Kanye West continues to release singles from his 2008 808s & Heartbreak album with this video for track 11 – Coldest Winter. Reuniting to work together again, Kanye and Nabil elderkin have produced a music video that is fitting for the song’s lyrics and mood. The CG uses a Frank Miller comic style to produce a haunting world of dead trees, fog and snow. The smoke effect of the girl’s face is particularly impressive (00:15).
One of Nabil’s less experimental video directions, but again he proves he understands the rhythm of a song and matches it with something visually relevant. It’s nice to see Rihanna back in the public eye after her ordeal, in this werewolf-horror style production.
As with all of Nabil’s work, what initially looks like a random montage of video miss-edits turns out to be a unique, well-timed and original composition of photographic and vector graphic shots.
Perhaps what stands out the most in his latest video, T.I.A (This is Africa) by the artist K’naan, is the sense of depth he has created though out the sequence. At any one point during the duration of the feature there are at least three levels of action, sometimes four or even five, with the foreground images casting a shadow on the background. And to stretch the depth further, a photographic footage in the foreground will seamlessly turn into a vector graphic in the background (01:01).
A post back in February discussed director Nabil Elderkin and his use of datamoshing in the Kanye West hit Welcome to Heartbreak. This is his follow up video for There will be tears by Mr. Hudson. Keeping with his experimental style, Nabil includes some brave effects that are both simple and futuristic. Once the song gets going he has added an overlay of footage that warps to the beat of the song- very cool.
Kanye West’s latest music video shows a new craze in the video world- “Datamoshing”. With the removal of certain keyframes and tweaking to the compression, some very clever effects are created. When Kid Cudi comes into the shot while singing the chorus at 01:05 and the green glow of Kanye’s top at 03:26 it proved to be something fresh. The director, Nabil Elderkin, who has done videos for other music artists, is definitely someone to watch out for in the future. Another of his videos, “She’s a Star” by Will.I.Am, is a must see, especially as it is black and white, yet he manages to pull off some beautiful effects.
