The Work of Director-Chris Cunningham (2003) |
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The Work of Director-Chris Cunningham (2003) |
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| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Music |
Short Film-'Monkey Drummer' feat. music by Aphex Twin Short Film-'Flex' - Excerpt from video installation TV Spots-'Mental Wealth' - Sony Playstation commercial Unseen Footage-'Photocopier' - Unseen Levis commercial TV Spots-'Nissan' Commerical feat. music by Boards of Canada Music Video-'Windowlicker' - Censored version Featurette-Making Of-Making of "All is Full of Love" Booklet-52 Page Book - Photographs, Storyboards and Interviews |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 2003 | ||
| Running Time | 45:11 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | No/No | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 4 | Directed By |
Chris Cunningham Lance Bangs |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Madman Entertainment |
Starring |
Carl Antolin Aphex Twin Sigtryggur Baldursson Robert Ball Stephen Ball Afrika Bambaataa William Baraket Björk Gary Cruz Chris Cunningham Brian Friedman Beth Gibbons Madonna |
| Case | Amaray-Transparent-S/C-Dual | ||
| RPI | $29.95 | Music |
Aphex Twin Authechre Björk |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | Full Frame | English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) | |
| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | Varies | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement | No | ||
| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | Varies | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles | None | Smoking | Yes |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
The Work of Director Chris Cunningham is released by Madman Entertainment and the AV Channel under the Director’s Suite label and is the second volume of The Directors Label Series which was originally released in Region 4 by Palm Pictures, Kaleidoscope Film and DVD and Shock Records in August 2004.
Palm Pictures have produced the music video compilation with affection and care and while the Chris Cunningham directed compilation does not include all of his music video directorial work, the DVD includes Cunningham’s most renowned and well known collaborations with Autechre, Aphex Twin, Björk, Portishead and Madonna.
| 1. Second Bad Vilbel - Autechre 2. Come to Daddy - Aphex Twin 3. Only You - Portishead 4. Frozen - Madonna | 5. Afrika Shox - Leftfield 6. Come On My Selector - Squarepusher 7. Windowlicker - Aphex Twin 8. All Is Full of Love - Björk |
The aspect ratios of the music videos vary from 1.33:1, 1.85:1 and 2.35:1, however no content on the DVD is 16x9 enhanced. British director Chris Cunningham is also a video artist and his work often utilises cold blue and grey ('Come to Daddy' by Aphex Twin) and often his videos have a pristine, almost unrealistic quality about them ('Windowlicker' by Aphex Twin). Each video has been well presented and there are no issues of MPEG compression artefacts, although mild aliasing was briefly evident. Overall an excellent transfer and English subtitles for ‘Come On My Selector’ by Squarepusher are burnt onto the print.
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| Film-To-Video Artefacts | |
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The single audio soundtrack is Dolby Digital 2.0 and it is sharp and perfectly accompanies the music videos. There are no faults with this soundtrack.
| Dialogue | |
| Audio Sync | |
| Clicks/Pops/Dropouts | |
| Surround Channel Use | |
| Subwoofer | |
| Overall | |
The main menu has been co-designed by Cunningham and features one of thematic concerns found extensively in Cunningham's work - Man vs. Machine. Also the menu features the arrhythmic editing which is a frequent fixture of a Cunningham music video. The menu is well designed and is easy to navigate. Music videos can be accessed individually or can be viewed as a main feature. The only disappointment is the menu features sequences of music videos which do not appear on the DVD itself.
Rare interviews with both Björk and Cunningham discussing the concept for the music video edited with behind the scenes footage.
Rubber Johnny (1:00) - Preview of Cunningham’s 2005 experimental short film.
The Work of Director - Spike Jonze
The Work of Director - Michel Gondry
A nice companion to the DVD which features rare photographs, concept art and storyboards and also an interview with Cunningham discussing his successful career. The book also contains images from other Cunningham directed videos which are not included on the DVD release.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
The NTSC R1 and PAL R4 are identical in terms of features.
The second volume of The Director's Label series does not contain the the wealth of extras found on the first volume (The Work of Director - Spike Jonze ), however the small selection of Cunningham's directorial work is confronting and fascinating and the DVD has been beautifully presented. In this case less is more.
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| Extras | |
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| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Denon DVD-1910, using DVI output |
| Display | Panasonic PT-AE 700. Calibrated with THX Optimizer. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 1080p. |
| Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with THX Optimizer. |
| Amplification | Yamaha DSP-A595a - 5.1 DTS |
| Speakers | (Front) DB Dynamics Polaris AC688F loudspeakers,(Centre) DB Dynamics Polaris Mk3 Model CC030,(Rear) Polaris Mk3 Model SSD425,(Subwoofer) Jensen JPS12 |