Last night, Ireland got its first, long overdue spotlight on music video directors of this country at the IMTV Video Music Awards. The inaugural event saw Eoghan Kidney win three awards including Best video for Valerie Francis’ Punches, Best Director and Best Original Concept. It was a great night, a celebration of the creativity of largely under-resourced folk and a timely reminder that Irish music videos are as vital as ever, which is something we are finally seeing again with Under the Ether and Una Mullally’s forthcoming TG4 series in 2010.
Most importantly, I hope awards like this continue to inspire directors and their production teams to the point where we see even better videos win next year. There are some bloody great ones here all the same. Congrats to IMTV for putting on a great event. FYI: I was one of the judges for the awards.
Here are the winners:
Best Live Video
Winner: And So I Watch You From Afar – Set Guitars to Kill (Dir: Will McConnell)
Lisa Hannigan – I Don’t Know. (Dir: Donal Dineen)
Lisa Hannigan – Lille. (Dir: Will Mcconnell)
Ladydoll – Button
The Brilliant Things – Rise
Best Dance Video
Winner: Le Galaxie – You Feel the Fire (Dir: Killian Broderick)
Le Bien – Here And There (Dir: Eoghan Kidney)
Noise Control – Addiction (Dir: Conor Maloney & Graham Halpin)
Dark Room Notes – Lets Light Fires (Dir: Keith Doyle)
Arveene & Misk – Hells Bells (Dir: Morgan Weims)
Best Styled Video
Winner: Julie Feeney – Impossibly Beautiful (Dir: Victoria Colohna)
Dirty Epics – Coming Up (Dir: Vincent Gallagher)
Laura Izibor – Shine
The Coronas – Listen Dear (Dir: Simon Eustace)
The Blizzards – Postcards (Dir. Heroes For Zeros)
Best Solo Male
Winner: Pearse McLoughlin – Ways to Kill A Werewolf (Dir: Kevin Mcgloughlin)
Yngve – Little Boy (Dir: Kellye Carnahan)
Padraig Rushe – Gonna Be A Change. (Dir: Tom Burke & Shane Hogan)
Jj – Playing The Game (Dir: Thomas Heffernon & Kay Madsen)
Enda Reilly – Mol An Aimsire (Dir: Dominick Ó Cruadhlíocht)
Best Solo Female
Winner: Wallis Bird – To My Bones
Lisa Hannigan – Lille
Julie Feeney – Love Is A Tricky Thing (Dir: Vittoria Colonna)
Miss Paula Flynn – Holiday In Sweden (Dir: Chris Fite-Wassila)
Gemma Hayes – Home. (Dir: Mhaskar)
Most Original Concept
Winner: Fight Like Apes – Something Global (Dir: Eoghan Kidney)
The Chapters – Videotapes (Dir: Simon Eustace)
Herm – Heads (Dir: Ian Benjamin Kenny)
Grand Pocket Orchestra – Ballet Shoes (Dir: Luke Franklin)
Sean Needham – I’m Not Afraid (Dir: Declan Hannigan)
Best Production/ Special Effects
Winner: Cap Pas Cap – We Are Men (Dir: Sam Boyd)
Sickboy – Silence In Conversation (Dir: Lorcan Finnegan)
Jape – Floating (Dir: D.A.D.D.Y.)
Ham Sandwich – Broken Glass (Dir: Marc Corrigan)
202′S – Ease My Mind. (Dir: Paddy Cahill / Jules Hackett)
Best video by a Newcomer (public vote)
Winner: Bowlegged – Red Light (Dir. Peter J McCarthy)
Hogan – I Want You
Hoarsebox – All I Need Now
Bats – Shadow Fucking (Dir: Conor Mcintyre & Timmy Moran)
Talulah Does The Hula – Bad Boyfriend (Dir: Jessie Ward)
Director of the Year
Winner: Eoghan Kidney
Lorcan Finnegan
Simon Eustace
Lindsey Byrnes
Will Mcconnell
Video of the Year
Winner: Valerie Francis – Punches (Dir: Eoghan Kidney)
Duckworth Lewis Method – Mr Miriad
Fight Like Apes – Tie Me Up In Jackets (Dir: Eoghan Kidney)
The Coronas – Listen Dear (Dir: Simon Eustace)
The Blizzards – Postcards (Dir: Heroes for Zeros)
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005 . He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Cara Magazine, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, founder of Lumo Club, club promoter, event curator and producer of gigs, listening parties & events in Dublin.
