Kim Carnes — Crazy In The Night

JUL 01 1985 · 12:00

Kim Carnes — Crazy In The Night (1985) Director: Dominic Sena & Greg Gold Era: MTV New Wave Peak (1985) - Mid-decade synth-pop crossover era; FM-radio adult contemporary artists adopting New Wave production and video aesthetics for mainstream MTV rotation High curatorial value as a documented early collaboration between Dominic Sena and Greg Gold — two of Propaganda Films' five co-founders — predating the company's formal 1986 launch. The video is a rare pre-Propaganda artifact illustrating the visual sensibility and fast-cut editorial style these directors brought to the company. Combined with the cultural significance of the parent album as a pioneering female-produced synth-pop record, this video merits preservation as both a directorial career document and a genre-historical artifact. Context: Released in April–May 1985, 'Crazy in the Night (Barking at Airplanes)' arrived at a pivotal juncture for Kim Carnes — four years after her career-defining No. 1 hit 'Bette Davis Eyes' (1981) — and served as a commercially successful re-entry into the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 15. The parent album Barking at Airplanes has been noted as the first synth-pop album produced by a woman, placing Carnes at the intersection of gender-progressive production and mainstream MTV-era pop. The video's co-direction by Sena and Gold — members of the circle that would formally launch Propaganda Films in 1986 — situates it as a proto-Propaganda artifact, an early example of the cinematic, high-concept aesthetic that would come to define the most influential music video production company of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Director notes: The video was confirmed as co-directed by Dominic Sena and Greg Gold via Kim Carnes' official Facebook page. This represents one of Sena's earliest directing credits, as he transitioned from cinematographer to director in 1985 — the same year this single was released. Both Sena and Gold were Propaganda Films co-founders, though the company was not formally established until 1986; this video predates the formal founding and reflects the pre-Propaganda collaborative circle. The fast editing pace (avg shot 2.19s, 91 scene changes in ~3:19) aligns with the kinetic, high-production-value approach Propaganda Films would become famous for. IMDb and multiple director biography sources (IMDb, IMDB Bio, Hollywood Reporter, Television Academy) confirm Gold directed videos for Kim Carnes, consistent with the Facebook attribution.