reason
why I did the video. It is a bit tough for her."
More video captures here.
Pyramid Song (2001)
Director
Shynola
The story
of the video is based on Thom's dreams: "'Thom
Yorke sent us a very disjointed couple of paragraphs
about a dream he'd had about lights in the sky and a
load of survivors floating in an aircraft carrier
after an unhnown disaster or event and we took our
inspiration from that,' explains Shynola's Jason
Groves. 'lt was quite evocative, and it sort of set
the mood for the whole promo.'"
A guy
'jumps into the river' from the top of a skyscraper.
The whole world has drowned and hes the only
survivor. Underwater he sees 'all the things he used
to see'. He finds his way to his old home and tidies
up a bit. He sits in his favourite chair and lets go
of the oxygen cord and the camera follows it as it
whips up to the surface, leaving him down there to
drown. In the end of the video the camera follows
lights flashing in the sky - going out one by one.
There was
an underwater scene of different countries' flags
that for some reason got edited out of the final cut.
Here's what the video
directors Shynola had to say about the video (from Pulse Of The Twin Cities):
"Eventually Shynola worked their way into the opportunity of a lifetime—when they directed the video for Radiohead’s “Pyramid Song.”
“‘The Pyramid Song’ video pushed us to the limits of our abilities at the time,” says Chris. “We were just four kids in our bedrooms and we were making things up as we went along.”
The video landed Shynola their first NME BRAT award in 2002 for Best Video and all members of Shynola feel strongly about the work they did.
“From a personal, working point of view ‘Pyramid Song’ stands out because we worked terrifically hard on something where we aimed beyond our abilities and actually came out with a very pleasing result,” says Kenny. “It was a very enjoyable time making that video and these days I find myself trying to recreate such enthusiasm in myself.”"
Available on the U.S. Knives Out single.
Amnesiac blips (unused) (2001)
  
Developed
by mycatisbroken.co.uk
They were
asked by Radiohead to develop some animations (blips)
to coincide with the release of Amnesiac in the
summer of 2001 but were never used.
You can
view the blips here.
Motion Picture
Soundtrack (2000)
 
This
video features some of the Kid A blibs. Thom has
called this 'the best piece of video we've ever
done'. He also says it makes him cry everytime he
sees it.
Idioteque (2000)
Director
Vapour Brothers
This is a
live version of Idioteque from Kid A. It was filmed
in Air Studios, London in September 2000.
Available
on the Vapour Brothers site.
Kid A blips (2000)
  
  
  
Directors
Chris Bran, Shynola and Stanley Donwood
Kid A was
promoted with a series of 10 - 40 second blips, video
images with audio clips of the new material, which
were shown predominantly online but also on
television and television advertising. This was part
of the approach that Radiohead took to market Kid A,
forgoing singles and videos in preference for a full
Internet campaign.
The blips
can be viewed here, here, here and here.
Rabbit In Your
Headlights (1998)
 
