Hervé De Crecy

MAA : How did you start working on this clip ? Have you been contacted or did you decide by yourself to do something ?
Hervé de Crecy : We have been contacted by our producer. We are represented by Black Dog Films, affiliated to RSA production company (Ridley Scott Associates), based in London. Our producer there, John Payne, called us at H5 a friday in november, mid-afternoon. He sent us a piece by e-mail, saying "well, this is a song by MA... would you consider working on a video clip ? If yes, send us some elements before monday". Two days to find an idea... quite short ! But quite motivating as well to work for MA. The clip was to be released mid-january... we therefore got one month maximum if our idea was selected... one month, including christmas and new year vacations !

MAA : Could you tell us how did you work with 3D ; who got the idea of the scenario ? Were you allowed to do whatever you wished, or did 3D had an eye on everything and a specific idea of what he wanted ?
Hervé de Crecy : When John Payne called us, he sent us 3D’s brief : for "Special cases" clip, he just had two requests :

1. the clip should be made with stock footages, I mean already shot images : archives or previous movies etc,
2. he should carry a strong message (as most of MA clips).

From there, we listened and listened to the song. We broke the lyrics into pieces... and then came the idea, based on the song’s structure. We realised that the music and the lyrics were built on a kind of dichotomy, of opposition. Musically speaking, the song is in two parts : at about half of it, a musical bridge separates these two parts. They are in the meantime similar and in opposition. The song is about contradictions that constitute a personality, about different identities who co-exist in each person, and in the pain that life’s choices can create. We therefore, wanted to do something about duality. We first thought about the "mirror structure", then the themes of biotechnologies and reproduction came. We have often consider to show a lab-created human being. The use of archives helped us a lot... at low cost (no need for special effects... with a good editing, an image can express whatever you want it to).

MAA : Why two versions of the clip ?
Hervé de Crecy : Making two versions was linked to our mirror structure. While writing the script, we thought that the musical bridge was right in the middle of the song ; this moment should therefore be dedicated to the first meeting between two clones. The minutes before and after their meeting should then be used to describe their personal evolutions... Then, if time was the same for both of them, we should be able to play the movie one way or the other... It was a great innovation for us... I never saw that in a clip before..

But this would work only if two conditions were respected :

1. the musical bridge had to be right in the middle of the song, which was not exactly the case... We asked 3D for a special remix but his manager refused... and that was understandable with the initial length of the song, 5’20" !
2. the second part of the clip had to be in reverse action... which means that if the character walks he has to walk backwards ; if he move forward, he has to move backwards... We were really in favour of this construction in the beginning, but the manager (Marc Picken) and the administrator (Carole Burton Fairbrother) feared it would give it an kind of "arty" side, a little bit too much for a video clip...

Anyway, as the idea of a "reversible" movie was out.... we just reversed the sequences’ order in the second part.
When we finished the first version, our producer (Pete Shuttleworth for Black Dog Films) and us thought we had give up the idea of a second one. But Marc and 3D insisted to have it made. It was not really easy, as we did use most of our Image banks selection...

MAA : In "Special cases", 3D does not appear ; neither Sinead. Was this a request from MA ?
Hervé de Crecy : Not really. They did not say that they do not wish to appear in the video... but they did not say the contrary neither. We were, therefore, free to have them or not. But I think that the message would have been weaker should they have been there.
Actually, filming or not filming the singers was not our main concern...

MAA : Was the contact with 3D easy ?
Hervé de Crecy : More than easy... as we had none ! Not even a phone call. Everything went through is manager Marc Picken. He did not even came to see the movie when it was finished... We sent him a tape.

MAA : Was Sinead O’Connor involved or not ?
Hervé de Crecy : Absolutely not ! Too bad ! It was quite frustrating ; we really wished to meet them.

MAA : How did 3D reacted when he saw the movie ? Was it what he expected ? Was he surprised one way or the other... ?
Hervé de Crecy : It is hard to say... the only reaction we got was : "Eeh, the guy’s hair are too long".. talking about the main character.

MAA : Have you any "special little story" to tell us ?
Hervé de Crecy : Not really... Ludovic spent his midnight of new year’s eve in a cab, on his way back to his family... after an evening in two high speed trains. Quite a bad period to do a movie. More than 90 % of the people supposed to work with us were on vacation... the image banks, the archives were closed etc. It was hard. Really. We spend 21 days on the editing (with Dayn Williams, chez Cut&Run), a record ! And we got a lot of bad fish & chips.

MAA : Is MA a band with which you’d like to work again ?
Hervé de Crecy : Anytime ! We might already have a project for them ! We’ll see...

MAA : Who are the artists you’d like to work with ?
Hervé de Crecy : A whole bunch : among them, Radiohead, Blur, Phoenix, Gorillaz, Coldplay, Boards of Canada, Beck, the Beastie Boys, the Roots, White stripes, the Strokes, Daft Punk, Wilco...

MAA : what are your professional plans for the coming months?
Hervé de Crecy : Personal one (a film, a DVD and a book)... some advertising as well.... We are open to any suggestion for new video clips !

MAA : And, last but not least : what are your musical favourites ? What do you listen at the moment ?
Hervé de Crecy : The same than those I told you I’d like to work with. I do listen a lot to Wilco...