Jockey Slut ·· Richard Hector-Jones Deep in the underground corridors of Middlesex's Northwick Park Hospital a young long haired man is spending hours positioning a disembodied dog's head on the body of a small Japanese girl. Just out of range of this nightmare image another slightly more scruffy man, strapped tightly into a strait-jacket, is relaxing in a wheelchair powerless to escape while a photographer forces him to writhe and contort in pursuit of that perfect portrait. Further down the corridor a couple of smartly dress women offer sandwiches and sticky cakes to anyone in the vicinity. Finally in the midst of this torment a service lift opens revealing the afternoon's crop of recently deceased folk into the underground passageways. Tin coffin after battered tin coffin comes into view of the subterranean onlookers. Porters then quickly wheel them off towards the morgue to a disturbing soundtrack of squeaking wheel. "Morbid acid," offers Tom Jenkinson looking up from the wheelchair. Whatever that means. As far as video shoots go this rates pretty high on the weird scale. But then again the ideas being realised here are coming from video director Chris Cunningham, the person responsible for the visual accompaniment that goes with Aphex Twin's 'Come To Daddy' record. You've probably seen it. Gangs of little children all with Richard James' face running around a housing estate terrorising the old. Perhaps then this is all just par for the course after all. It's not sadists - simply location scouts that've sounded out this curious set. All weirdness has been carefully constructed... but ony up to the frankly disturbing moment where real corpses invade the fantasy. But it's just a disused wing of an otherwise bustling hospital. It stands to reason that folk should die here. ... Lurching round the video shoot doing nothing in particular (a quick cameo role on a TV monitor is all there is to be seen of the 'star' in the US bound 'Come On My Selector' video), Tom Jenkinson is an odd character, sure, but far from being a weirdo he's at worst just a little idiosynchratic in his behavior. It's probably his excitability that puts people off. If you don't get a defined pop star 'cool' it's easy to be taken aback. He stands tall, somewhat awkwardly even, and is prone to firing off daft and meaningless sentences to anyone willing to spar with him in absurdity. Strangely, it's a talent he seems to share with many of his aforementioned contemporaries. Today his chosen verbal partner is video director and recent(ish) friend Chris Cunningham who's more than willing to take on the role as they knock into each other · la two Stooges - highjacking wheelchairs like hyperactive kids desperate to let off steam. It's a sight watching this 'hot shot' young blood video director goofing around with one of the country's most interesting electronic musicians to the despair of a generally po-faced professional film crew. 'It's not a laughing matter' might be the consensus of opinion around Tom and Chris. But it is, particularly bearing in mind that since the completion of promos for Aphex and Madonna's 'Frozen', Cunningham has been turning down a flood of offers ranging from as diverse, in both quality and style, as Meatloaf, Marilyn Manson, and Massive Attack. And that's just the M's. ... Shooting any film is a long and tortured process but the girl/dog shot, which will only take up about a second of the final product, is dragging on interminably. Things are starting to fall behind schedule. There's constantly some minute detail stopping Cunningham from being satisfied with the scene. Everyone's getting restless. Everyone except for the dog, that is, who just sits there on top of the beautiful little actress's head, wearing a doctor's lab coat, like it's perfectly natural doggy behavior. Another hour like this and everyone is going to have to remind themselves that it isn't. It's time for a break so Tom and Chris shuffle off to the catering bus out in the hospital car park. Chris seems ill at ease with direct sunlight. Tom orders his vegetarian lunch and conversation turns back towards music. ... Tom and Chris again meet up, after a few hours apart, for a last minute photo call on a neon lit hospital bed. The 'underground pop star' locks like an unkempt shambles; a square who doesn't get out much. The video director to his left, the envy of the industry no less, looks just like a down and out; a junkie with sickly pale blue translucent skin. This pair, to some people, are the stars of tomorrow. Earlier in the day Chris Cunningham confides that he and Tom attempted a meeting to discuss the making of the 'Come On My Selector' video a couple of months back. It lasted about ten minutes because they felt stupid and embarrassed talking business. They got stoned instead. ---- 'Come On You Cunningham!' sidebar ñ by Richard Hector-Jones Having recently directed Aphex Twin's award winning 'Come to Daddy' video and Madonna's lavish 'Frozen' promo Chris Cunningham is currently hot property... What attracted you to work with Squarepusher and the Aphex Twin? "Because they're two of the best musicians around. I was brought up around jazz, classical, and electronic music, and their music reminds me of all these things. Also I've spent too much time on projects I'm not interested in musically..." What was it like working with a huge budget on Madonna's 'Frozen' video? "Every time you shoot anything it's a nightmare but this was more of a compromising nightmare. I mean it was brilliant in one way because she's a great performer but the scale and the budget of the thing makes everything so restrictive. The irony of any big budget video is the more money you have the less you can actually do because every step has to be reorganised, discussed, and explained in endless meetings." Do you have a strict process for making a video? "I like to have a basic idea and just let it growÖ I've storyboarded Tom's videos but no matter how much you plan something goes off on it's own tangent. It's a million compromises but that's not a bad thing because often what you come up with by way of compromise is better." Are you wary of being the 'hot shot' of the moment? "I'm away that anything that people are into is fleeting which is why Madonna is a one-off for me. Ideally I want to carry on making videos at a lower profile for people like Tom and Richard whose music I love. I feel spoilt doing stuff with them because it's such a thrill."