Nina Kraviz: Ghetto Kraviz


While I was editing Afterlife together with James Mountford back in 2009, I came across a tune called Pain in the Ass by some Nina Kraviz which completely distracted us from the job at hand. We did some investigating and after a few clicks found some photos of this Nina, who back then was relatively unknown in our circles. We were still running high on inspiration with the Afterlife video and felt like we had stumbled on a great subject to make our next video project, so I dropped her a message and suggested to make something together, sending her some of my videos. She responded sooner than expected expressing interest but saying that videos weren’t in her schedule at the time.

So last September while I was hanging out in Spain, she posted a status message on Facebook asking for someone to make her a video for an upcoming single. I don’t usually do this sort of thing, but I responded. Within a couple of months I’m on a flight to Berlin (delayed by 10 hours… yes, ten), meeting up with Nina, shooting for a few hours in the streets and finally grabbing a couple of hours sleep before heading out to Arena the following day.

Finally being under the club lights, surrounded by smoke with Nina in the viewfinder, often brought me back to when I first got in touch with her, when I didn’t really believe anything would ever come out of it. Classic example of the great times we’re living in.

…Rambling as usual!

The video wouldn’t have been made possible without the help of
-Hakan Can who helped me out immensely during the shoot
-Jon Hester for the support during my airport troubles, for killing it at 4AM in the freezing streets of Kreuzberg despite having to catch a 7AM flight.
-Georgina Philp for  her great performance in the venue.
-Arena for letting us use their incredible space
-Christian Fritzenwanker for Nina’s makeup
-Nina for the enthusiasm and patience and for trying to make this happen!

GO BUY Nina’s album!! beatport | juno | itunes

Credits
Directed by David Terranova
Dancers: Jon Hester, Georgina Philp
Location: Arena
Hair & Makeup: Christian Fritzenwanker

28 February 2012 14:46
Music Video Video

Bloc Influences: Steve Reich

In the run up to Bloc’s festival in London this July, they asked me to handle a short series of interviews with some of their lineup artists, to hear about who or what has played an important part in influencing their career. The first episode featured Gary Numan, and he spoke about how Ultravox and John Foxx had helped him figure out how to add synth sounds to his punk band, turning him into the Gary Numan that we all know him as.

To my delight, the second episode was to feature Steve Reich, filming at his house in upstate New York. My friend Yves Schaeffner who is a journalist working for Canal+ really helped me prepare the topics that were to be covered and came with us to run the interview with Steve himself. It’s a great experience to work with someone from that side of the media world who really knows about how to research and how to run a professional interview with someone on Reich’s scale.

After an hour’s drive out from Manhattan and into the New York countryside, we ended up at Steve’s house where he welcomed us in and let us set up the equipment in his living room. We had one hour to shoot everything and pack up again, so we were under a tiny bit of pressure. Unfortunately he didn’t have any instruments at his house, but he managed to maintain an upbeat monologue about his experiences. The moment when he described the breaths of the clarinet player was particularly magical.

Bryan Cosgrove as ever was a great help throughout the project, operating the second camera and afterwards working through all the footage and putting a storyline in place with a rough edit.

Credits
Directed by David Terranova
Second Camera and Assistant Editor: Bryan Cosgrove
Producer: Yves Schaeffner
Press & Screenings
Resident Advisor | FACT | The Quietus | DUMMY

28 May 2012 18:15
Documentary Video

Bloc 2012 lineup


New promo for Bloc! Stepping up the game, working with a proper VFX guy for my first time!

The “VFX guy” is Sina Taherkhani, who happens to be a friend of mine here in Brooklyn, he works for a big agency in the city as Art Director working on the big stuff. We got together a couple of times to sketch out some ideas, revolving around creating a submerged world, and after giving him my rather dry edit, he’s been on the case, enhancing every single shot with all sorts of hotness.

The track is Porc #1 by Moderat, which has always been a favourite of mine… Check out this other video I made back in the day when I went to do a job with Matthew Dear.

Credits
Directed by David Terranova
Filmed by Adam Docker
VFX by Sina Taherkhani

14 May 2012 09:58
Promo Video

The Hollow Men

I’ve played guitar for years, but since moving to New York I had to make do without one, until I finally bought one the other day. Since then I’m getting back into the moody long hypnotic sounds that I used to play a lot, so I tried dropping it in amongst some digital sounds to see what happened

10 May 2012 16:00
Music

Bloc: Stubnitz

The beginning of a small documentary series for Bloc festival, starting aboard a 50 year old fishing vessel called MS Stubnitz which has been turned into a travelling music and art space. Keep an eye out for future episodes, featuring a bunch of pretty high profile artists!

