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Album Version |
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Radio Edit |
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µ-Ziq
Remix |
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State of Bengal Remix |
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Skothus Remix |
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Mood Swing Mix |
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Brodsky Quartet
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→ |
Live version
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click to see an exclusive bjork.com special about the making of Hunter! |
QUOTE |
Interview by David
Hemingway. Reprinted by kind permission
of Record Collector. |
I guess that song's
about when you have a lot of people that work for you and you sort-of
have to write songs or people get unemployed, you know? In most cases,
it's inspiring but in that particular song I was pissed off with it. I
was ready for a break but it didn't seem fair on the people I worked
with at the time. |
|
ARTICLE |
"Bear With Me"
- I.D. Magazine, November 1997 |
London-based design firm Me Company reveals the story behind
Hunter, a pop video of a fantastical struggle featuring the
Icelandic singer Björk. Special effects reach a new level of
detail in Björk's Hunter video, in which the singer is pictured
close-up experiencing a Jekyll & Hyde transformation into a
high-tech polar bear. I.D. Magazine's Peter Hall interviewed
Alistair Beattie of Me Company, which produced and directed the
video.
Why a bear?
We use the bear as a
literal symbol of strength, ferocity, self-determination and the
North, a pioneering roaming spirit. Hunter is a song about two
different states, that of the hunter and the gatherer. The polar
bear is the perfect symbol of the hunter state, it polarizes (ahem!)
the difference between the two into something really extreme and
magical. The choice of a techno-bear, though, has more to do with
the idea of the beating heart of technology. Björk's music often has
a dialogue between organic forms and techno forms, and we share this
interest. It's not photoreal; it's able to collapse itself and
rebuild itself at will. We had no desire to make it naturalistic.
Why is it so
stark?
The video is something like
a koan or a haiku -- it tries to ask the question in the most
interesting manner possible. We wanted the effects to be done right
in front of your eyes; we didn't want things to be hidden or faked
or obscured. The magic and illusion are all the more powerful when
it doesn't feel like it's being performed behind a veil of smoke and
mirrors.
Is it easy to do this kind of morphing on computers?
The technical skills required to do this kind of work are found
only in a very few places, and we were lucky to land ourselves with
a team of incredibly talented people at Digital Domain. What's more
interesting to us is that so much technology was used in such an
invisible way. We never wanted the process to obscure the result.
The nature of the special effects experience is that you don't know
how it was done; the illusion is "sold" to you and you either buy it
or you don't. The heart and soul of the piece was Björk's
performance; we shot 12 takes and then selected the best. The mantra
throughout the production was that the performance must drive the
computer graphics.
How much did it
cost to make?
This is not a question that we feel comfortable answering. Can
we ask you a question? What relevance does the bear have to good
modern product design?
I don't know.
Transformative products are exciting, but robo-pets are even
more exciting. We were interested in making the technology very
visible, but also playing with translucency and transparency, soft
boundaries. The irony of the digital age is that, as technology gets
more invisible, people are more interested in being able to see it
again, as in Apple Computer's iMac, with its translucent blues and
milky plastics that simultaneously tease and reveal.
What does Björk think of the video?
She thinks it is "techno," one of her favorite words.
What attracts you, as designers, to the music video format?
We often imagine that our print work is like a series of frames
from a film. We usually work by first developing a narrative
structure from which everything hangs. The opportunity to make films
is a natural extension of that way of working. Of course, they are
totally different disciplines, but they both have boundless
possibilities and enough similarities for us to feel comfortable
with a foot in each world.
Seven Steps to Transformation
-
Live-action video
was shot in 12 takes in a London studio, with Björk performing in
front of a green screen (wearing makeup to give the illusion of
baldness). Tracking markers were applied to her head and face for
subsequent 3-D computer graphics work.
-
A second performance
was shot with Björk's face marked up with infrared dots as a
reference for animators to create convincing facial contortions.
-
A clay-fiber polar
bear head was scanned next to Björk's head for modeling
guidelines.
-
All data was shipped
to Digital Domain in California for composition.