Director
Jonathan Glazer
"Rabbit
In Your Headlights" is collaboration between
U.N.K.L.E. and Thom Yorke.
Directed
by Jonathan Glazer of Street Spirit and Karma Police
fame, this video shows a man walking in a tunnel
motorway with cars passing him by and hitting him. He
mumbles something inaudible throughout the video and
strips down towards the end before the climax.
This
video was nominated for an MTV Video Music Award.
Didn't win though.
Palo Alto (1998)
Director
Grant Gee
This
video is featured on the document "Meeting
People Is Easy". It's a part of that more like
than a proper music video.
Available
on Meeting People Is Easy
Meeting People Is Easy video/DVD
(1998)
Director
Grant Gee
This is a
feature film about Radiohead's OK Computer tour.
Meeting
People Is Easy is available on video and DVD. Visit
Climbing Up The Walls' beautiful MPIE Guide for more info.
El President (1998)
Director
?
This song
is a collaboration between Drugstore and Thom. The
video features Thom and Drugstore performing the
song.
7 Television Commercials
video/DVD (1998/2003)
This
video features 7 Radiohead promos from The Bends/OK
Computer era, including:
Paranoid
Android
Street Spirit
No Surprises
Just
High And Dry (US Version)
Karma Police
Fake Plastic Trees
Re-released
on DVD in 2003.
No Surprises (1998)
Director
Grant Gee
Thom is
singing "No Surprises" with his head inside
a glass tank slowly filling with water. The song's
lyrics are reflected on the glass. Eventually the
water level rises so high that Thom is submersed for
almost a minute. In the end the tank empties letting
Thom breathe again and finish the song.
You can
see a clip of the making of this video on
"Meeting People Is Easy".
Available
on 7 Television Commercials
Karma Police (1997)
Director
Jonathan Glazer
Yet
another fantastic video from the Jonathan Glazer. In
it a very dirty looking man is chased by a car in
which Thom sits in the backseat singing "Karma
Police". Finally the man stops running and turns
around. When the car backs the man notices a gasoline
wake leading to the car. Then he lights a match
behind his back and throws it in the gasoline. The
gasoline catches fire and starts to move towards the
car. The car tries to back fast but cant get away
from the fire. Finally the flames reach the car which
then bursts into flames. Then the camera inside the
car turns around and zooms into the backseat.
Thom has
disappeared!
Shock!
Thom on
the video: "It means things will catch up with
you."
Available
on 7 Television Commercials
Paranoid Android (1997)
Director
Magnus Carlsson
Robin is
a cartoon, created by Swedish Magnus Carlsson in
1994. Each episode is about 5 minutes long and things
happen around Robin who is 21 and unemployed. His
best friend is Benjamin. Robin loves hip hop, his
cap, and to drink alcohol. In the nights, he has
adventures with Benji and explore strange people,
different vagrants and fat neighbours.
Radiohead discovered Robin on the English Channel 4.
Thom and the other band members became really big
fans of Robin and they asked Carlsson to make a video
for a song on OK Computer.
Magnus' first choice after listening to OK Computer
was 'No Surprises', but afterwards he was happy it
turned out to be 'Paranoid Android'. Carlsson said,
"when I first got the song I spent a whole day
listening to it in my office. I have a window where I
see a bridge with lots of streetlights. I tried not
to listen to the lyrics, and after spending eight
hours looking at the bridge, I started sorting out
something. Later I got a fax from Thom where he
explained the song, and the viewpoints matched."
Thom said, "Robin is great. He is so much more
then that kid who showers with the cap on. In him I
see the totally innocents. Defiance his bad habits
and the tuff, big city he lives in, he is soft and
gentle. And what ever happens he never loses his
temper. Nothing affects him. He gets bossed and makes
stupid things. People convince him to swallow things
and dance naked. Next morning he wakes up anyway and
feels rather okay and has forgotten last night. I
wish I could be like that. Just forget. Never really
bother. It never works in the real world. When we
record can I live like that. Just get drunk till I
forget. And when I get to the real world, there is
nuclear weapon, unhappy love, people who don't
recycle their cans. Everything that can't leave me
alone, and things that always are going to disturb
me. "
Magnus also said, "I can understand that Thom
identifies himself with Robin. He is rather an
international figure. Me and Thom understand each
other. We have never met, the connection is mostly by
fax. Anyway I created the plastic Hollywood-world for
Robin as Thom wanted the figure for "Paranoid
Android" to move in."
