Flat-e are long term Warp collaborators who specialize in designing some of the most creative projection mapping to date, and have been working with Jamie Lidell on a number of projects, including the artwork for the new album, and that has led to this video for first single You Naked.

The London-based studio led by creative directors Matt Bateman, Robin McNicholas and Rob Slater approached the Lidell project holistically by keeping a central aesthetic across album artwork, music video and live visuals. The video is made of live projections, which are controlled by the movement of Jamie’s microphone – a technically challenging and forward-thinking project indeed. The result is a stunning display of crisp and colourful imagery, lots of visual trickery – and the creation a beautiful rain mac! Natalia Maus

NM: How did you come up with the idea, and how much involvement did Jamie have in the concept?
Flat-E: Jamie was extremely open to our ideas early on in this project. As we were creating the whole visual identity for the album, promo and forthcoming live tour we built the aesthetic from the ground up. We made sure that Jamie had plenty of input with our ideas because our whole concept was based around him controlling his environment, we wanted him to feel fully connected to the world we created.

Were you tasked to create something that could also be used as live visuals?
Yes, part of the original brief (which was to some extent self-imposed) was to create something which could be used for not only his live show but create imagery his album art work too.

The jacket effect is amazing! How did you do that?
We worked with costume designer Francesca Dvorak to create a rain mac which would really pick up our projections. She chose a reflective synthetic fabric for this purpose but we were unaware of exactly how reflective it was. There was this amazing moment when we turned the lights on set and the jacket literally glowed, everyone on set started crowding around the monitors see. It was a pretty special moment!

Presumably most of the effects in the video were achieved in camera? Are there any exceptions?
Obviously the footage is edited but all the animation was created in real time and the lighting effects are all in camera. It was important to be strict about this as we wanted to highlight that all this can be done live as a way of selling the live show.

Can you tell us how you projected those visuals around Jamie without projecting them onto him?
Often the projections do go onto him but we worked very carefully with our gaffer and DOP to use lighting to cancel this out. There is one shot of Jamie from above where we physically masked him out by obstructing the projector beam.

Are you happy with how it turned out?
Yes, with highly technical shoots like this, involving playback, lighting and multiple projections, there can be a tendency for things to get a bit a stale. In this case I think we created a system which was flexible enough for us to make the most of Jamie’s performance.

Jamie Lidell
You Naked
Directors: Flat-E
DOP & Steadicam: Thonke
Producer: Kat Anderson
Programmer: Marek Bereza
Video Commissioner: Laura Tunstall
Camera Assistant: Ed Tucker
Gaffer: Mark Holownia
Production Assistant: Grace Sherrington
Costume & Styling: Francesca Salter-Dvorak
Set Technician: Matt Barnes
Runners: Fred Vernon, Rosie Taylor & Joel Stephens
Photography: Sandra Ciampone
Special thanks to: Sandra Ciampone, Chris Lane, Andy Lowe, Rob Perna, Hackney Downs Studios and Alex & George at Autumn Street Studios