The colourist, who recently joined Studio RM, on the influence of cult TV show Utopia, her amazing trip to Japan this year and creating her own film emulation box of tricks in the grading suite.In just five years, Jules (aka Juliette) Wileman has built a substantial reputation as one of the top young colourists working in London. And she has now made a big move across town to a new home, from Absolute Post to the London base of Studio RM.At Absolute, under the mentorship of award-winning colourist Matt Turner, she quickly progressed from assistant to grading her own jobs, accruing commercial projects for Samsung, Burberry, Expedia, Aston Martin, TikTok, Women’s Aid, Adidas and more. In the process, she developed creative relationships with numerous directors and DoPs, including Fan and Fon, Hot Icarus, Stephen Pipe, Benedict Spence and Rosie May Bird Smith. And she has been consistently busy with music videos too, grading numerous projects for the likes of Anne-Marie x Aitch, Talia Mar, Manga Saint Hilare and Harvey Causon.Wileman has now joined Studio RM, based in the company's London studio, and part of Studio RM’s global roster of award-winning colourists, joining Myles Bevan and Jamie Noble. On her arrival at the company, Camilla Bateman, Studio RM's global MD, described her as a rare talent.“Jules brings an artistic sensibility to her advertising and promo work that perfectly aligns with Studio RM," commented Bateman. "As our global presence continues to grow, her expertise is invaluable in expanding our fashion, luxury, and music offerings into new advertising categories, all while maintaining the beautiful aesthetic we’re known for.”A good time, therefore, to catch up with Jules Wileman and find out how momentous a year she has been having, in our latest Snapshot Q&A. Name: Jules WilemanBirthday: 6th OctoberWhere did you grow up? North LondonPlace of further education and course (if any)? Bournemouth University, studying TV ProductionWhere do you live now? Walthamstow. So really not far from where I grew up!Name a film or video or other creative work that had a huge influence on your career choice?Utopia, the Channel 4 series, was a huge inspiration to me – I just loved everything about the visuals. Otherwise, it’s hard to single out one piece, as there are tonnes of creative works that have influenced me in some way or another..![imgtoken data:1]What were the important first projects for you, in terms of a learning experience and getting noticed?World’s Strongest Women for Women' Aid, directed by Fern Berresford, was a big turning point for me. It was one of the bigger projects from the start of my career that helped me get my name out there.However, I think all of the first projects I did were important! Each one was a different learning experience. For example, A.G Cook - Beautiful Superstar, directed by Prosper Unger-Hamilton, was my first music video grade, and my first remote session! Ironically, some of the references were from Utopia so it felt a bit like fate...[vidtoken data:0]Best film you’ve seen this year? Kneecap – it's kind of like an Irish Snatch. But then, I’m not sure that’s a fair way to describe it, as it’s pretty unique. It’s one of the few films this year I’ve left the cinema just grinning, without any comments; I've been told I can be a bit of a harsh critic, so this is quite rare!Favourite song/album/music artist this year? I’ve been listening to The Paul Simon Songbook a lot this year, with some Billy Joel mixed in too. My music taste is a bit all over the place though; I’ve also been loving Alligator Bites Never Heal by Doechii, and a fair bit of Rex Orange County.Music videos are my favourite things to work on - but it’s often beg/borrow/steal to get anything done.Favourite music video/videos you’ve seen this year?FKA twigs – Eusexua by Jordan Hemingway is amazing; I love how surreal it is, and of course FKA is stunning. Whilst it’s not my normal music taste, I really enjoyed Sabrina Carpenter's Taste, directed by Dave Meyers. All the classic horror references were fab, and I particularly loved the reference to Death Becomes Her. And Rex Orange County - Finally directed by Nicholas Walker is beautiful, and pretty much one-shot which is so impressive![vidtoken data:1]Technically this came out last year, but AntsLive's Number One Candidate directed by Tom Emmerson is one that I still think about from time to time. It’s just so cool!What has been (or usually is) your favourite night out this year? I’ve ended up in Slim Jim’s quite a few times; not sure I’d call this a favourite though!In terms of the music video-related jobs of the past year or so, what were the most rewarding creatively, and why?Tove Lo – Let Me Go Oh Oh (directed by Fa and Fon) and Desire (directed by David Wilson). These were two of four promos going out, and it was an interesting challenge to simultaneously grade each to have its own visual identity whilst also making all four feel like they were in the same world. David was jumping between my suite and Matt Turner’s (who graded the other two) which was quite amusing![vidtoken data:2]Glass Animals' The Extremely Existentially Late Show, directed by Jim Wilmot. This was a trio of VEVO live performances, that were also cut together in one long mega-mix, also featuring the artist’s dog! We went with a film emulation look in the end, and I got to use a preset I’d made myself. Luckily it worked, and we were both really happy with the final look. It was also a great challenge to copy the look of the CRT monitors in Show Pony specifically![vidtoken data:3]What are your favourite other (non-mv) projects of the past year or so?The short film Rise, directed by SHIRZAN [about the women's protests in Iran], is one of the projects I’m most proud of, and pleased to have been involved with. It ended up an Immortal Award too, which was a nice bonus![vidtoken data:4]Life Uncensored for Lionsgate+, directed by Diego Nuñez Irigoyen, was fun - we played around with varying degrees of film emulation which I always enjoy doing. This was another job where I used my ‘magic emulation box’, and it was shortlisted for the Craft: Colour Grading at the Berlin Commercial 2024 Awards which was a great ego boost for me.There are a few projects in the works that have been wicked to grade this year, and I can’t wait for them to be out in the world.What’s the most surprising thing that’s happened this year? I did a solo trip to Japan, which is the first time I’ve ever travelled alone – it was unbelievable, and somewhere I’d love to visit again. It was also quite liberating to be able to do exactly what I wanted, when I wanted. Plus, I was able to spend some time sorting my brain out and came back far calmer and more refreshed![vidtoken data:5]This was another job where I used my magic emulation box.Your top suggestion to change and improve how the music video industry works? It’s difficult to have a proper opinion on this, as I’m only in post, so I don’t really know the nuances of production. However, I do think it would be nice if there was a bit more time and budget put aside for post!Music videos are my favourite things to work on, but a lot of the time it’s beg/borrow/steal to get anything done. On the other hand, it is quite amazing to see what can be achieved on shoestring budgets, and it’s always quite satisfying to have helped in some way.What are you looking forward to for the rest of the year? In terms of work, I’m excited to carry on getting stuck in at Studio RM; I’ve only been here a short while, and I’m loving it! Otherwise, I have lots of plans with family and friends to enjoy. Most importantly, seeing the family dogs as much as possible – they always improve my day!• Jules Wileman is now at Studio RM; watch her showreel here.

K-Pop royalty Rosé releases her second single Toxic Till The End, complete with a mesmerising video directed by Ramez ‘Mezzy’ Silyan. Following super smash hit Apt with Bruno Mars, Rosé's latest release takes on a more melancholic vibe, pondering a former relationship. Detailed through a striking narrative set against Old Westbury Gardens in New York, the video sees Rosé and guest star Evan Mock share a variety of beautiful moments tinged by their shared toxicity. Evocative, sharp and breathtakingly shot, Silyan and team knock it out the park, giving the artist's impassioned fanbase a real visual delight.

The Blinkink director explains how his personal experience of OCD fuelled his outrageous Man vs Fly comic-horror.Willl Wightman's debut music video is something to behold - but probably not if you're of a sensitive disposition. The young director, who has already combined music and humour in his work - like his graduation film Heart Failure, essentially a self-written mini-musical about twentysomething relationships, and Deliciously Predictable, his film for US potato brand Ore Ida - breaks his music video duck for Irish DJ Tommy Holohan & Megra's old school rave tune Show Me The Sky by making a fearlessly gross comedy about primal fear and human vulnerability. As unrestrained in its imaginative violence as an old-school cartoon, Wightman's video features Jared (played by Hamilton Charles) a recovering obsessive-compulsive disorder sufferer who is about to experience a major relapse due to the appearance of a pesky fly. [vidtoken data:0]Jared becomes determined to remove the fly from his pristine home, but the fly has other ideas: we witness the vile insect enter Jared's head, via his right ear and, now played a man in fly mask and wings, advance towards his victim's brain. Jared's response, pouring cleaning fluid into his earhole is just the first extremely painful step to his abject submission at the hands' of the fly. It's a very cruel fate for poor Jared, and it's played for big, bad taste laughs. We talked to Will WIghtman about the video, and discovered that in an era where the instinct to play safe is stronger than ever, this bold, scurrilous work derived from his own experience of the same condition that essentially seals Jared's fate.He just needed to get it out there...[imgtoken data:1]Above: Will Wightman on set of the Show Me The Sky videoI love mental comedy music videos from the Nineties and Noughties - that was definitely an inspiration.PROMONEWS: How did the project start? Was there a brief that suggested that Tommy Holohan was looking for an outrageous comedy horror for his Show Me The Sky video? WILL WIGHTMAN: I’ve had this loose concept buzzing around my head for a good while now, but Tommy’s music really unlocked it for me. I actually wrote the video to another one of his tracks a year ago. The timing didn’t work out that time, but when he came back round with this amazing new EP I jumped at it.I love the energy and cinematic quality of Tommy’s music. His tracks often evolve through different motifs and paces, in a way that’s quite rare for dance music. It’s so perfect for telling a story with different emotional beats, which is what drew me to his work. That and they're also just wicked dance tracks obviously. [imgtoken data:2][imgtoken data:3][Being OCD] is not just about keeping your room tidy and washing your hands.And what was the starting point for your Man vs Fly comedy - and when did you realise you needed to go to extreme lengths in showing one’s worst fears via a particularly vindictive insect? I've wanted to make a project inspired