-
Using SoftImage and
proprietary software, the Digital Domain team tracked the singer's
face and head movements from the two marker sets.
-
Modeling and
key-frame animation began, using Alias/Wavefront Maya software and
SoftImage. Patch deformation and shape interpolation were combined
to create the emerging bear head, comprised of 100 maneuverable
platelets that rise up through the skin.
-
Rendering was
completed using Pixar's Renderman software. A proprietary
holographic shader was used to make the bear skin colors shift.
All computer graphics elements were integrated with the
live-action footage.
|
|
if travel is searching
and home what's been found
i'm not stopping
i'm going hunting
i'm the hunter
i'll bring back the goods
but i don't know when
i thought i could organise freedom
how Scandinavian of me
you sussed it out, didn't you?
you could smell it
so you left me on my own
to complete the mission
now i'm leaving it all behind
i'm going hunting
i'm the hunter
(you just didn't know me!) |
|
|
|
oct
1998.
cd in
jewelcase
01.
hunter
- radio edit
02.
aifol
- in love with funkstorung
03.
hunter
- µ-ziq
remix |
|
oct
1998. cd in
jewelcase
01.
hunter
02.
hunter
- state of bengal remix
03.
hunter
- skothus mix |
|
oct
1998. cd in
jewelcase
01.
hunter
- mood swing remix
02.
so broken
- dj krust mix
03.
hunter
- live |
|
QUOTE |
Paul White,
Director |
For the Hunter video
we wanted something different - something fun. Because by the time
Homogenic came around, she'd already been everywhere and done
everything, artistically speaking. She'd gone so far over the top that
we felt a minimalistic approach would be more challenging for both of
us. And for me, the post-production was much more of a challenge
because it took several months, whereas she wrapped up after a single
day of shooting. But her performance is exactly what we'd hoped and
planned for, which made my job much easier. She knows what she wants
and she knows how to deliver.
This video features Björk morphing into a polarbear - and proves that
she's willing to do anything to push herself artistically. And the
beauty of Hunter is it's utter simplicity. It's about a woman who
allows the animal within to take over when necessary. The provider -
in a cold world. It's amazing that after all these years people still
don't understand it. Mission accomplished. |
|
QUOTE |
Brian J. Dillard,
Armchair DJ
remix review |
The original song was
an eerie, militaristic expedition into the unknown, featuring
pitter-patter breakbeats, fluttering strings and enigmatic vocals. The
live version retains all of those elements but translates them into
more organic terms.
Mark Bell's "Mood Swings" mix, with its emphasis on hushed
orchestration and tip-toe beats, sounds like an afternoon of
fox-hunting in the English countryside. State of Bengal's version is
on the ethnic drum-n-bass tip.
Mike Paradinas' mix is that rarest of creatures: a remix that uses
most of the elements of the original track but still sounds radically
new.
The Mu-ziq maestro compresses, distorts and relayers the vocals and
strings into a jagged, atonal masterpiece that sounds like it was
beamed back from a freaky cyber-forest in another dimension.
But best of all is gusgus DJ Skothus' tech-house take on the song.
It's designed with the efficiency and precision of an Ikea chair -"how
Scandanavian," indeed. |
|
REVIEW |
Freeze Frame |
Not many videos that
show only the artist's head and shoulders can keep the attention of
the viewer the way that Hunter does. Only Peter Gabriels' Sledgehammer
video can be considered in the same category. But Hunter is primal.
She's is the hunter-gather that we evolved from, still with us and
still a part of us. It's about shedding the denial and embracing what
we are - what we really are, even thought it's sometimes hard to tell. |
|
QUOTE |
Mark Bell about Björk (read
full interview) |
I met Björk when she was playing one
of the last Sugarcubes concerts, she really wanted me to contribute to
her solo album Debut but I was to busy fannying around with my own
beats. She then rang up when she was doing Post but I was still
fannying. Then she was doing her third Album and she asked if I’d come
to Spain to work with her for a bit, I ended up staying for 5 months
and then we did Homogenic. |
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