One of the nice things about perfume ads is that, since you can't smell online video (yet), nobody will mind if you decide that a given scent tickles the nostrils just like tiny, leather-clad people climbing across a statuesque woman's nude, reclining form, perhaps with grace notes of exploding welding goggles and a hint of leather hat.
This, of course, is exactly what anything Lady Gaga branded is going to smell like, perhaps with a varying number of dog-collar spikes from bottle to bottle, but essentially undifferentiated.
Ridley Scott produced this clip for Lady Gaga Fame. It was directed by photographer Steven Klein. And while it's a little too early to tell (this is merely a trailer of the full perfume advertisement, you understand), I will certainly be watching the full product, where G.I. Joe-sized bondage fetishists rappel off Gaga's nipples, or reenact the last 10 minutes of North by Northwest on her nose, or something.
Oddly, the artist this thing recalls is not Scott, exactly, but painter and Alien production designer (and all-around weirdo) H.R. Giger, which is a refreshing change from the various David LaChapelle rip-offs larding the short-form video industry, although (as with the LaChapelle homages) it's been defanged and reformed as mild bondage rather than … whatever the hell Giger was doing.
Of note: The DP on this clip, and hopefully the full video, is the estimable Jeff Cronenweth, David Fincher's cinematographer of choice since Fight Club (perhaps explaining the similarities between the imagery here and the awesome title sequence for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo), and a tremendously gifted one, at that.
At any rate, it's refreshing to see Gaga fronting the cash for gonzo experimental video projects. Cool stuff has come out of those, as evidenced by Chris Cunningham's amazing/disturbing Aphex Twin videos or Michel Gondry's filmography.
CREDITS
Client: Lady Gaga Fame
A Blackdog Films / RSA Production
Director: Steven Klein
Hair: Frederic Aspiras
Makeup: Stephane Marais
Styling: Brandon Maxwell
Director of Photography: Jeff Cronenweth
Production Designer: Nathan Crowley
1st Ad: Peter Kohn
Editor: Skip Chaisson
Colorist: Dave Hussey
Digital Production: Digital Domain
Visual Effects Supervisor: Greg Teegarden
Visual Effects Producer: Kait Boehm
Sound Design: Leslie Shatz, Christopher Knight, Wildfire Studios
Producer: Natalie Hill
Executive Producers: Coleen Haynes, Jules Daly