The first two tracks are by my friends Maesia and Orgon… Hotness from Rome!
Great camera work as always from Spike Morris

Credits
Direction & Edit: David Terranova
Director of Photography & Colourist: Spike Morris
Assistant Editor: Bryan Cosgrove
Production Manager: Martina Rojas Chaigneau

3 May 2012 14:58
Documentary Video

Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs: Tapes & Money

I’m so honoured to get involved with Orlando’s ventures again (check the 4Play doco I made last year), this time promoting his Tapes & Money single which received a bunch of new vocals (though I really didn’t mind the original version). He wanted to transmit the energy of the live show, something that is hard when shooting a video in a studio. So the idea was to film at one of the shows to capture the real thing: pretty simple, and I think I’ve got the hang of these live event videos (REBELRAVE / Richie Hawtin / Matthew Dear).

I really enjoyed editing this as I’m particularly inspired by a lot of these acid/VHS style videos, and I wanted to try to make something similar using the live concert footage as I think it really matches TEED’s esthetic. This style is something you can’t really predict, you’re just overlaying images on top of each other and building compositions on the fly, and until you render it out you don’t really know how it’s going to turn out. As I was editing I was really impressed by some of the still frames which looked more like oil paintings than anything else, however you probably miss them when watching the video as it’s so fast-paced. So I saved some of the stills on my Flickr, check them out!

On the filming side I received the invaluable help from a great up and coming DP called Spike Morris, who I came to know through Vimeo and who I’ll be working more with in the near future. The venue was pretty big, and the crowds were heaving, so we couldn’t have made it without the help of a third camera, operated by Oscar Hudson, and a fourth camera operated by Polydor’s very own Sam Seager (check out his photo blog!)

After taking the footage back home, I only had 8 days to get it out. I definitely wouldn’t have been able to make it without the help of Bryan Cosgrove who worked alongside me during the edit.

Check out the Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs website for more magic

Credits
Directed by David Terranova
DP / 1st Camera: Spike Morris
2nd Camera: Oscar Hudson
Assistant Editor: Bryan Cosgrove
Hair & Makeup: Jacqui Mcelroy

5 March 2012 16:11
Music Video Video

Interview on The Avant/Garde Diaries

Back in December during my 2 day stay in Berlin for Nina Kraviz’ music video, I met up with my good friend David Shapiro who introduced me to a young upcoming film director called Hakan Can. Hakan had a few weeks downtime before his next short movie, so he had been asked by The Avant/Garde Diaries to direct one of their next episodes and to feature someone of his liking. Over our impromptu lunch he told me he was interested in featuring me, so within a couple of hours I found myself in the K-MB meeting room discussing the logistics of putting this episode together.

A month later I went back over to Berlin to find Hakan and his team had built a great set in a studio in Berlin, with a couple of actors and a few interesting props. My videos were playing on 3 screens in the background, and I was supposed to talk about myself and about who or what I found avantgarde these days.

Unfortunately I’m not the most natural speaker in the world, so it took us far longer than expected for me to spit out the words I had prepared. But the topic I chose (“the artists’ revolution”) is something I feel strongly about: the term avantgarde these days is widespread and has almost lost its meaning. Becoming an artist is far more achievable than it was years ago, with technology and the internet we’re discovering that we are all gifted with something or other, and we each have the power to use that talent and to show the world what it is. This is just a modern day phenomenon: years ago becoming an artist was something reserved for the elite, for those who really committed their whole lives to a dream.

Obviously there’s the bad side of this (no need for names), but I just ignore that and just enjoy the fact that I can find so much inspiration a few clicks away, and I can find so many relatively unknown people that I admire and can work together with.

You can read the full article on The Avant/Garde Diaries website and check out the other far more interesting people!

Credits
Directed by Hakan Can
Produced by Mercedes-Benz
Press & Screenings
The Avant/Garde Diaries

7 February 2012 18:47
Life

Viktoriya

My friend Lucia Martinez shot this great video during a fashion shoot for Harpers Bazaar the other day. She came round my place and I put it together using two tunes from my buddy D.I.E.I.N.M.O.N.O.

The model is Viktoriya Sasonkina

Credits
Directed by Lucia Martinez
Edit by David Terranova
Music by D.I.E.I.N.M.O.N.O.
Model: Viktoriya Sasonkina

1 February 2012 17:21
Fashion Video

Bloc 2012 Promo

The second little project that happened during my 10 day stop off in London (here’s the first) was for the guys from Bloc, to create the promo for this year’s festival which will be finally moving away from their usual Maidenhead resort and relocating to a really cool spot in the Far East of London: an abandoned industrial site with a humungous old factory in one end, a silo in the other, and a hard-edged canal down the middle. Apparently people are thinking that the event will take place inside the factory, which is not the case.

