Tue 26 Sep 2006
Chris Milk, is one of the newest hottest music video directors in the industry these days. He is the one who did the first two Kanye West videos and our favorite Modest Mouse video. Fortunately, for me, we have been friends since Art School. I traded emails with him back and forth from Paris while he was finishing up Gnarls Barkley’s new video. We talked about music, my future career and skin abrasions. Check out CHRIS MILK:
What is your name?
Chris Milk
Where do you live and work?
Live in LA, work everywhere. Right now I’m in Paris doing Gnarls Barkley. I’ve been on the road for 5 months working. New Zealand, Australia, New York, Arizona, Buenos Aries, Patagonia Argentina, France, London. I want to go home.
Who are some of the musicians you have worked with?
It’s a short list as I’ve only been doing it for 3 years, only do one project at a time, and spend a long time on each. Kanye, Chemical Brothers, Courtney Love, Modest Mouse, Audioslave, John Mellencamp, Jet, Natasha Beddingfield, Gnarls Barkley.
What is your creative process?
Bang my head against a wall until I either get an idea or knock myself unconscious.
I know you do a bit of photography, which is your favorite? still or moving?
Stills are like a Haiku of a narrative. I love that. I love being able to do a whole shoot with the simplicity of just me and a camera. Moving images with sound and music though provide a much larger canvas to put your ideas forth. Unfortunately it’s infinitely more complicated and costly to do so.
I know you are into music quite a bit, what have you been listening to most?
Space mtn, Cure, TV on the radio, The Knife, Fingathing, Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Thom York, live U2 bootlegs
Does it effect your creative process?
Not particularly. The creative inspiration for a video come out of the tonality of that particular song, rather than the other stuff I’m listening to at the time.
Who would be a dream artist to work for?
U2, Cure, Tori Amos. (do I really need to put links here?)
What has been your biggest accomplishment so far?
Really just getting the chance to keep making videos for me is the biggest thing. This is a hard business to break into and I got very lucky with the artists I worked with early on. Without the Chemical Brothers and Kanye giving me the freedom to do what I wanted, even though I had virtually nothing on my video reel, I wouldn’t be where I am now.
You have worked with Kanye three times, he seems to have a very specific vision, would you say that applies to music and not his videos?
He has a very specific vision for both. For videos he knows what he likes and what he doesn’t. Sometimes we will go back and forth for months before we settle on something. Sometimes I don’t like his idea, sometimes he doesn’t like mine. Every so often our tastes line up.
On Touch the Sky we talked about it from the day he was recording it to when we shot it a year later. At the last min I actually decided I didn’t like the idea I had sold him on. That was a bit awkward. “Yeah, so that idea I pitched you, that you really like, and are now trying to give me the money to shoot, I don’t like it anymoreâ€. It was all good though cause I went back to the drawing board and came up with a better idea with the Evil Kanyevil thing.
We went to school together, how did film school help you?
Hmmm, that’s tough. I often wonder if I had just jumped right in instead of going to school if I would have been better off. We certainly spent a lot in time just fucking around. I think the biggest thing was finding your place in the social dynamic of the film world. You discover that there really is no sure recipe for making it this business, or for that matter, making anything good. You can’t work your way up the food chain to be an Oscar winning director. There is no sure fire system or magic ritual. If you want to do it, sometimes you just have to throw yourself into the mouth of the volcano and see what happens.
Do you aspire to do feature length films?
yes
Do you think growing up in New York has effected your work? How?
I think growing up in NY has effected me as a person, and I suppose my work comes out of that, so I guess it’s plausible. NY will always be my home, but I vacation in LA eleven months of the year. I can’t deal with NY weather anymore.
Internet? do you embrace it or reject it?
It’s a fad. I give it another year.
Do you plan on hiring me one day as your music supervisor when you do a feature?
Provided it’s centered around the Swedish hardcore movement, you’re my guy hommie. (Editor’s Note: Jerk!)
Anything that people should know about that we don’t??
Thepunkguy and all his Jersey boys used to live in a house called “The Broderick Manor†back in the day in SF. They had this homeless gutter punk chick sleeping on their couch for a while. They kicked her out though after they found out she had scabies. Scabies, for those of you that don’t know, belong to the spider family. They are these tiny microscopic nightmares that craw under your skin and multiply. They itch like a mother, spread quickly all over your body, ruin your month, and are a bitch to get rid of (you must boil your house). No one felt it necessary to mention to me though when I needed to crash one blurry night after North Beach, that the chick had left the couch the day before. The outcome was less than desirable.
Karma is a bitch though cause 6 months later while traveling with [kristian] in Europe he picked a nasty EU version in a Prague hostel/ex soviet dissident camp.
Any last words?
Even though Bloomfield is only “15 min from Manhattanâ€, it will still, always and forever, be in New Jersey.
Thanks Milk!
(Editor’s Note # 2: Bloomfield NJ is a lot closer to Manhattan than Glen Cove is, remember that!!)
TV on the Radio – New Health Rock
The Knife – We Share Our Mother’s health (Ratatat Remix)
(pict: pat graham)
