Visual Music

Artist Stephane Manel has mastered the art of interpreting complex lyrics through simple videos. The creator of Hot Lips and Momma’s Boy speaks to Mathures Paul

Darkness sheltered my act
A poet of the night
I live in the puzzle
And you're my missing piece
You make it supreme
My evening's so complete
When we hit the streets to go downtown…
~ Hot Lips by Pacific!
Viewers are lost in Jiro Taniguchi and David Mazzucchelli’s works while watching the music video of Hot Lips. The movement in every frame makes the lyrics flow. Few artists have Stephane Manel’s vision, and capability, to make music more of a visual, rather than a sonic, experience. Be it Hot Lips or Chromeo’s Momma’s Boy, the power of Manel’s imagination takes one back to the works of comic book artists.
More than Mamma Mia!, the movie, groups like Pacific! and artists as talented as Stephane Manel have brought Europe back in conversations. Though far removed from A-Ha’s anthemic Take Me Home, the video of Hot Lips is a visual treat, aesthetically sound and sonically different. Manel has gone beyond making a video or two for Pacific!; he has left his mark even on the group’s website. The music video director, book cover designer and artist, speaks to The Statesman.
For a song with simple lyrics, the difficulty of coming up with a video is great. “I simply listened to the song the band (Pacific!) had sent me. I asked if they wanted me to follow a brief and they said no. All they said was this was a song about a kiss, the ultimate moment where two sets of lips are close. It’s about the instant before a kiss... I knew they would like my drawings to be in black-and-white. Besides, I had already designed the album sleeve and wanted to bring alive the thought even in the video... It had to be something revolving around white. I even used the idea of sporting activities ~ couples playing ping pong, squash, etc. Every image had to appear on the beat. I like Hot Lips, even if it’s technically a bit ‘cheap’. Looking back at the process of making Hot Lips, I am quite content,” says Manel.
Stephane Manel, it was learnt, makes illustrations manually and later manipulates them on the computer, adding a human touch. According to Fateback.com: “His illustrations are sometimes left partially sketchy and elegantly negligent. The position of his characters is never in strict established order. Very French. Some of his pictures are closely related to comics, some are more design-oriented. But they have one thing in common ~ the characters depicted look always intelligent, creative and alive. He often has a pastel quality to his colours, and a lot of illustrations are left partially uncoloured. He also likes to have an abstract scribllish strip somewhere. Stephane Manel also likes stars, but he likes bubbles even more.”
Avid followers of comic books wouldn’t find it difficult to explain Manel’s inspiration. “I read a lot of comics (besides watching films and appreciating paintings) ~ from Peanuts and Snoopy to the Japanese mangaka Jiro Taniguchi, Herge’s Tintin, Moebius and Manara... American masters of black-and-white like David Mazzucchelli and Milton Caniff...” Taniguchi finds inspiration from French and Belgian comics and his work varies from action to Buddhist-like meditation. From 1976 to 1979 he created several hard-boiled comics with the ‘scenarist’ Natsuo Sekigawa, such as City Without Defense, The Wind of the West is White and Lindo 3. As for Milton Caniff, he brought realism, suspense and sensuality into comics, according to Lambiek, earning him the nickname, “Rembrandt of the comic strip”.”I draw every image separately or move by hand each element on each image. As the budget was quite low I had to work with a sound technician. I mixed images that I had drawn earlier with those especially drawn for the video,” continues Manel.
Besides two videos for Pacific! and their website, Manel has even worked on merchandising. Pacific! has this posted on its website: “It’s summer and you don’t want to hang out in the record store. Pacific! thought about that for sometime and then we decided to release a T-shirt with a design made by our visual collaborator, the French illustrator Stephane Manel. The T-shirt comes with download codes attached in the neck so that you can download our best remixes made by the incredible French artist Breakbot and the new hot Swedish act The Touch.” Manel is also famous as illustrator for top-notch journals, books and record sleeves. Examples of his works can be seen in the sleeve design for Japanese edition of the Sexuality album by Sebastien Tellier, Sessions by Tellier, Le Poinconneur des Lilas, Au Coeur de Tricatel, Le Maquis, etc.
“Except that we have little time to complete projects, it’s exciting to work around music. Since childhood I have wanted to make movies. Let’s hope I’m on the right track. I also like to make videos using ‘real’ images... Since this one (Hot Lips), I have done another video for Pacific! called Number One. Last month I finished a video for Chromeo ~ Momma’s Boy. I’m very excited about this one. I worked with two animators on this,” rounded off Manel