BLUE MONDAY '88

The Band have decided to make an edit of the song that radio in the U.S. wanted to play back in 1983 but said it was to long.

I was in the bookstore of the Whitney Museum looking through a catalog for a past Biennale exhibition. I saw a few hand drawn frames from a film by animator Robert Breer. It was 1988 and Peter Gabriel's “Sledgehammer” was a popular video using animation. I found it interesting to watch once or twice, but after that I was more interested in the technology rather than the imagery or the song. These simple hand drawings by Breer interested me.

I remember tracking Robert down through someone who worked at the Donnell Library Media department. He put me in touch with Robert adding that he may be interested in using his art for a commercial venture because he recently had a baby and could use the money.

Bob lived up the Hudson River in a town called Sparkill. Indeed, he was interested and he showed me how he worked drawing on index cards and shooting single frame in his small studio.

Steven Baker at Warner Brothers liked the idea but felt it needed more. He proposed adding William Wegman in to the mix. Wegman was known for the videos and photographs he made with his Weimeraner dogs. I knew Bill from the art world and thought that was an idea worth exploring. I learned that Bill and Bob had never met but knew of, and respected, each other's work.

It developed that Bill would shoot first with his dog Fay Ray (daughter of Man Ray) and we would develop the film and Bob would work off of those images. New Order was touring and Bill and I met up with them in Los Angeles. Bill invited the band to a friend's photo studio. There was nothing really planned but for a prop that Bob had prepared of a flipbook of the dog.

All the other things in the video were found in the studio. It brilliantly brings out the personalities of the band members who otherwise still refused to mime the songs and did not want to be put in to a position to act – they were musicians so they should play their music and, if not, then not be made to look stupid.

That footage was then processed and fed to Breer who completed his animations and everything was now on video.

I had arranged to have Gretchen Bender (Bizarre Love Triangle) edit the video. While I waited for Gretchen to make herself available I began to edit on her system. I accomplished one cut that stayed: Fay moving backwards on to a platform and placing her paw on the tennis ball to the explosive beat of the music.

Gretchen was still not available, so I engaged Laura Israel (she also edited Round & Round and Run).

As the edit developed Bob and Bill would alternatively visit Laura. We found that the video was more Bob after his visit and more Bill after his. That seemed normal, but eventually I had to bar them from the edit room once Laura had become familiar with the footage and ideas of each artist. So Laura made the final decisions with me and everyone was happy.

I'll never forget my arguing that videos had to stand up to repeated viewings so that it was all right to have to view it several times to understand or get in to it. Bernard would then remind me that for the U.S. MTV it might be OK, but in the UK they were lucky to get one television screening so it had to work the first time. I was proud that the video worked as I had hoped: it was low tech and could be both appreciated on one viewing and would hold up to many more.

I will note that Tony Wilson has a Weimeraner named William. When it takes Tony 10 minutes to get William in to the boot of his car his curses include blaming me for the video which gave him the idea.