Chris Cunningham

For Video for New Media Class Morgan asked us to analyze a piece of film or video in terms of its editing. I chose Chris Cunningham’s video for Autechre’s Second Bad Vilbel.

This is one of Cunningham’s early videos and is not one he’s particularly proud of, so I thought it would be interesting to see why it didn’t quite come off.

The video basically shows various shots of an unidentifiable machine. You get no clear view of what you’re looking at because there is a lot of use of masks, close ups, layered shots, and varying transparency.

The cuts are very stark, and are set in time to the music. Staticky sounds are linked to staticky images made out of colour masks. Blurring is used to gradually reveal the entire machine.

The camera moves, and the masks move, but the thing being shot doesn’t move at all until the end of the video when the machine shoots out tentacles. Because it has been still for so long, even though it has seemed as though the image is moving, it is quite shocking when this happens.

The video goes well with the music because it’s synched with the beats and glitches of the music. However it’s not particularly engaging. The machine is obscured for most of the video, but it isn’t frightening or strange enough to really pique your interest so that you want to see what it is. Its eventually revelation is not exactly disappointing, since no expectation was built up, but it’s pretty flat.

I can see why Cunningham and Autechre were not especially impressed with this video.

2 November 2005 | video | Comments

2 Responses to “Chris Cunningham”

  1. 1 Josh 6 November 2005 @ 12:09 pm

    I remember this video well from when I was in school and just reaslly getting into Autechre for the first time. Back then — 1996, I think — I thought it was incredible. Reticent. Curious. Vaguely threatening. Like a video passed backwards in time from a lab in 2317. Fit “Second Bad Vilbel” quite well. I haven’t seen it in years, but I’m surprised to read how neither the band nor CC were particularly pleased with the result…

    You probably knew this: “First” Bad Vilbel is a town just north of Frankfurt, Germany.

  2. 2 Administrator 7 November 2005 @ 10:43 pm

    I did not know that Josh, thanks. Nice to get another perspective.

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