You know when you’re watching an Alice Cohen music video – they’re the ones jammed with a million ideas. It’s a mass of inventive Stop-Motion with images and cut-outs, Cohen creating colour-filled visuals with motion-art and running themes. We’ve been fans for a long while here at Bowlegs, and with the release of her latest video for Coasting it was time to talk to the collage-moving master and get the lowdown:

Bowlegs: First off, what are your videos – animation, cut and paste, stop-motion? How are we supposed to describe them?

Alice: My videos are old-school frame-by-frame stop-motion. I use collage
cut-outs, which I cut out by hand. I arrange each frame, using the cut-outs, and each time I move the collage pieces slightly, I shoot a frame. Each video is composed of thousands of individual hand-manipulated frames. Sometimes I use found objects, or other materials such as paint, rather than cut-outs. And sometimes I mix in live footage, that’s not animated.

Bowlegs: So you get a track from a band that wants a video – now what? Do you get complete freedom? Do you get a theme in mind once you hear the tune?

Alice: I occasionally get complete freedom to do whatever I want, but I always ask the band first, if they have anything in mind that they are envisioning. I start getting a concept and visual images when I listen to the tune, but also incorporate the bands’ ideas, when they have specific things in mind. I definitely get a concept or theme from hearing the song and base the video on that.

Bowlegs: What is the process and how long can one video take to put together?

Alice: The process for my videos begins with me listening to the song, and researching the band a bit, to get a feel for what they’re about. I look at the lyrics too. Then I start the hunting and gathering phase; scavenging for books/magazines/objects at thrift stores/junk stores and used-book stores. From these, I make tons of Xeroxes, then from those, make piles of cut-outs, and start shooting. I do a series of shoots, over the course of different days. I like to shoot late at night, while listening to records.

When I’ve amassed a good amount of footage, I start putting it together, editing. The videos do take a bit of time, and usually come together over the course of several weeks, to a month. It really varies and depends on how much time each week I can devote to one video, as well as the length of the song. A short, simple video can sometimes come together in a week, if I devote the whole week to just that, and become very focused, but more often it takes longer. I also make non-music video pieces, intended for screenings and galleries, and those can take months. I have one I’ve been working on for a year.

Bowlegs: We love the Deleted Scenes video for Baltika 9, tell us about making that video. Were you a Deleted Scenes fan?

Alice: The Deleted Scenes video came about, because I had done another video for some friends here in Brooklyn called Big Gold Belt, who were on the same label – Sockets Records from DC. I was actually unfamiliar with the band, until Sockets contacted me, asking me to make something for them. The song was about this particular Russian beer, called Baltika 9, so I used some Russian imagery, like constructivist posters, and logos from Russian television, as well as shooting the band hanging out in a bar, drinking beer.

Bowlegs: How about the tubes of paint on the Sludgy Dreams colour cake?

Alice: The titles for Sludgy Dreams were made with cake frosting that I mixed with ink, and tubes of coloured cake icing I squeezed out, to form the lettering.

Bowlegs: You seem to have a certain theme running through each film, your latest for Coasting has numerous beach/ocean images?

Alice: I do like to have a strong theme in mind for each video – it’s usually a combination of the meaning I get from the song, or just an atmosphere that the music has. Sometimes the band will have a certain vibe too, that can be expressed through images – Coasting has this surfy sound, for instance, which just seems to go well with the beach imagery.

Bowlegs: How did you get into making videos and who would you say are influences on your work?

Alice: I got into making videos about three years ago, when a friend introduced me to an animation class at the School of Visual Arts in NYC. I had always dabbled in collage anyway, so the idea was to make these collages move. They had these amazing old-school animation stands there, and a frame-capture device called a ‘lunchbox’ that animation students used to do ‘pencil tests’ of the cartoons they were working on. I was one of the few students doing collage animation, rather than cartoon style drawing.

So I started shooting tons of stuff there and turned some of those early animations into my first music video, for the band Ducktails, at the suggestion of Todd from Olde English Spelling Bee Records, who was releasing the record. After that, I just started making more and more videos.

There are a lot of amazing animators out there who I look up to. One of the main ones I consider to be a deep influence is Harry Smith. Also Stan Vanderbeek is incredible, Larry Jordan, and Martha Colburn. There are lots of great ones to be inspired by.

Bowlegs: Tell us what band you really want to make a video for?

Alice: Though they’re not always active anymore. I would love to make a video for Throbbing Gristle. Another band that would be an honour to create for would be The Raincoats.

Bowlegs: What other music videos have caught your attention lately?

Alice: Some videos that have caught my eye … the St. Vincent Cheerleader video by Hiro Murai is awesome, and I really love the Mia Doi Todd Open Your Heart video by Michel Gondry – such a simple, but uplifting concept. I also like a video for a band called the Octopus Project: Hallucinists made by Wiley Wiggins. I tend to like simple, but bold, concepts.

Bowlegs: Other than making more amazing music videos, what else might you be working on in 2012?

Alice: Besides my video work, I have some musical releases coming out this year. Sixteen Tambourines from Tokyo just put out a limited cassette release of eight new songs of mine, called Wild Vines and Tenement Shrines, and I’ll be collaborating with friends on some videos for that. In the spring, I’ll have a vinyl full-length LP coming out through Olde English Spelling Bee, with 11 new songs on it. I worked all last year on the record, and I’m very excited for that.