BUG Fatboy Slim special at London Film Festival!

15 Oct 2012 10:32 - posted by David Knight

BUG celebrated the amazing contribution to the artfom of music videos by one Norman Cook – better known as superstar DJ, producer and artist Fatboy Slim, one of the giants of British dance music – in a special show on Tuesday, October 16th.

It was our first ever show at the London Film Festival - and came just ahead of the release of the new Fatboy Slim live DVD.

Fatboy Slim: Big Beach Bootique 5 is the film of Norman's triumphant shows at the American Express Community Stadium, the new home of his beloved Brighton & Hove Albion.

But BUG mainly looked back to the remarkable music videos that emerged from the last Nineties onwards, where Fatboy Slim inspired some of the best directors to make what are regarded as some of the best music videos ever made.

And there was another first for BUG: Norman made a superb contribution to the show himself, discussing the videos and chatting with Adam and our on-stage guests – Skint Records' label boss and fellow DJ Damien Harris, video commissioner John Hassay and director Rob Leggatt – via the wonders of Skype!

BUG Special - Fatboy Slim programme notes.pdf

Fatboy Slim - Everybody Needs A 303

The first Fatboy Slim album 'Better Living Through Chemistry' arrived in 1996, and a video was duly commissioned for Everybody needs a 303 - which Norman hated. So he made this tiny-budget, one-shot and in its way conceptually revolutionary replacement. Credited to the fictitious ‘Ron Kurtz’, it’s just a head-shot of the Brighton scenester and sometime doorperson at the Big Beat Boutique club nights known as Perv.

Fatboy Slim – The Rockafeller Skank

Fatboy Slim became an overnight sensation with the release of The Rockafeller Skank. Directed by Doug Aitken, the resulting promo was also something of an anti-video: an exercise in stream-of-conscious randomness – and Norman turns up on the decks in cowboy hat.

Fatboy Slim – Right Here, Right Now

The cinematic and propulsive Right Here, Right Now is the 30 billion year story of human evolution, as told by Hammer & Tongs (that’s Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith) as a single continuous journey, from single cell protozoa to the obese guy on the cover of the album. Many of the creatures were built for real at SFX studio Creature Effects, and when it came to the apes, Tongs producer Nick Goldsmith donned the costume himself to race from Neanderthal man to human.

Making of: Fatboy Slim - Right Here Right Now

The making of 'Right here, Right Now' - 30 billion year story of human evolution, as told by Hammer & Tongs aka Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith.

Fatboy Slim – Slash Dot Dash

Directed by one of the medium’s all time great exponents – Tim Pope, who came up with a madly energetic, visually inventive video for Slash Dot Dash: a boy and girl team of graffiti artists tear all over a stark bathroom applying the ‘/.–…’ on the walls, and over each other. Tim achieved it by building three bathrooms in the studio (one on its side, and one upside down) and spent the time shooting the video running from set to set…

Fatboy Slim – Don’t Let the Man Get You Down

Don’t Let the Man Get You Down is directed by American director Brian Beletic. Shot in period-looking monochrome, it focuses on a white man named Don, pointing out early on that ‘Don Is a Racist’ and showing his pathological hatred and fear of non-whites in various scenes as he conducts his small town daily routine. The style is non-proselytising, even humorous, but it gets its message over – and there are several ways to see Don receive his comeuppance as the video comes with five alternate, increasingly surreal endings.

Fatboy Slim – Sunset (Bird of Prey)

Sunset (Bird Of Prey), the lead-off single from the third album Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars. The video directed by Rob Leggatt, Leigh Marling combines historical insight with pure visual thrills, as it explores a 1960s US airforce pilot’s fantasy flight mission while out of his mind on acid – a scenario rooted in fact as the US government conducted secret LSD experiments on members of its armed forces in the early 60s.

Fatboy Slim – Ya Mama

Another remarkable production for Ya Mama (aka Push the Tempo). The video was directed by Traktor, a six-man Swedish directing collective. Big in commercials – and renowned for their manically humorous style and use of non-professional actors – Traktor had never previously made a music video before this. They ended up making this bizarre concoction of live action cartoon comedy on the Caribbean island of Carriacou. A trio of strange characters (one Swedish, two from the American deep south) discover the wildly destructive physical effects of playing Ya Mama.

The Making: Fatboy Slim - Ya Mama

The making of Ya Muma (Push The Tempo) by Traktor, a six-man Swedish directing collective.

Fatboy Slim – Gangster Trippin’

Roman Coppola’s video for Gangster Trippin was the second from You’ve Come a Long Way Baby, and another variation on the ‘anti-video’ theme. Allegedly Coppola’s script contained just one line: ‘Blow stuff up’. In fact, this was directly inspired by the celebrated sequence from Michaelangelo Antonioni’s movie Zabriskie Point, in which furniture of a suburban dream home is poetically blown to smithereens. In Coppola’s version the footage was captured on a Photosonics camera, shooting mainly at 2000 frames a second – of real film.

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