Mana's Bounce, the feel-good track from Recloose, picked up the coveted Best Director award from nearly 100 music clips entered in this year's Kodak Music Clip Awards held at Bar Bodega on Saturday night. The clip is the second video from Recloose's second album Hiatus on the Horizon and is directed by Wellingtonians Jeremy Mansford and Preston McNeil, last year's winners of Radio Active's Handle The Jandle music video awards. The pair worked closely with Recloose on the concept of the video (about his young son named Manahi) which is animated and features over fifty different characters.

Image: Recloose aka Matt ChicoineMana's Bounce, the feel-good track from Recloose, picked up the coveted Best Director award from nearly 100 music clips entered in this year's Kodak Music Clip Awards held at Bar Bodega on Saturday night. The clip is the second video from Recloose's second album Hiatus on the Horizon and is directed by Wellingtonians Jeremy Mansford and Preston McNeil, last year's winners of Radio Active's Handle The Jandle music video awards. The pair worked closely with Recloose on the concept of the video (about his young son named Manahi) which is animated and features over fifty different characters.

Image: Recloose aka Matt ChicoineThe pair worked closely with Recloose on the concept of the video (about his young son named Manahi) which is animated and features over fifty different characters.

"We wanted to create a video that had lots going on, with several subplots evolving. The idea being that it could be viewed several times, with the viewer discovering more with each watch", they explain. The duo have won themselves prizes from Lighting Up and a day's grip hire and equipment kindly donated by one of the best grips in the country, Murray Love of Love Your Grip.

Comments Judge Richard Bluck (2nd Unit DOP on King Kong and Lord of the Rings): "Overall the standard of entries this year was very high with many strong visual ideas, but the winning clip encompasses humour, clever visual design and is also a good illustration of the song's character."

Runner Up in the directing category is Mark Trethewey from Fish n Clips for Sola Rosa's Badman. He previously won Best Video at the 2004 b-Net Awards with Shane Mason for Fools Love by The Misfits of Science which made the finals of C4's Best Music Video the same year. This year Mark has also won prizes from Lighting Up.

Minuit's Fuji (directed by Alyx Duncan), which features the band performing a gig at a curious rural Japanese bar in the shadow of Mount Fuji, picked up Best Director of Photography for Richard Harling as well as Best Editor for Daniel Strang. Both Strang and Harling were finalists in the 2004 Kodak Music Clip Awards for Sara Jane's Bounz To It and Katchafire's Bounce and Color Me Life, while Strang also edited One Million Dollars' Quando Voce Chegar. Harling has just finished principal photography for Ratflats (Dir: Rachel Gudera) a live action and 3D production, as well as Little Gold Cowboy which is attending the Venice Film Festival. Having recently formed the company Lumiere Bros together with the aim to produce cinema, short film and videos, no doubt their prizes from Kodak; Atlab and Panavision for Best DoP and from the Dub Shop for Best Editor will be well utilised.

Mark Williams, picked up the Best Animation Award for Agent Alvin's Who's Your Daddy winning prizes donated by Park Road Post for his work on this dark, hyper-real and beautifully choreographed view of bureaucratic control and military might run amok. Williams has directed several music videos and also worked as graphic designer for Gibson Group's Insiders Guide to Love, Face Lift and Peter Jackson's King Kong. His future collaborations include music video work with Ahmen Mahal a.k.a Olmecha Supreme and production design for Wellington Fringe stage production Te Tapa Toru.

The Knack Award, which recognises high production values within a small budget, went to Derek Thomson for The Shot Band's Songs about Drinkin' 'n' Dyin'. Highly detailed and perfectly characterised, Songs About Drinkin' 'n' Dyin' is a stop motion tour de force that reeks of stale beer, fried eggs, gambling and sex. The band's first full-length album, simply titled The Shot Band, was recently released at Wellington's Paramount Theatre which also premiered the video. Derek collected prizes donated by Park Road Post and the Gibson Group.