Chris Cunningham is known for his groundbreaking and visually inventive music videos, especially with his work for artists like Aphex Twin, who have pushed the boundaries of visual effects and storytelling. What he contributed to the music video industry relates to his early years of life and working experience. He spent 10 years working in the film industry as a technician working for directors. For this reason, he has a rich special effects background such as working with Danny Cannon in Alien 3. Then he showed his talent by working in comics with Stanley Kubrick, which he mentioned that it required him to jump off the page to get the audience’s attention in a short period and those experience might have contributed to the music video he made.

Come To Daddy by Aphex Twin

Narrative structures
In The Windowlicker, there is a nearly 4-minute intro without any music about two guys talking in the car, then they try to pick up two girls on the street just like in a movie scene. Chris said that he tried to give a humor vide by putting story layers and making it a short film.

Visual storytelling
‘The edit is the main thing to me.’ said Chris Cunningham. Chris wanted to find out how far he could push the video relating to music in Come On My Selector by Squarepusher. So he made a big music chart including all the timing and events on it. By editing it, he cut the soundtrack in a certain way and broke the sound track into a storyboard to allow the story to develop. From this clip, it does give an incrediable visual storytelling outcome,

Cinematic techniques
Chris produced industrial robotic by firstly building robots as close to the original design as possible. Then filming them as set, and letting Bjork do her performance as well as constructing the rope of the model robot in the computer graphic so that can be tracked to match Bjork’s movements.

Overall, Chris Cunningham are increasingly adopting cinematic techniques, narrative structures, and visual storytelling in his music videos. This convergence reflects a blurring of boundaries between different visual mediums and allows for more immersive and sophisticated storytelling within the constraints of a music video format.

References

Aphex Twin – Windowlicker (official video) 1080p HD (2012). Aphex Twin. 8 March. Available at: https://youtu.be/UBS4Gi1y_nc?si=84XYTD16oopvekar (Accessed: 24 November 2023). 

Making of All is Full of Love: Björk & Chris Cunningham (2011). 16 February. Available at: https://youtu.be/QReuUcQ_c9U?si=7C4e6cv7aAW65ZW8 (Accessed: 24 November 2023). 

Squarepusher – Come On My Selector (Official Video) (2013). Squarepusher. 25 January. Available at: https://youtu.be/MWCSw_cNxKc?si=NGAauXlSdrLE0oTU (Accessed: 24 November 2023). 

by Linzi Zhu 33727704