Swedish Director Andreas Nilsson is the person responsible for creating music videos for people like MGMT, The Knife, Bright Eyes, Fever Ray, Peter, Bjorn and John,etc. Andreas and I had a small convo via e-mail about being a creative in the 21st century, how he got into ‘film’ and his work with Karin Dreijer Andersson.
Jorge: Who is Andreas Nilsson?
Andreas: Son of Katarina and Leif. Husband of Britta. Brother of Kristoffer, Mattias, Carl and Filip.
I read that you started off as a painter and sculptor, what kind of things were you producing?
Paintings and sculptures. I still do that. Just showed a gigantic sculpture depicting a bird playing a didgeridoo and blowing bubbles out of its ass in Los Angeles.
At what point in your life did you merge into visual film work?
In artschool in the mid 20´s I did a lot of animated artvideos. Some of them I showed to my friend Karin Dreijer Andersson. She asked me to do a video for her new band The Knife. I did that and have continued to do so since.
For someone who started off in a more static medium was it difficult to adjust to a 3-D state of mind?
My background as an artist have given me a less conventional view at filmmaking perhaps. But it has resulted in me having to learn the whole process “live” so to speak. Sometimes I wish I had a filmschool background, but that is mostly when someone asks me things like “Is this going to me MOS?”. I just have had to pick up all the film language on the way.
Your videos seem to consistently play with either the most quirky of situations or for example with some of your recent work with MGMT and The Knife, there seems to be more tragedy than laughter-what are your ideologies and stories you look to share with your audience. What kind of things do you hope to exploit them to?
The difficulty to pinpoint when a scene is supposed to be funny or not is what triggers me in others work. The mixed message is key and Im not making films to explain the world. Im more interested in deconstructing it.
Leave A Comment!