Coldplay – Life in Technicolor ii
2009 · Directed by Dougal Wilson
316K Likes
Best comments
1.“Parents: 'Nah, just a humble puppet theater to entertain the kids will do.' Coldplay:”
More comments
- 2.“When you hired the wrong puppeteers.”
- 3.“It took me 11 years to realize the camera guy is Phil Harvey, Coldplay's manager. No wonder he tweeted that this is his favorite music video.”
The story
Coldplay wanted puppets. Director Dougal Wilson didn't want Thunderbirds, because Team America had already done that, so he reached for something more British: Punch and Judy. A village hall in Aldenham, near Watford. Kids on the floor waiting for the show. Then the curtain opens and it's Coldplay, in puppet form, playing like they're headlining a stadium.
The joke is the audience. Wilson cast the children for their bewildered faces and kept a second camera rolling to catch real reactions. The puppet show gets bigger and dumber: pyrotechnics, puppet Chris Martin crowd-surfing over the kids, Punch and Judy doing motorcycle stunts. One girl keeps checking a fake unofficial band biography against the stage. The band flies off in a tiny helicopter that crashes through a window made of balsa wood and sugar glass, pushed through on a broom handle. Shot at night, lit to look like day.
The puppets were sculpted in clay, cast in fiberglass and painted to look like carved wood. Wilson gave bassist Guy Berryman the full Mr Punch hooked nose, which he found funny since Guy was the handsome one. The song itself is the full vocal version of the instrumental that opens Viva la Vida, released on the Prospekt's March EP, and it went to number one on US adult alternative radio. The video got a Grammy nomination for Best Music Video. Arena rock excess, shrunk down to a village hall where it belongs.
