Happiness video, Goldfrapp, directed by Dougal Wilson, production company: Colonel Blimp

For your Friday pleasure, here is a selection of great new videos we’ve spotted recently. First up is another gem from Dougal Wilson, his second in a row for Goldfrapp. This one’s for new track, Happiness, and, appropriately enough, is pretty much guaranteed to make you smile. Unless you’re a commentator on Antville, where the video has caused rather a storm of debate. A quicktime of the video can be viewed here.

T-shirt featuring a QR code. Snap it with a internet-enabled camera phone and be taken to
the wearer’s website of choice

Quick Response Codes (those square pixellated barcodes that, when scanned by a camera phone, bring up information or link to a particular website) have moved into the world of bespoke fashion. Emma Cott, a Munich-based clothing label has launched a new collection of t-shirts enabling users of social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace to take their profiles to the street, sporting an abstract code design on their chest. Visitors to emmacott.com can generate their own QR code (that links directly to the website of their choosing) and add it to their choice of t-shirt. It’s self-promotion made very simple.

Utah Saints, Something Good, directed by Eran Creevy

It’s been a while since we’ve done a video round-up on here, in part perhaps because it feels like it’s been a while since there’s been a strong enough selection of new videos around to do it. Here though are six beauties that are currently doing the rounds. First up is Eran Creevy’s extremely funny video for the 2008 remix of Utah Saints’ Something Good. Quicktime is here.

Ryan Ebner’s film for Marié Digby’s track Paint Me In Your Sunshine, based on the colour yellow

What is the relationship between sound and colour? It’s a question pondered by psychologists and artists over the centuries, and now, finally, Gap clothing has also entered the debate with their latest project, The Sound of Color.

A branded content campaign which aims to launch Gap’s brightly-coloured Spring 2008 collection through non-traditional means, the Sound of Color saw the clothing company, in conjunction with San Francisco-based production company Rehab, approach five bands and ask them to write a song based on a specific colour. The Blakes, a Seattle-based Indie band, took blue; Dntel, a member of the band The Postal Service, took on red; hip-hop artist/producer Swizz Beats was given green, singer/songwriter Marié Digby yellow, and The Raveonettes opted for black and white.

Once the songs were complete, they were then given to five directors who were asked to create videos to accompany them. While they were requested to reflect the colour associated with each track in their films, the directors were otherwise given a free rein to create the films however they liked, without consultation with the musicians.

Just, Mark Ronson featuring Alex Greenwald, directed by Jim Canty

Producer, remixer and horns-fancier Mark Ronson has released a new video for his jaunty cover of Radiohead’s Just (the first video, for the 2006 release of Ronson’s version of the track, can be seen here). But this time he hasn’t just stopped at remixing the song, but has also attempted a witty pastiche of Jamie Thraves’ iconic video for the original version, shown below. Skip past 45 seconds or so of Ronson demonstrating his musical prowess by playing lots of instruments and we re-join Thraves’ perplexing street scene of fallen businessman.

Ross Phillips’ video for Coleen by The Heavy

To help you while away the final hours of the working week, here is some of the splendid work that we’ve been looking at in CR towers recently. First up is the Radar Music Video awards, the festival promoting up-and-coming promos directors, now in its second year. Entrants were given a list of tracks to create videos for, from bands including The Good, The Bad and The Queen and Kylie, and with prizes including mentorships with production companies Black Dog, Draw and the Directors Bureau on offer, competition was tough.