Digital Good Time V: Gideon Baws (1975 - 2008)

Digital Good Time V: Gideon Baws (1975 - 2008)
(Digital Good Time is a series in which xoxobra focuses on the visual side of music)

Not to give this blog (or this feature in particular) a morose feel as of late, but I'd be doing a disservice if I failed to acknowledge the recent passing of Gideon Baws, one-forth of the video directing team Shynola. Baws passed away just last week in Los Angeles at the age of 33.

(photo credit: dL76)
I have a personal attachment to this news because Shynola was one of the first video directors that I got into. They helped me recognize music videos as a legitimate art form, and that expressing a love for both music and visual art can exist in the same media. I still remember the first time I saw the video for Radiohead's "Pyramid Song". I was lazily flipping channels and tuned into it right at the beginning, and about four minutes later my life had changed a little. I'm not exaggerating when I say that. Seeing that video when I did opened up a whole new world for me musically and played no small part in making me into the obsessive music fiend I am today. Otherwise, I'd probably still consider Linkin Park the pinnacle of modern rock.




The second time I found myself utterly floored by a Shynola video was during my first year of college in '02-'03. I was going through the motions at an art school in a major that I no longer had a passion for, when I saw the video for Queens Of The Stone Age's "Go With The Flow", which is to this day one of the finest music videos ever created, in my eyes. Not long after that I changed my major to Visual Effects & Motion Graphics and never looked back, with a goal in mind of one day trying to be even half as awesome as Shynola was.

Shynola of course went onto bigger and better things in recent years, but the impact of the above videos on my direction in life can be equaled by very few. I'll remember Gideon Baws for whatever part, large or small, he played in their creation as a part of Shynola. Condolences to his family and friends, from a fan.

Links:
Shynola
The Director's Bureau