Image: The Hollywood News
Sir Elton John and Bernie Taupin made a surprise visit to the Cannes Film Festival on Monday afternoon for a special event in association with YouTube. The two legendary British songwriters previously challenged users of the streamer to come up with ideas for three different music videos for some of their biggest hits – all of which never had an original video produced when they were originally release.
The tracks to be used were the pair’s iconic Benny and the Jets, which had to include some kind of performance element, Tiny Dancer, which was to be live-action and the legendary Rocket Man, which needed to be pure animation. Users entered the competition, titled Elton John: The Cut, in their thousands from all corners of the world. Users had to submit a 90-second pitch in video form with the numbers eventually whittled down to the three winners via a judging panel including Oscar-winning filmmaker Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) and Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg).
Image: The Hollywood News
The winners were Jack Whitely and Laura Brownhill who directed Bennie and the Jets’ new video, Max Weiland, who helmed the new video for Tiny Dancer, and Majid Adin who brought to life a new animated film for the iconic Rocket Man.
All of the winners had their videos shown to the press at a glittering screening at Cannes on Monday afternoon, and were then interviewed on stage by legendary filmmaker Spike Lee.
Take a look at these three superb videos below.
