WHEN film clips first started it was enough to have the band performing in a studio or a field.
Eventually this morphed into bands performing in a studio or a field with some trippy camera effects.
It wasn't until the '80s that acts caught on to the idea that the music video could be an outlet for creativity.
In the past 15 years, the art of the music video - aided by improvements in computer graphics - has increased exponentially and given rise to some truly brilliant ideas.
Here, in our fifth installment of the best film clips of all time, are some more great clips to blow your mind.
Knights Of Cydonia - Muse
MUSE'S over-the-top Queen-like rock epic got a suitably over-the-top epic of a film clip thanks to director Joseph Kahn, who has worked with the likes of Eminem, Gwen Stefani, Britney Spears and just about every other big US music star you can think of. Part-spaghetti western, part-sci-fi, part-post-apocalyptic kung fu movie, Knights Of Cydonia is packed with deliberately cheesy B-grade film moments and it's great fun, playing out like some weird movie you catch late at night on SBS. It's also a cinema buff's trainspotting dream. Muse ran a competition through its website giving away 1000 faux Knights Of Cydonia movie posters to the first 1000 fans who could correctly name the 15 movies referenced in the clip, which included The Matrix, Planet Of The Apes and Star Wars. Kahn also directed Muse's early single Muscle Museum but other great videos by the British band include the theme-park ride Invincible, the hotel-room trashing of Hysteria, the apocalyptic-space journey of Sing For Absolution and the Dr Strangelove-referencing Time Is Running Out.
Pumping On Your Stereo - Supergrass
HAMMER & Tongs are the film clip duo Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith who, aside from directing the movie The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, made the awesome Blur video for Coffee & TV (featured previously). Supergrass wrote the song in 10 minutes but it's safe to say they spent a lot longer shooting this clip with Hammer & Tongs. Equipped with bodies and instruments that look like they're straight out of Jim Henson's Muppet Workshop, a 10-foot tall Supergrass play their song with perfectly puppetted enthusiasm. Just when the gag gets old, they take their heads off and throw them around. It's good fun, much like the Bowie-esque track itself.
EMI won't let us embed the clip but you can watch it here.
All Is Full Of Love - Bjork
WHETHER you love or hate Icelandic eccentric Bjork, there's no denying the beauty of this film clip. MTV2 rated it the greatest clip of all time and it was one of the few music videos exhibited at New York's Museum Of Modern Art. Director Chris Cunningham, whose other notable clips include Madonna's Frozen and the creepy Aphex Twin videos for Come To Daddy and Windowlicker, works wonderfully with Bjork's lyrics about finding love in unexpected places. It features a robotic Bjork being repaired on a table, where she meets another Bjork-bot and falls in love. The two droids start to make out, and, while it sounds bizarre, their embrace is one of the more eerily beautiful moments you're likely to see in a music video. The clip won numerous awards but lost the Grammy for best music video to Korn's Freak On A Leash (which was reviewed in a previous column).
E Pro - Beck
BECK's music has never been straightforward and the accompanying music videos reflect that. This animated gem features Beck running through a crudely drawn world battling skeletons, riding a bicycle that can climb buildings and losing his head. While the animation looks crude, it's spectacularly done, turning some simple lines into a stark 3D world. The video is the work of Shynola, a British team of visual artists whose previous work includes the amazing clip for Radiohead's Pyramid Song, as well as the short "blips'' for that band's experimental and influential album Kid A. Shynola have also worked with Queens Of The Stone Age, Blur and Junior Senior and provided the animations for Hammer & Tongs' film The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. Other Beck clips worth checking out are the folding sets of Girl, the A Life Less Ordinary-sampling Deadweight, and the truly amazing "how did they do that?'' clip for Cellphone's Dead by Michel Gondry, which possibly even tops E Pro for 'wow' factor.
Universal won't let us embed this clip, but you can watch it here.
Weapon Of Choice - Fatboy Slim
ALONG with Hammer & Tongs, Chris Cunningham and Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze is one of the top film clip directors of all time. For proof, look no further than this smile-inducing video starring Christopher Walken. Before starring in such films as The Deer Hunter and Pulp Fiction, Walken was a trained dancer and here he effortlessly twirls and shuffles his way through an empty hotel to Fatboy's beats before suddenly taking flight. It's simple but effective and works in no small part thanks to Walken's casual mugging for the camera and his smooth, Fred Astaire moves. Fatboy Slim's other highlight clip is the Hammer & Tongs-directed Right Here, Right Now, which deserves a mention if only for the fact it boils a few million years of evolution down into a three and a half minute music video.
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