When it comes to making pop promos there are few people more experienced than the two women who now head up 1stAveMusicVideos, the new division at 1stAveMachine. We spoke to Liz Kessler and Randi Wilens about their big new challenge - and why it's happened now.They have each been doing their thing on both sides of the Atlantic for a while now - and occasionally crossing paths and collaborating on projects, which has led to their enduring long-distance friendship. But now they are working in tandem - allowing for ann eight-hour time difference - for one of the big international players in commercial production.1stAveMachine has grown from originally being primarily an animation production company, when they were founded in New York in the early Noughties, to being wholly multi-disciplinary, and global. And now they have added Music Videos to their offering – thanks to Liz Kessler and Randi Wilens.It’s fair to say that both women have big reputations in the world of music video production, for both their considerable achievements and considerable personalities.In London, Liz Kessler first established herself as in-house video commissioner at Island Records in the early Noughties. ("I came in for a couple of weeks to sort out a few outstanding invoices and ended up staying for 5 years," she says). She then moved over to production later in the decade at Academy Films. She remains the only person to have won both the Best Commissioner and Best Producer awards at the UKMVAs.Over in LA, Randi Wilens came into music video production a decade earlier, at the beginning of the 1990s, and has been representing directors and executive producing their videos ever since, firstly at commercial production companies like Bedford Falls, before establishing her own agency, RW Media.They both have garnered huge amounts of experience with A-list artists and A-list directors down the years. At Island, Kessler commissioned videos for Amy Winehouse, Busted and Sugababes. For the latter she commissioned the video for Freak Like Me. "Working with not one, but two legends at the same time making that video - Dawn Shadforth and Sophie Muller," she recalls. "And it was my first PROMO magazine cover, which was a bit special!" At Academy, she produced and executive produced some eminent directors - including Corin Hardy, Us, Nabil, Bison, Nadia and Martin De Thurah - on videos for The Prodigy, Wiley, Paolo Nutini, London Grammar and many others.I like breaking directors and I like working with directors that have been in the game for a minute or two.Meanwhile Wilens started out in videos working with The Black Crowes before exec producing one of the most controversial videos of the early Nineties: Nine Inch Nails’ Happiness Is Slavery. She went on EP the Wayne Isham-directed video for Michael Jackson’s You Are Not Alone. In the Noughties she worked with Irish director Meiert Avis on projects like Audioslave’s Like A Stone.Her roster contains a smattering of legendary video directors, including Mark Pellington and Kevin Kerslake – who recently directed a video for the current iteration of Smashing Pumpkins. But she also has lots of younger talent on her books too - and Wilens’ management company has always been big on animation - including Anthony Schepperd, Pix3lface, Dessie Jackson, Dusty Deen and more.“I represent 20 animators. I've got some fabulous female directors, and great young up and coming directors. So I kind of run the gamut. I like breaking directors and I like working with directors that have been in the game for a minute or two.”Kerry Smart, MD of 1stAveMachine in London spoke to Liz Kessler about creating a music video division at the company last year, who then recommended her old friend Wilens to run the US side. So a few months in, we caught up with them both on a Zoom call to find out how things were progressing… PROMONEWS: How would you explain your roles within 1stAveMachine & IstAveMusicVideos?LK: We’re representing directors, building a new division within the company, scouting talent and exec production.And how are things going so far?RW: Well, I just did a video with one of their directors, an animation directing collective in Spain called BRUT, for the rock band Goo Goo Dolls, and I completely oversaw the project. I'm good friends with the band’s manager and close with their label, Warner Brothers. The Goo Goo Dolls loved BRUT’s treatment, and they just let them do their thing. There wasn't even one change.So that’s been exciting. Firstly, re-establishing a relationship with 1stAveMachine and being excited to get them work and meeting BRUT, this new company in Spain, and Martin Allais, who is their creative director.What's so exciting about these times, I think, is you can find directors all over the world. [You can] represent directors in six different