Chris Knox: in conversation with Roger Shepherd - part two

Interview – 2009

Chris Knox's music career began with music, but it soon spun into another longtime love: filmmaking. The ex member of Enemy, Toy Love and Tall Dwarfs has been a pioneer of lo-tech, DIY Kiwi classics, both in song and music video. He has also appeared as a film reviewer on shows The Edge and Backch@t, and hosted arts show New Artland.

In the final part of this two-part ScreenTalk interview conducted by Flying Nun founder Roger Shepherd, Knox discusses making music videos, and appearing on television (in part one, he touched on his love of filmmaking, and early music videos made by others).

Knox talks about:

Moving from appearing in music videos to directing them, with the Tall Dwarfs' 'Nothing's Going to Happen'
Accidents and inspirations, while making the video for the Tall Dwarfs' 'Turning Brown and Torn in Two'
Being asked to make the distinctive syncopated clip for solo classic 'Not Given Lightly'
Becoming a film reviewer on arts shows The Edge and Backch@t
Moving into television presenting, with an episode of Intrepid Journeys, and arts show New Artland
Knox's long-running cartoon strip Max Media

This video was first uploaded on 1 June 2009, and is available under this Creative Commons licence. This licence is limited to use of ScreenTalk interview footage only and does not apply to any video content and photographs from films, television, music videos, web series and commercials used in the interview.

Interview - Roger Shepherd. Direction - Clare O’Leary. Camera and Editing - Leo Guerchmann

[The clip was] inspired by people like particularly Norman McLaren and Len Lye, whose stuff I'd seen as a kid . . . they had both animated in camera and without camera, and both those things became quite a thread throughout my clip-making.
– Chris Knox on his inspirations for the animated humans seen in his music video for Tall Dwarfs song 'Nothing's Going to Happen'

Chris's Full Profile