Proof that special effects and expeditious editing aren’t essential to creating an attention-grabbing music video, the film clip accompanying Otouto’s W. Hillier is a mesmerizing and lethargic one.

Directed by Alice Glenn, the video features choreography from No Lights, No Lycra and a chorus line of non-professional dancers in matching footwear. Incorporating both slow-motion sequences and wonderfully patient camera movements, the video takes its time and makes an impact.

W. Hillier is a Portable Film Festival Official Selection for 2010.

Using an honest and revealing technique, documentary film-maker Narbru captured this portrait of graffiti artist JonOne for BKRW simply by spending time and having conversations with him.

With no specific or intrusive lines of questioning, Une nuit avec Jon One (A Night With JonOne) explores the artist’s commitment to what he does and his attitude towards being one of many “chosen” to represent a movement and a generation.

A Night With JonOne is a Portable Film Festival Official Selection for 2010.

After recreating the Human League’s little-known B-side track You Remind Me of Gold into just Gold, UK band Darkstar recruited director Evan Boehm to give the video a life of its own.

Using After Effects, openframeworks and cinema4d, Boehm and his team at Semblr went all Charlie Kaufman and got inside the minds of the band members for the brilliant video that is, as they say, “an artistic representation of the concept of memetic contagion i.e. an idea as something that you can catch, that finds a host in the mind of a person.”

Gold is a Portable Film Festival Official Selection for 2010.

A statement on devolution, industrialization and mass-production, or just an entertaining claymation short? Brooklyn animator Andy Kennedy’s Accumulonimbus is both.

Hypnotizing and monochromatic, Accumulonimbus is a fun and rewarding viewing experience, and one that is the result of an enormous amount of meticulous planning, construction and editing.

Accumulonimbus is a Portable Film Festival Official Selection for 2010.

Tom Kingsley’s video for Darwin Deez’s single Up in the Clouds is a sweet and innovative use of colour key and animation that sees the singer check into a hotel in the sky and become trapped on a disintegrating cloud during a thunderstorm.

By having the video’s characters interact with on-screen typography (that is as much for their benefit as it is for ours), Kingsley communicates their feelings towards one another without having to fall back on music video clichés like flashback montages or long, romantic stares, and is able to keep the video fresh, funny and exciting.

Up In The Clouds is a Portable Film Festival Official Selection in 2010.

While in residence at the Piet Zwart Institute in Holland, Sydney video artist Kenzie Larsonworked on a technique of recording video footage of a subject and projecting it over the same subject, allowing one person to interact with versions of themselves.

She used that same technique when directing the music video for Richard in Your Mind’s single Losing Our Minds upon her return to Australia. In it, members of the band are able to hold both a guitar and a microphone, sprinkle confetti on one another while riding skateboards and observe themselves playing.

Losing Our Minds is a Portable Film Festival Official Selection in 2010.

Channelling her inner Godard heroine, Megan Washington dances, sings and shoots her way through the Sunday Best video, from directors Mairi Cameron and Stephen Lance.

“The clip is a homage to the French New Wave cinema of the 60s, particularly the Godard film Bande à part,” says Stephen, “But it also references another of his films, Masculin Feminin…it veers wildly between a crime film, a comedy and a musical, like a film within a film within a film.”

Sunday Best is a Portable Film Festival Official Selection in 2010.

As a staple of local film and television for over two decades, Kevin Harrington’s face will be familiar to most Australian audiences. In My Girlfriend Jim we see him playing Jim’s easily-fooled drunkard father and chore-master.

In this charming short from Melbourne film-maker Damian McLindon, family relationships are explored beneath layers of laughs and “silly” is far more important than “serious”. That’s just what the doctor ordered!

My Girlfriend Jim is a Portable Film Festival Official Selection for 2010.

It’s appropriate, given the family tree of musician Harper Simon, that the video to accompany his song Berkeley Girl looks as though it was shot in down-time on the set of The Graduate.

Director Benjamin Kutsko shot the video on 8mm in Echo Park and the nostalgic aesthetic is matched perfectly by both the song and the calming presence of actress Jena Malone.

Berkeley Girl is a Portable Film Festival Official Selection in 2010.

A music video that covers four seasons, Jack Ferry’s accompaniment to The Morning Benders‘All Day Day Light is simple, sweet and clever.

Using enormous typography, the video cues us to the right moments to clap along and ensures we’re never left scrambling for the right lyrics to sing along, be there rain, hail or shine.

All Day Day Light is a Portable Film Festival Official Selection in 2010