countries, animators in six different countries. And that's something you didn't do ten years ago.Above: The Goo Goo Dolls' Run All Night, directed by BRUTWhere did your associations start with 1stAveMachine, and how did you begin working with the company?LK: I’ve known the wonderful Kerry Smart since we worked together at Academy Films. She and I spoke about working together on a music video department last year. RW: I go back with 1stAveMachine when they were just a very small company, in the early 2000s. We did a bunch of videos with Asif Mian, so I’ve known Serge Patzak, one of the principals of the company since that time. Back then I thought he was amazing and always loved the vibe of the company.At that point they were based in downtown Manhattan, and I felt they were very underground and forward thinking. I just remember flying into New York [from LA], and liking how they did things, and how supportive they were of their director. We did 4 or 5 videos before Asif decided he really wanted to go into commercials.So I have history with the company, and was thrilled that they came back to ask me to work with them – and I loved that Liz brought me in. I worked with Liz when she was at Island and I loved that experience. So it just seemed like the dynamic was so fabulous and serendipitous.Above: PREP's Carrie, directed by Em ColeWhat’s the potential benefit for 1stAveMachine in being involved in music videos and other music-related content?LK: It’s a great way to source new talent and to give existing talent an opportunity for development. Other arms of the industry have always looked at the creativity in the music video world so a great video can also enhance the career of a director. IstAveMachine has a really great approach to mentoring and collaboration that’s a perfect fit for music videos. They really support their directors’ creativity so this felt like a very natural move. And there’s nothing more fun than a good video experience...RW: Doing musical visual content, it just gives you different exposure. People still love looking at music videos, directors still love doing them. You still have feature guys still like doing music videos. I mean, people love music. It's so universal. So I think it's exposure and just accessibility into a market that they're just not in.Above: Bob Marley's No Woman, No Cry, directed by Ron BroadyWho are the names on the IstAveMachine roster, or creatives connected to IstAveMachine, that either a) have a track record in music videos, or b) you have high hopes for making an impact in this field?LK: I’ll talk UK: Anthony Dickenson is a fantastic voice in music videos. His recent experimental films with Friedberg are gorgeous. And of course there’s his classic work with Findlay Brown and The XX.We have two very exciting new voices - Em Cole and Ricky Rose. They are super cool, very stylish but with something behind the curtain. They’re both innovative filmmakers with something to say. Em (like Anthony) is multi-disciplined with strong fashion and does colourful sexy photography as well as moving image. Ricky has been working with Black voices in London’s dance and art world - he’s done some lovely work with the V&A.We have amazing animators based around the globe. And I’d encourage anyone looking for animation to check out the guys at BRUT, who did the recent Goo Goo Dolls video, put together by the amazing Randi . They have a wild imagination. We love their treatments.IstAveMachine has a really great approach to mentoring and collaboration that’s a perfect fit for music videos.RW: BRUT have a really strong aesthetic that I like - and they also have a great narrative bent. They wrote a great narrative treatment [for Goo Goo Dolls], and when you can do that in animation and you want to see a video over and over again, it just speaks volumes.I also like Em Cole, and Ron Brodie – I like his work a lot. IstAveMachine has an amazing roster and they're very collaborative and they're very excited about this division. So they've given me and Liz full reign to bring in music.On some of the directors that don't really have music videos, my goal is to send music to a few directors and see if the song resonates and have them write. Its often an effective way to get directors into the fold. I also ask their directors to give me bands that they want to work with, and then I go after those artists and say, this director loves your artist. I hit up managers.Above: Friedberg's MIDI 8, directed by Anthony DickensonAnimation is a big thing for you [aka RW Media], isn’t it? RW: It has been for a long time. I'm big in the tour visual game right now. I’ve just done huge animated tour visuals for Bad Bunny, Anderson Pak, Blink 182, Odesza, Matchbox 20… It's a big business. How do you assess the industry – the music video industry - at the moment? LK: Same