A lot of unusual things happen in the Paranoid
Android video; Robin goes to a bar where the band are
and gets drunk, some guy chops off his arms and legs,
robin plays ping pong with an angel, etc.
Available
on 7 Television Commercials
Let Down (unused)
(1997)
Director
Simon Fulton
Let Down
was intended to be the first single off OK Computer
in the US of A and this was the video made for it.
After spending a lot of money on this video the band
was 'let down' by it and decided not to use it. This
wasn't a big surprise as the video only shows a bunch
of Radiohead artwork running round the screen.
You can
view a 3 minute clip of the video at Kinetic's video section.
Lucky (1995)
Director
?
This
video features a live performance and pictures of war
children.
Street Spirit (Fade
Out) (1995)
Director
Jonathan Glazer
Street
Spirit is a beautiful video filmed in black and
white. It features things happening in slow motion
while simultaneously others in normal speed. It's
rumoured that there's a coin flipping scene which
ended up edited out of the final version. I could
swear I saw that scene once on MTV. Multiple versions
perhaps?
Excellent.
Available
on 7 Television Commercials
Just (1995)
Director
Jamie Thraves
Filmed
near Liverpool Street Station in London. A man is
lying on the street, and concerned people ask him
what's wrong and why he's lying on the pavement.
Meanwhile, Radiohead is playing in a nearby
apartment. The whole conversation is subtitled.
Eventually the guy agrees to tell them why he's lying
there. But before that he warns the people around him
that they 'don't know what you ask of me'. The
subtitling stops when he reveals his reasons. After
that the camera shows the people lying on the ground
just like the man himself. And no, no one knows what
the guy said.
Available
on 7 Television Commercials
Fake Plastic Trees
(1995)
Director
Jake Scott
Filmed in
an aircraft hanger in L.A., this one features the
band members being pushed around in shopping carts.
The futuristic-looking ssuperstore where this is
taking place has bright colored products and they are
shelved according to their color. At the end they
find an exit and leave.
From the
interview booklet: .. directed by jake Scott who
regarded Radiohead as "bright guys... a very
open-minded kind of group". Supposedly an
allegory for death and reincarnation, the film
depicted Thom being pushed round in a supermarket
trolley, with various strange images passing by - old
men with guns, babies being carried round and shop
assistants using pricing machines as tools of
violence.
Available
on 7 Television Commercials
High And Dry (US
version) (1995)
Director
Paul Cunningham
This is a
very confusing video where a bunch of things happen.
The band goes to "Dick's Diner" and eat
there while other customers at the diner sing the
song. The video ends with a bomb exploding. This is
the second video for 'High & Dry', filmed after
the band wasn't happy with the first one.
The address of the 'bar' shown in the video of 'High
& Dry' (US version) is: Dick's Diner - 3188
Alvarado Street - San Leandro - California. (Thanks
Follow Me Around)
Available
on 7 Television Commercials
High And Dry (UK
version) (1995)
Director
David Mould
From the
interview booklet: "Shot by David Mould at
Vasqez Rocks in California, it featured the band
playing out in the desert in front of a water tanker.
As the song unfolded, the band were soaked by falling
rain, and thereby hung an amusing little tale. 'When
we turned on the rain machine, we didn't realise you
could warm up the water beforehand so the whole band
ended up being doused in ice cold water and getting
flue. Colin was shaking so much I thought he was
going to keel over.'"
My Iron Lung (1994)
Director
Brett Tumbull
Available
on Astoria London Live
Astoria London Live
(1994)
Director
Brett Tumbull
Filmed at
London's Astoria on May 27, 1994
68
minutes running time
Includes
the tracks:
You/Bones/Ripcord/Black
Star/Creep/The Bends/My Iron Lung/Prove
Yourself/Maquiladora/Vegetable/Fake Plastic
Trees/Just/Stop Whispering/Anyone Can Play
Guitar/Street Spirit/Pop is Dead/Blow Out
Stop Whispering (1993)
Director
Jeff Plansker
The band
is playing on the roof and there is a man trying to
get into an old-fashioned diving suit. Lots of bees
around.
Pop Is Dead (1993)
Director
Dwight Clarke
Shot in
Oxfordshire.
Anyone Can Play Guitar (1993)
Director
Dwight Clarke
Shot in a
swimming pool in Hornsey, London.
Creep (1993)
Director
Brett Tumbull
This
video is actually the only one I've seen from the
Pablo Honey era. It was shot in front of a live
audience in Oxford on 19 9 1992. Not much of a video
- just a plain old live performance.
The poor
quality of the film gives it a nice touch though.
|
