We Are Chopchop » Music Video

Cortney Tidwell – Watusii (Dir. Daniel Franke & Martin W. Maier)

Daniel Franke — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 08:54:49 +0000

What you see is a dizzying rotation to the exhausted climax. The audience might doubt their sense of balance while parking lots, roofs, galleries and other locations are mingled and mangled. But its not just about the motion; its these little lovely details and props. The song is visualized by light-paintings moving in staccato to the beat while Courtney plays paper drums reminding us of the Stones. Strange looking persons with buckets for heads are forming words out of living bodies while others are bullying the beat with umbrellas. Conclusion: The two directors are creating a weird, screaming, fast and colorful journey that does not leaves any room for breathing.

Watch in HD on vimeo

Marteria – Zum Koenig geboren

Daniel Franke — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 11:16:42 +0000

Born to be king, but making a muck of life. In a dark studio Daniel Franke and Martin W. Maier filmed the way of life of a self-appointed king. Palms turn into clocks, a gun smoothing the way to the cut, not enough for a suicide. The word \”Njet\” combines to a busdoor, closing. Paper-mache made he drives through the studio set, led by a star, towards the faceless dancers. Money raining from above and a door guiding the way to marriage. In the end not everything is like in the beginning. The dancers are wearing suits now, the set fades away, leaving a rarely lit space. With their love to detail and in the style of Gondry, Franke and Maier have created their own Fantasy.

Dir. Daniel Franke & Martin W. Maier

Official selection of the MuVi-Preis at the Kurzfilmtage in Oberhausen
won the MuVi-Audience-Award

Watch in HD on vimeo

Watch on vimeo

Tolose – Designing Chimneys

Mikala — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 13:00:08 +0000

Watch on Vimeo

The basic idea for the Designing Chimneys video we owe to a Ramadan-ridden Syrian cab-driver who let us buy the exquisite oriental beats mix-tape he played for us during our ride through Damascus; it was decorated with the great 80ies hot-air-balloon prints we let the band ride in through the multitude of comicy, fairytalish, dystopian or intoxicated sceneries that accompany the soundscape of the song.
The collaged imagery derives from all sources we could get our thievish hands on; old postcards, posters & papers, friends face-book-foto-albums, random peoples Flickr accounts and of course I-Stock stock (the neat watermarks are all included).
We had our fun drawing additional visuals from the Best Of gallery of our useless art-school education and other popular culture trash baskets and so the worlds second most annoying fish Nemo gets eaten by Hirst’s poetic formaldehyde-shark and general MacArthur exchanges his victorious cigar with Magritte’s non-existent pipe; we have Koons poppy dine on cat-food in the disco while his rabbit step dances with fair Bavarian Bier-Mädchen. The tiling of the disco sequence has been generously provided by Warhol, Mondrian & Dali.
Bush & other favourite Russian dictators all take their fall (into the ocean pit or otherwise) before the balloon disappears back into the ear channel of revived Financial crisis hero Marx.
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When Simon asked us to do a video for Tolose the relative spatial distance between Copenhagen and Berlin formed a little bump on the road. Through modern day miracles like digicams & Email, along with the friendly intervention of Mr. Malmkvist & his blue box we were able to slip his stop motion sequences of the band members smoothly into our all-fake universe.

Song: Simon Lambrecht Finne & TOLOSE
Lyrics: Simon Lambrecht Finne

Video: Fru Dal & Daniel Franke
Stop Motion Photos: Jesper Malmkvist

Marteria “Verstrahlt”

Daniel Franke — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:38:50 +0000

WATCH IN HD ON VIMEO

Babooshka 2009

Aki — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 17:14:21 +0000

Dir. Daniel Franke & Martin W. Maier
wearechopchop.com & martin-w-maier.de