The move is a pretty big deal for them, and they figured it should be the focus of the advertising campaign. They got their lighting crew to come along, who brought a van full of all sorts of gear, and spent a good couple of hours arranging all of it around the building. My brother Adam Docker came along to take care of the filming (using both the 5D and his Sony PDW700), working alongside Bloc’s art director Stuart Hammersley.

I also made the Bloc sting, both audio and visuals, which from now on will be inserted at the beginning of all their video pieces.

If you fancy some reminiscing, check the video promo I made for their 2011 campaign.

Credits
Director: David Terranova
Camera: Adam Docker
Art Direction: Stuart Hammersley

18 January 2012 12:35
Promo Video

KINQ

New tune using my brother’s little spanish guitar (it’s tiny!). I wanted him to record some solos as he’s pretty good at those arabic pentatonic scales, but he didn’t have the time, so I’m just left with a basic solo that’s a bit rigid. I was just spending a couple of nights at his place in London, and as I’ve been longing to pick up a guitar I started messing around with his while he was at work and came up with this riff.

I also recorded some humming vocals and repitched them to create the harmonies.

The recording quality is rubbish (half of it done on my macbook’s inbuilt mic), so I figured it be a good idea to just destroy the sound even further, hence the distortion effects.

10 January 2012 23:44
Music

Catharsis

I’ve come to London for a couple of weeks for a couple of projects, the first one being with my friend and fashion photographer James Mountford. Shot at the marvelous Town Hall Hotel, and styled by Way Perry this could be considered our first trial in making something a bit more cinematic than our other works together. The star of the film is Ilona from Union Models.

I also made the soundtrack for this, helping give it the twist that we usually like.

I’ve never had a passion for skateboarding, but using one as a camera dolly was rather exciting.

Credits
Art Director/Stylist: Way Perry
Director: James Mountford
Director/Music: David Terranova
Makeup: Holleigh Gallon
Hair: Oliver de Almeida Waqued
Model: Ilona @ Union (Frankie)

24 November 2011 13:14
Fashion Music Video

Spooker

It’s over a year since I made this video, I’m very happy to finally be able to release it.

This tune has been very special to me from the first time I heard it, back in my London days when I didn’t really have any dealings with Minus, and since then I became a huge fan of JPLS, even more so after hearing “The Depths” album.

At the period when I first heard Spooker, I was starting to edit Lydia K, and for my initial test I actually used Spooker as the soundtrack. You can check out the test here: Lydia K / mood 1. In the end I went with some other music and ditched the first version.

So by the time last summer arrived, two years later, I had made some contacts at Minus (thanks to my Minus Embed video), and I remembered about this test I made so I sent it to JPLS, who I’d never spoken to, and asked if he’d be ok with me making a longer version, and he said yes. That’s pretty much the story, and since then we’ve been keeping in touch via ichat and a few weeks ago in NYC we got to meet up for the first time which was really cool.

And now for the overrated schpiel on the video, which is what video art is all about. I’ll try to avoid using terms like “exploring” or “boundaries” or “connection” or “discovering”. Instead, let’s say I just slowed down the footage and I really liked it. Then I mirrored it and I liked it more, but thought it was a bit obvious. So I dropped some distortion effects on top of it, it wasn’t obvious anymore and it became quite creepy so I really liked it. Then I added some grain, and did some funky things with the curves… NICE. I tried to do some funky edits, but it just didn’t go with the music. I just like the simplicity of the cuts, it’s not pretentious, and it goes with the retro feel of it.

I’ve been submitting it to various video festivals all over the world, and for each one they ask me to fill out a synopsis or a description. Any suggestions as to what I should write? I always leave that part blank. Probably why no-one ever picks it up, apart from Video is the Only Constant in London and then at Digital Graffiti in Florida who both screened it.

In other news

TUMBLR
As you may know I’ve been populating my tumblr account with all sorts of videos that I like, usually a mixture of acid video art, dramatic fashion videos, or just underground music visuals. The other week I built a flash player that loads up the entire feed so that essentially you can play all the videos back to back in fullscreen without having to navigate, perfect for those times when you just want to sit back and watch some cool random stuff. Also great for parties if you have a projector. Check it here.
Also, with the launch of my company FALKOHAUS we’ll be upgrading this tumblr to something more official, calling it NIGHTHAWKS. But for now just keep tuning into the tumblr account: davidterranova.tumblr.com

PLASTIKMAN FILM
Still going. Almost there. Yes I know. Shh.

