Satellite Voices

Paris

AB/CD/CD

April 20, 2011

The brilliant French collective of directors take on the world leading the next generation of music videos

• Text by Celine Puertas

AB/CD/CD is Arnaud Boutin, Camille Dauteuille and Clement Dozier. This young directors team met at Les Gobelins (a well known art school in Paris), but started working all together a few years later. They first started with a creative and sweet video for Lily Allen in 2009, "Fuck You" and then everything happened quite fast: they directed Uffie, the duo Logo, and a few ads for Daffy's and Axe. Not bad for a start. And the cherry on the cake is that they recently signed with the influential production house, Partizan.

Satellite Voices: When and why did you create AB/CD/CD?
AB/CD/CD: It was almost two-years-ago, in order to gather our skills to find work more easily. We had been really good friends for years and felt like it would be great to get married like that! Now we wonder how single directors are able to work just by themselves. There is so much to do all the time. We are glad to be the three of us, it's so important to have people you can trust. If you can't beat them, join them.

SV: You recently signed with Partizan. How did they found you?
AB/CD/CD: Georges Bermann contacted us after we released Uffie's music video with our first house of production, Frenzy Paris. He made a joke about how it reminded him of Michel Gondry's work (also signed at Partizan) but in a very updated way, and we told him about our love for Zbigniew Rybczynski’s work. A few other companies approached us too but we had a great feeling with Partizan. We signed at the begining of the year and are super happy of the experience so far.

SV: How would you describe your work?
AB/CD/CD: Our videos are definitely pop and easy going, with simple story telling. Most of the things we've done are about stylising: designing sets, wardrobes, visual effects... Our characters evolve in one only situation most of the time. We like that simplicity. We always try to find the key idea and develop it in a minimal way. But we're still experiencing, and looking for new forms like we did for Logo's music video for instance.

SV: Who are your favorite directors and why?
AB/CD/CD: We share some references in common but everyone brings his own sensitivity to the collective. I, Clement, like Francis Ford Coppola, because he is fantasizing about classicism. Camille likes nothing and for Arnaud it’s hard to choose, because there is a lot of good movies and directors: Alfred Hitchcock, Milos Forman, Wes Anderson, Martin Scorsese, and sometimes Stanley Kubrick.

SV: What’s next?
AB/CD/CD: A short fucked-up future and then the end of the world. Meanwhile we'll be working on a second video for Opening Ceremony and if we can find the time, on a short movie. Hopefuly soon!