Fantastic to finally see an acknowledgement for Irish Music Videos, – I predict positive things to come for Talualah does the Hula and hopefully a long over due international break for Galway girl Julie Feeney..
Julie was incredible in her performance on Friday night. truly brilliant.
great article, thaks for posting
Oh god, that Bowlegged song/video is TERRIBLE. Not surprised they won, they probably got all their teenage mates to vote repeatedly.
This Awards Whiffed of Local Scenster mateshelping patting eachother on the back! Not suprised by the winners. I dont understand why they got these type of judges. Can you let us know who the Judges were and what expereince they have in Video and Film making? The presenter had nothing going for her… It was badly organised.. You couldnt even hear the Audio off most of the videos that were shown… Great performances by The Chapters and Le Galaxie.. Julie Feeney??? Oh dear Lord!! I could stop laughing at her!
Angela D (aka Richie Eire) I’d respond to you if you left your real name and didn’t masquerade as someone else.
Awards show by their very nature are backslapping events. Get over it.
Angela D,
To quote a genius:
I wish I could abate your desire to decorate your life
I wish I could abate your fear
…wtf happened in the Best Newcomer poll?
The band got their mates to vote in their droves by the look of things.
That or their lacy gloves mask the hands of Ireland’s prettiest hackers. I was shocked, totally thought BATS or Talulahs had it.
I actually DID think Bats had won it as I was side of stage about to present the next award. I asked who had won and I’m sure I was told Bats.
I think I congratulated Bats on their win which mcuh have confused them a bit!
weird…was it checked out? Doesn’t look like Bowlegged even have that many mates with an internet connection.
*Sorry to mess up the comment field, can you delete the other one, please Niall?*
The last thing I would call Bats is “newcomer” though. They even did some Electric Fix shows and that’s years ago now…
such a pity about Talulah not winning best newcomer:( i dunno why everyone is bitching about ppl gettin their mates to vote though… isn’t that what all the bands did?! it was a public vote after all and its not like u could vote more than once… whats the big deal?
It’s not bitching, it’s curiosity!
nialler 9.. Tell me this what do you know about Music videos or film? I can go down as any name as i like… some people like to remain annonymous.
So answer my questions them, firstly why are people like Radio Dj’s, bloggers and the Angela Dorgan’s who clearly have a Bias opinion on the bands who are nominated chosen to be judges?? Do you tink you should be judging on the band or on the videos? I have nothing to do with any of the bands who were nomminated.. I am merely a fan of Music…
Also : “Awards show by their very nature are backslapping events. Get over it.” Are you admitting that you did indeed do some back slapping?
Judges:
Sinéad Ní Mhórdha of Phantom FM,
Angela Dorgan of First Music Contact (who your name clearly alludes to),
David Coffey Director,
Stephen McCormack of IMTV,
Niall Byrne of music blog Nialler9,
Dan Hegarty of 2fm.
Your assumption is that the above people have a biased opinion. It is possible to be without bias. Look, Ireland is a small place and we did our utmost to disregard any of the judge’s connections with said acts. At the end of the day, the videos and the directors were the ones judged not the bands at all.
I was deemed to be as qualified for this by the organisers of the awards. While I have no formal training in music videos or film, as evidence by the many posted on my blog, I have a healthy interest in the state of the irish music videos and believe that music video directors who often have fuck all budget and get little recognition, deserve the spotlight shone on them occasionally.
It was the first awards show they had put on. I thought in light of that, they did a great job.
I’m being positive about what we have in the hope that awards like this inspire future directors of this country rather than bitch about things like you did in comment 5.
i think the fact that this was a video music award show has confused some people who seem to judge the winners by the music and not the actual videos.
. any irish award or event that highlights domestic music cant be a bad thing ,not all music is great ,cest la vie. every band up for an award has mates ,they all would have shown their support ,thats what mates do.
the fact that the results depended on how many mates your band has shows that irish music lovers need to start paying more attention to the scene and less time bitching about it and whinging its no good.
Well said – myth.