by my OCD for a little while now. There's a lot of misconceptions about it, so I wanted to talk about it in a way that was fun and not overly preachy. It's not just about keeping your room tidy and washing your hands. My experience of the condition mostly involves spending full weekends convincing myself that the mole on my neck is 100% going to kill me in the next 3-6 business days. That's where the idea started really, following a character who always believes the worst outcome is the only possible thing that can happen. Then, I just really ran with that. It's inspired by one of my fears about insects in my ear that I had as a kid (/fully grown adult). [imgtoken data:4][imgtoken data:5]The head and the wings were the key elements, then making the rest of him human added so much comedy.Like the music this seems to hark back to a past era, when off-the-wall comic ideas were more common in music videos. Was that a part of your thinking? Were there conversations about how extreme you could make it?I really love some of those mental comedy music videos from the Nineties and Noughties, so that was definitely an inspiration for this. People take music videos too seriously a lot of the time I think. This is fun music, so we wanted to make a fun video!Actually we had to keep an eye on that all the way through the process - making sure it never got too dark or too sad. We kept adding little beats of levity right into the last few days of the edit so we always kept a toe in the comedy sphere while still having that really gritty edge.That being said, this video is still definitely not for everyone![imgtoken data:6][imgtoken data:7]It’s a role that requires 100% commitment. Harrison absolutely delivered.The story is propelled by cutaways to Google searches and medical diagrams. So any factual basis for the horrible events that ensue?This is definitely something that happens for real! Up until the Ratatouille-style body control... you never know though!It’s a great performance from your lead actor. Who is he and why did you cast him? Does he have any background in creating self-destructive, obsessive characters?Harrison is a wicked comedy talent. I'd seen him in a few shorts and I just loved this unhinged and manic energy that he could bring. (I should add for the record that Harrison is not like that in real life; he's lovely.)There were a lot of different performance gears that we needed to switch between to make this work, from the out-and-out comedy beats to the more intense emotional moments and the much more physical almost choreographed movement at the end when the Fly has taken control.[imgtoken data:8]Above: Concept art for the fly character in the Show Me The Sky video, by artist Darius Bristow.[imgtoken data:9]Above: Members of the art department team prep the Fly - played by George Osman - on set. When casting this, I was looking for someone who was prepared to absolutely throw themselves into the insanity of what we were trying to create. It’s a role that requires 100% commitment. Harrison absolutely delivered. I think he’s a star to be honest with you. And the Fly is genuinely horrible, of course. How did you transform that actor into the creature?Thank you! The idea of the character was to create this theatrical exaggerated version of how a hypochondriac might imagine a fly. If you're finding him horrible, then we succeeded!One of the biggest challenges with the project was trying to decide how to bring the fly to life. That fly-to-human ratio was tough but crucial I think. He needed to be clearly a fly, but also a character with expressive, human features that helped him have that personality. Also, it needed to be a character we could actually make on the cheap.[imgtoken data:10][imgtoken data:11]The whole video rests on the relationship between Jared and the fly, but the two characters were never on set at the same time.In the end, the head and the wings felt like the key elements. Then making the rest of him human just added so much comedy. Lani, one of our incredible prop makers, built the mask and wings and then we just dirtied up our actor and got a nice pair of big manky pants and a bit of gold jewellery. When and where did you shoot the video and were there any particularly difficult challenges to overcome to make it all work?Certainly the most unique challenge of the shoot was trying to bridge the gap between our characters and their worlds. The whole video rests on the relationship between Jared and this fly, but the two characters were never on set at the same time.Directing both actors and my team to always be thinking about the character we weren’t filming, was actually really integral to making these two different worlds not feel entirely separate from one another.Hopefully we pulled it off, but you’ll have to be the judge of that!• Will Wightman is a director based at Blinkink in London - more of his work here

Kacey Musgraves ponders life and the world around us in Lewis Cater's meditative promo for The Architect. Boasting a breathtaking location and sweeping, epic shots of the scenery, the video blends conceptual vignettes with laidback performance setups for Musgraves' Grammy-nominated song, that contemplates the questions of existence: is our world shaped by the hand of a divine creator, driven by the unstoppable forces of nature, or crafted through the intricate workings of scientific phenomena? Building upon the themes of the track, we see Musgraves putting together a giant grass puzzle, and bathing in mud, captured in a drawn-out, breezy way. It's splendid work from Cater and team - a love letter to the world we live in, and an empowering showcase for Kacey Musgraves.[imgtoken data:1]