Chris Cunningham Music Video Director

Chris Cunningham Music Video Director

1. Chris Cunningham is an English music video film director
and video artist. He was born in Reading, Berkshire in
1970 and grew up in Lakenheath, Suffolk.
Chris Cunningham often works with the same types of
artists and his work is very recognisable as he used the
same style throughout.
This director, in the past, has worked on films such as
A.I, television ads and music videos.

2. Chris Cunningham generally works with
the same style, breaking the common
forms and conventions of nearly all of
music videos today. Using disturbing
images and content which has never
been played with in these ways before,
keeps the audience watching however
can turn some viewers away. E.g. the
screaming face on the television in
Aphex Twin - “Come To Daddy”.
Before directing Chris worked with
robotics which is obvious in some
videos. This allows him to take his
music videos into literally a whole other
world.
The music video Chris Cunningham
creates are very often edited with the
music in selected areas. A great
example of this would be Square
Pusher – Come On My Selector where
literally the whole video is edited to the
track.
In more than one video directed by
Chris, he has used his own head to
be made into a mask for
characters featured in the video.

3. Aphex Twin – “Windowlicker”
This is a perfect example of Chris Cunningham
breaking Andrew Goodwin’s common forms
and conventions in a music video. This video
particularly plays on the representations of
women and black males in the media.
The women seen in the beginning and being
harassed by two black males in their car
however they are getting nowhere. A man in a
limo turns up to pick the women up.
Later the women lure the men in but they turn
extremely physically ugly.

4. The genres of music and artists usually directed by Chris Cunningham tend to
be the same throughout his career. This genre being techno/electronic/ ambient.
With Chris’ style this works very well as the alternative style of music matches
the alternative style of editing and directing.
Techno and other similar genres are often associated with robotics and new
technology which, as mentioned before, is what Chris Cunningham used to work
with.

5. In 2005, Cunningham released the short film Rubber Johnny
as a DVD accompanied by a book of photographs and
drawings. Rubber Johnny, a six-minute experimental short
film cut to a soundtrack by Aphex Twin, remixed by
Cunningham was shot between 2001 and 2004. Shot on DV
night-vision, it was made in Cunningham's own time as a
home movie of sorts, and took three and half years of
weekends to complete. The Telegraph called it "like a
Looney Tunes short for a generation raised on video
nasties and rave music".
During this period Cunningham also made another short film
for Warp Films, Spectral Musicians, which remains
unreleased. The short film was edited to music by
Squarepusher, My Fucking Sound, from the album Go Plastic
and a piece called Mutilation Colony,

which was written
especially for the short and was released on the EP Do You
Know Squarepusher.
Cunningham has also directed a handful of commercials for
companies including Gucci, PlayStation, Levis, Telecom Italia,
Nissan and Orange.

6. Postmodernism
Chris Cunninghams work is very post
modern.
Chris very much goes for style over
substance, the visual effects and what the
audience sees is more important that what
they are hearing.
Chris’ videos do not follow a major
narrative. They reject the meta-narrative
and what the viewer is watching usually
doesn’t make sense or has a very deep
meaning behind it.

7. Postmodernism
Chris Cunninghams work is very post
modern.
Chris very much goes for style over
substance, the visual effects and what the
audience sees is more important that what
they are hearing.
Chris’ videos do not follow a major
narrative. They reject the meta-narrative
and what the viewer is watching usually
doesn’t make sense or has a very deep
meaning behind it.