The music videos of Mark Romanek have long been an inspiration: his adaptations of Trent Reznor's "Closer" and Madonna's "Bedtime Stories", for me, rank up there as some of the most flawless, most dazzling marriages of images and music I've yet seen (both videos are, incidentally, now a part of the Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection, here in New York City). And indeed, as the era of MTV-arbitrated taste enjoys its (admittedly, hideously long) decline, and the half dozen or so brilliant music video directors that have come to the fore over the past twenty years begin to (having long since run out of canvas to use in their native realm) make their inevitable transition to the big screen (Mark having already done so, fairly recently, with "One Hour Photo"; let us hope Chris Cunningham joins him soon), one is left to marvel, looking back at some of these catalogues, that, truly, works like these even got made at all.
A month ago Mark Romanek held a very informal Keynote Question and Answer session at ResFest, for those aspiring directors interested in picking up a few tips from a master, I do most highly recommend the following: Mark Romanek's ResFest Keynote Q&A
(Also, is it just me, or is there more than a slightly passing resemblence between the two of us...? Perhaps it's just the beard, but I dare say my career has almost certainly now been cut out for me...)
(EDIT: Link to the ResFest Q&A audio file seems to be broken, will see if I can track down the original audio file then and host it myself, new working link to come after.)
