Plagiarism charge over Phoenix Foundation video

An Oscar-nominated local director is denying accusations he ripped off a little-known Christchurch musician with his music video for a top New Zealand band.

Singer-songwriter Thomas Coffey said he was "hurting" since he saw the Phoenix Foundation's clip for "40 Years", and was struck by its similarities to his music video "A Memory of You", shot for $400 in 2005.

"My heart dropped when I saw it," he said. "It seems too similar to be a coincidence. I just went, 'you know, this is an issue'."

The "40 Years" video, released this year to a positive reception, is directed by and stars film-maker Taika Waititi, best known for his Academy Award nomination for short film Two Cars, One Night in 2005. The videos are both "one-shot" clips, centred around singing joggers, wearing moustaches, headbands and retro, adidas-style tracksuits. The joggers change costume and encounter strange obstacles as they run for the duration of the song.

Coffey's bandmate Ben Trower, an occasional drummer for their group The Steve Parr Slide, has been protesting about the alleged plagiarism as a "point of principle" on video-sharing website YouTube, to which Coffey's clip was uploaded in 2007.

"The videos are overwhelmingly similar. The concept and execution is identical," said Trower. "When someone who's got a bit of a headstart does something so incredibly similar and gets recognition for it, it leaves a sour taste."

Coffey's self-funded clip has gone relatively unseen, getting only a few plays on music television channels at the time of its release, but was entered into a music video competition several years ago for which Waititi was a judge.

But Waititi said he did not see Coffey's film in the competition, and the similarities between the two clips were "a complete coincidence".

"I understand about intellectual property. But if I was going to copy someone's music video, I'd look further afield than Christchurch," said Waititi, who recently directed episodes of hit HBO show Flight of the Conchords. "It's only a music video in New Zealand; no one saw my one and no one saw his too."

He said the look he and Coffey sported in the videos was based on a character in the film The Royal Tenenbaums, rather than being Coffey's creation.

"Headbands, tracksuits and moustaches? That's not original," he said. "There's nothing really original these days, so I don't put much stock in [their complaint]."

Logan McMillan, the director of Coffey's clip, said he had had a laugh at the comments by viewers on YouTube praising the Phoenix Foundation clip's originality, but said he was not bothered by the similarities.

"Sometimes when you see something, you don't necessarily consciously copy it," he said. "You might draw inspiration from it - I don't know if they've done that or not. I do music videos all the time; I do things that are blatantly derivative of other people's work."

Phoenix Foundation frontman Luke Buda said the similarities between the clips were "an unfortunate accident".

"No one in the band had seen the [Coffey] video, and I'm pretty keen to believe Taika when he says he hadn't."

He said joggers were one of Waititi's motifs as a film-maker.

"If you watch [Waititi's 2007 feature film] Eagle vs Shark, Taika's character is a champion cross-country runner. I think it's just one of Taika's funny things, he likes to run in adidas tracksuits."

- © Fairfax NZ News