Dreamy, delicious, aquatic… the ironic pop is supplied by Friendly Fires, the delightful visuals by Price James on a mythical vibe quite possibly inspired by The Iliad. Or something.

Well, perhaps not – but Price is in the medals with his canny use of synchronised swimming and upside-down cameras.

And in a sense of timing that would impress Christine Ohuruogu, Price is showing this and more of his work – like Shitdisco’s OK and Lost Penguins’ Pleasurewood Kills, and quite possibly his hap-hap-happy Mr Kipling ad – at the Canary Wharf Film Festival running from August 28th to 31st.

Price’s mini-retrospective and Q&A is at East Wintergarden, Canary Wharf, Thursday 28th August, 7.30pm. Tickets, er, priced £3, are available here.

Friendly Fires
Jump In The Pool
Prod co: Black Dog Films
Director: Price James
Producer: Ben Porter
DoP: Luke Palmer
Offline: Jane Cina at Trim
Post: The Mill
Commissioner: Phil Lee at XL Recordings
Watch: Quicktime movie

Price James on making the Friendly Fires’ Jump In The Pool video

“I shot it on the Red cam. I doubt any video will not be shot on anything else in a year. The results are beautiful, although post houses are really gonna have to catch up – they are not happy about the file sizes! But The Mill really looked after us.

“We couldn’t afford a casting as the swimmers are too in-demand. In fact, I wasn’t actually allowed to ‘rehearse’ with them as that would count as a half-day and we couldn’t afford that either! So I took my Speedos and ‘met’ with them at their training pool, and had to discuss ‘moves’, without them doing the moves, and without me discussing moves. It was a bureaucratic nightmare!!

“One of the girls was a world champion, and appeared at the Barcelona Olympics, the other one is a dead ringer for Lily Cole… they were like little nymphs.

“We shot at underwater studios in Essex – they shot the underwater scenes for Sexy Beast there. The owner was very excited when I asked who had shot there before, leading to the classic 45 minute recollection of him hanging out with Ray Winstone, etc. He barely took a breath!

“It was the first underwater shoot in Europe with the Red. There is only one housing for it, and that’s in LA and we couldn’t get it. We experimented with an SR3 bag and it fitted – but only just.

“The water was too warm on the day so the camera bag steamed up and dripped condensation over the lens. But the operator was so punk rock, he shoved loads of tissues down the sides and then put it back in the water to see if it was leaking!! We were glad that it didn’t (I must add that he owned his own camera…).”