Home of director and photographer, Daniel Finley dannyjive.com

Up Front Agency just released the music video for the Morning Musume song “3,2,1 Breakin’ Out” . This is their official release; not the winner of the contest. They’ll announce the winner in July when they perform in L.A. It’s a really nice video, much better than what they usually put out. I’m guessing they [...]

I go to dannychoo.com to see all the great photos he takes on his photo-walks around Japan. Every once in a while you’ll find bit of inspiration in his posts. Here’s one I found recently that I really like and thought was worth sharing: “No matter what the odds are, Focus, Determination and Passion will [...]

I’ve wanted to write a blog post about Kensuke Kawamura for a while now. He’s probably one of my favorite directors coming out of Japan at the moment. From the little Japanese that I can understand, his bio says he started in photography and moved into music video. I haven’t seen much by him as [...]

A new video to add to my inspiring yet creepy music video collection. I don’t know much about Kerli, but she has a Bjork influence which I like. This video is directed by Aggressive a company made up of Alex Topaller and Dan Shapiro. Here’s some more of their music videos and commercials. This one [...]

A cool video I just discovered, directed by Yuichi Kodoma. I’ve never heard of this band before, but I like the style in which it’s done. I’ve dealt with bands with low energy before, and that’s cool, but I’ve always struggled with how to portray them in an interesting way especially when it’s a performance [...]

Just found out Spike Jonze has a blog. How cool is that? Looks like it’s dedicated to Where the Wild Things Are and a few other things he’s worked on in the past. Check it out: http://weloveyouso.com/blog/

Here’s a great video from the newly revitalized career of Goto Maki. She left her agency, Hello Project, a few years back hoping to find a new label. It looked like no one would take her because, in Japan, it’s a really small music community and you never leave the company you’re with. Well, some [...]

After my Lykke Li music video post, I wanted to follow up with another creepy yet beautiful music video. This is a Japanese musician named Omodaka aka Far East Recording. He specializes in electronica mixed with traditional Japanese music. He just played here in Chicago through Japan Night 2009, but I didn’t get the chance [...]

A friend just turned me on to Swedish artist Lykke Li performs in this kinda creepy video. I’m loving the staccato motion of some of the characters and the photographic compositions. Also like her boxing style dance/performance. It’s a great song and normally I don’t think videos do well when an editor cuts images to [...]

A little electronic/Jpop thrown your way today. Don’t worry, no one understands the lyrics. The music video is called Jumper. The band is called Capsule and Nakata Yasutaka is the same guy behind Perfume’s recent chart topping hits. This video is (supposedly) directed by him also. I’m loving the use of pixelization and artifacting especially [...]