The Savage Planet
Video director Timothy Saccenti plans a trip to Mars
Chances are you are already familiar with Timothy Saccenti’s work-if not from our very own glossy pages then from music videos for the likes of Peaches, Jamie Lidell, Animal collective, Battles…o yeah, and a Target commercial for the designer Rogan. Saccenti takes on an aesthetic that has been described as “baroque futurism” and is heavily influenced by Le Planete Sauvage, the ’70’s animation from Rene Laloux in which a giant alien race keeps humanoid type creatures as pets. Huh?
“The Futurists were passionate about destroying the old and creating new forms of art and that is something I can very much relate to, sans the politics,” tells former URB cover photographer turned video maverick Timothy Saccenti. ” But I also tend toward the epic and emotional, a la the Baroque-period, so I think {Baroque Futurism} is appropriate for my thinking and creating.”
Born and raised in and around Princeton, NJ, Saccenti has been living in lower Manhattan for the past 14 years, which might make him an honorary New Yorker-or at the very least an import with the passion it takes to survive on pure creativity. Having studied photography at the School of Visual Arts and then apprenticing with photographers around the world, he eventually had a portfolio full of musicians he’d picked up during his travels. The musicians came courtesy of friends who worked at labels such as DFA and Plant Records.
While rocking the photography world as a portrait photographer (which he still does) the artists he was working with began requesting music videos. Saccenti had no experience with motion works, but good friends like Patrick O’Brien and Alan Bibby were directors and would ask him to come and help them shoot, “basically doing art direction and lighting design, collaborating with the set designer, Mal Torrance.” These experiences led Saccenti to feel comfortable enough to take on his own directing projects. A part of the music scene himself, collecting vinyl and DJing, music videos allowed him to merge his love of music with his visual genius. Peaches video for “Downtown” marked Saccenti’s first solo music video directing project, but by this time
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