Interview: TYLER JAMES (director)

I discovered Tyler James via Antville with his unique video for Low in the Sky's "Cool Sanson". It reminded me a lot of Aleksandr Petrov’s work with a unique twist in that in place of paint, Tyler has used sand to create a texture all his own. It's available in Quicktime format HERE on Tyler's site or alternatively below in low quality Flash video.

Low in the Sky - Cool Sanson
Uploaded by anotheraccount

Tyler was born and raised in Atlanta and grew up wanting to be an inventor. He enjoyed making things was delighted at the creation of his alien “contact machine” which despite being unable to contact aliens, managed to disrupt television transmissions in the household.

Always loving art and being inspired by the work of Michel Gondry, he went on to attain a degree in video art at the now extinct Atlanta College of Art. With his video for Cool Sanson (his second), he is showing promise and is full of enthusiasm for the craft. It will be interesting to see what comes next.


What do you feel makes a great music video? Likewise, what do you feel makes a bad video?
A great music video should complement the music and capture the attention of the viewer. It should also be entertaining enough to view multiple times. A bad video is just the opposite.

What was the inspiration behind “Low in the Sky”? And can you tell us about the technique used for animated sequences?
The song, as well as my own past, inspired the video. The song starts out innocent and childlike, but it quickly changes to become more ominous. I wanted to merge a childish activity (playing in a sandbox), with a more mature subject,(domestic abuse). As far as domestic abuse goes, it is a subject I know all to well. Growing up, I had an alcoholic father, and I experienced it first hand.


To create the sand animation, I first desaturated and upped the contrast of my original footage. Next, I made a DVD of it, and on a thin sheet of plastic I traced every third frame from my T.V. with a dry-erase marker. I then took the plastic sheet to my dining room table and painstakingly sprinkled the different colored sands onto their designated shapes pinch by pinch. I then photographed each frame with a digital camera. All of the transitions were created by blowing on the sand.

READ THE FULL INTERVIEW BY CLICKING HERE