Kris Moyes has made quite a name for himself in the past couple of years. In fact, writing from the perspective of an Australian residing in NYC, anyone related to Modular has made quite a name for themselves in the past couple of years.
I suppose it would be fairly easy to group Kris Moyes into that Modular phenomenon if it wasn’t for the fact that he is an extremely talented individual in his own right, and is making his name in the USA without anyone here fully realizing that he is actually the younger brother of Kim Moyes from the Presets. And I’m fairly certain he is most likely waiting for the day when journalists don’t feel the need to mention that fact.
Kris has directed eye-catching music videos with an almost psychedelic edge for bands like The Presets, Cut Copy, Sia, Wolfmother, Architecture in Helsinki, and several particularly beautiful videos for Californian pop outfit The Softlightes.
In the same vein as widely respected indie (in the broadest sense of the word) filmmakers like Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze, Kris Moyes brings a refreshingly clever take on the typical rock music video, using techniques so innovative that they managed to score him a place in the coveted Los Angeles-based Directors Bureau alongside such heavyweights as Sofia and Roman Coppola.
Kris is currently residing in LA, taken there for the filming of Sia’s delightfully quirky video for ‘The Girl You Lost To Cocaine’ and he's not quite sure when he’ll next be gracing our shores. It’s been that way for him for the last year; dividing time between the two cities.
Having started in the world of film in 1997, making self-described, “stupid films with six friends”, Kris has come a long way since those humble beginnings, directing music videos, having fun, and reaping praise within generally hard-to-impress circles. Locally he has been nominated for a string of ARIAS and MTV awards
From his current home, LA, Kris expounds on developing his unique style, “I studied art and was lucky to have a bunch of equipment that no one was using at my college. From that point I studied time-based art; art film. From there I worked on a few films at AFTRS, dropped out of my Masters and taught at AFTRS. Then I left there and just researched and tried different processes and techniques out in my bedroom. Research is really important. It’s something I never stop doing.”
Although Kris acknowledges the benefits of having gained (whether by hard work or birthright) connections within the film, art, and music scenes, he still appears happily self-aware about the importance of standing behind his work, and not letting anything or anyone cloud his focus, or direction.
“My work can only gain me exposure… Except of course the companies who rep me and the magazines, papers, radio stations and websites who interview me.
Record labels are focused on making money for themselves and the bands they have contracts with which is rightfully so… It’s my job to gain exposure through making work and people talking.”
Being the go-to video guy for almost every band on the Modular catalogue has meant that Kris Moyes has ended up playing an exceptionally large role in defining their artists on-screen aesthetic, if not the general aesthetic of the label itself. Kris explains how he found himself this rather unique position.
“Usually a record label contacts directors with a brief. When I was working with Modular and they didn’t have any other director contacts, it was free reign. I think that also had to do with the budgets being so small… My thoughts on small budget videos are that what you lack in budget you make up for in creative freedom.”
This freedom has allowed Kris to play around with unusual techniques to create quite fantastical results, as in the defacement of film used in Wolfmothers’ ‘White Unicorn’ video. The production of the video also allowed the creation of an alter-ego, Banditobruce, who Moyes apparently originally credited/blamed for the defacement. It seems so indicative of the director; to receive a boring brief for a performance video and transform it into an at-time lewd multifaceted affair.
“Standard performance-based clips are boring and don’t really interest me, but I agreed to do the record label a favour by editing some live footage together with a psychedelic video treatment on the condition that I could mutilate the video under a pseudonym of an adolescent bedroom filmmaker. I think I opened up something that is worth exploring further. I have something [similar] in development at the moment.”
Keen to eventually conquer the world of feature films, Kris is finding it “a slow and steady process usually from concept to completion the time frame is about 7 years. I have heaps of ideas and am having some positive meetings.”
Unfortunately for the film world though, we won’t be seeing Kris’ previously discussed ‘Masters of the Universe’ remake starring Craig McLaughlan any time soon.
“I soooo want to do that, but a few months after I mentioned it John Woo bought the rights to the story. Dang!”