BLOC
This week the edit for the BLOC film begins. Featuring Laurent Garnier, Matthew Dear, Visionquest, Magnetic Man and other.

SECRET!
Something pretty cool has come up.

FASHION FILM
I’ll be travelling to London in a few weeks to work for a couple of days on a extremely cool fashion film with James Mountford.

KRIX on The Creator’s Project
My visual/music got talked about here.
Read my original blog post about the piece here.

2 November 2011 19:25
Experimental Music Video Video

4Play: Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs

Last night I got to experience my first ever broadcast on TV of my work. Growing up in an era where Vimeo and a possible festival screening is the only outlet to show my works, having something go on TV is another level of excitement.

I wrote a lot about this project when the trailer got released, so please head over there if you’d like to find out more about this project

Credits
Directed by David Terranova
Producer: Corvin Dhali
Production Assistant: Bryan Cosgrove
Production Company: FALKOHAUS

22 October 2011 18:44
Documentary Video

Krix (music video)

Flash: Some time ago I built an engine called “Random Shape Generator” that generates random polygons and moves them around (I also made a screensaver based on it)

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Music: Last week I made a track called Krix.

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Video: Yesterday someone sent me this video by Haythem Zakaria, so I decided to try something similar out using my Flash engine, I dropped the shapes animation into Final Cut and played around with them, using Krix as the audio baseline.

Credits
Music / Video by David Terranova

16 October 2011 12:31
Experimental Flash Music Music Video Video

Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs (Trailer)

Since returning from Burning Man I began editing my 4Play piece that I shot in July, featuring one of UK’s most talked about upcoming artists, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs.

I spent 4 days with Orlando, first at his home in Oxford, and then on the road going from London to Dour (Belgium) and then to Berlin, capturing the happenings around two of his gigs, one of which was at Melt Festival.

Working with someone with such true talent and with so much to say made things very easy for me. I find that most docos on musicians and performers today are a bit contrived, simply because being an artist and generating hype has become so easy and widespread, most of the time you find yourself watching an overly elaborate story that is trying to make someone average appear to be above-average.

TEED however doesn’t fit into this category, having grown up in a family of classical musicians, touring in a renowned choir from the age of 7, being multi instrumentalist, knocking up jungle/jazz beats from the age of 13 on Reason, and now producing a wide range of dance music that no-one knows how to categorize, and being able to turn a tent full of hundreds of bored people into a mass of roaring energy that sends people into bliss (or tears). On top of that he is someone who’s pretty opinionated on the state of dance music, and presents his ideas eloquently without sounding like a knob, for the lack of a better expression.

That said, I found myself struggling to cram all of this into an 11 minute edit. On top of his quotes I had to feature his music, his performances, his dinosaur costumes, the dancers, the crowds. It became clear straight away that this was meant to be a much longer documentary. I had to cut so many golden moments out of this, and had to cut down on my usual experimental moments in favour of maintaining the story line which was just overflowing. I played around a little bit with the audio, working on the flow of his music, going from one track to another. Orlando sent me the stems for a few of his tracks and I was able to use some of them to create an abstract backbone of his music.

This was a FALKOHAUS production, my new company together with Corvin Dhali, who came with me on the trip and helped out immensely. I wouldn’t have been able to make the edit in time for the deadline if it wasn’t for the help of Bryan Cosgrove, who has been working with me for the past couple of months.

Broadcast on 21st October at 1:15 AM (Thursday night), on Channel 4.

14 October 2011 12:33
Documentary Experimental Video

Fabric 60: Dave Clarke

My second video for Fabric (the first one is here) is for Dave Clarke’s “Fabric 60″, put together during a period of several overlapping projects. The cute dancing girl is the talented Sonoya Mizuno, filmed in a small studio in Tokyo.

With the release of this video I am finally able to launch my new brand FALKOHAUS which I’ve been planning since last year together with my good friend Corvin Dhali. For now it’s a temporary site, with just a small collection of my past works; however the aim is for it to grow into a hub of audio-visual works from myself and other like-minded people, a resource for cutting edge visual works. You can subscribe to its news on Facebook and Twitter, over the coming weeks there’ll be lots of interesting stuff happening!

Credits
Dancer: Sonoya Mizuno
Press & Screenings
Music Rooms

3 October 2011 13:56
Promo Video