struggles as ever. But also the same passion and love that music videos have always inspired. RW: It's kind of the Wild West. I'm finding that artists make decisions. It's really an artist world. They pick the treatment. They know usually what director they want to work with. It's just that budgets are challenging. What’s good about being an artist’s world is that you cut out a lot of periphery. The artist reads the treatment, knows what they like, gets on the phone with director, and you're shooting it. When you're dealing with the likes of Jack White or Billy Corgan, there’s no downside to that. They've been in the game a long time, and they know what they like. The downside is when you're dealing with an artist that really doesn't know what they want to do, and you go back and forth and back and forth, and then the video goes away. But to me the one thing that's so interesting about music videos now, is it's all about the creative. Back in the day, it was all about what the director had on their reel. Now if you write a great treatment and the artist likes it and I executive produce it, I can get you that job - even if you've got nothing on your reel.Yes, Instagram is important. But if that looks good, and you write a great treatment, I can get you the job.• Contact Liz Kessler about 1stAveMusicVideos in London here; contact Randi Wilens about 1stAveMusicVideos in LA here

A pick of the videos we featured here last month - including Abteen Bagheri's brilliant return to music video directing for Benjamin Earl Turner (above, with friend).

Part of the Circus Maximus film that accompanies the new Travis Scott album, it's also one of the most spectacular music videos of the year. Laura Serra Estorch, executive producer at CANADA in Barcelona, explains why recreating the Catalonian tradition of the Castellers for Sirens was "four weeks inside a production hurricane."It is just one part of a much bigger project, one that involved some of the biggest (and notorious) names in international film - including Gaspar Noé, Nicolas Winding Refn and Harmony Korine. But the part of Circus Maximus - Travis Scott's 75-minute film accompanying his new album UTOPIA - that is devoted to his song Sirens is, by any stretch, a towering achievement. In fact one can justifiably say: quite literally a towering achievement. It's not that 'a cast of thousands' usually means exactly that, but in this case, it did take in the region of two thousand extras to bring Scott's vision for Sirens to life. And that vision was to create a human tower, reaching up to the sky.Produced by CANADA in Barcelona, executive produced by Laura Serra Estorch and directed by Scott, the video recreates a remarkable tradition of the Castellers, that originates in the Catalonian region of Spain - where teams of hundreds of people combine to build human towers, and compete against other teams to see who can go highest.Above: Laura Serra EstorchI’d dare say it’s the biggest shoot we’ve ever done at CANADA.As it takes many people - usually built around a whole community, including different generations - to create one of these towers, the video begins with hundreds of people running through the streets of Barcelona, before an even bigger group of people gather in a darkened space to begin the building process - with Travis Scott himself at the heart of it, as Castellers climb to create ever-higher levels, towards a light at the top of the space.We spoke to Laura Serra Estorch, executive producer at CANADA, about making the Sirens video and discovered how her own personal experience of the Castellers gave her a head start in a hugely intense period of pre-production. PROMONEWS: How did the project start for you?LAURA SERRA ESTORCH: We were approached by Kathleen Heffernan, one of Circus Maximus’s executive producers, asking if we could make Travis’s idea for Sirens happen in a very short amount of time. I said 'yes'. And after that, it was four weeks inside a production hurricane.Did the original concept come from Travis, or was this a collaboration between him and CANADA?It came directly from Travis. He had a very clear idea of what he wanted in the video since the very first email. We received a written script for the entire Circus Maximus film, and our chapter specifically was quite detailed. He knew about human towers and about the Tarragona contest in particular, which is a contest that’s held once every two years, where all the Castellers teams gather together.It happens in a stadium filled with over 15,000 people, every team wearing their own colour and several human towers being built simultaneously. It’s visually spectacular. Travis wanted to recreate it within a utopian world.The Castells is a remarkable tradition in Catalonia, that started originally in Tarragona. Is there a personal connection to this tradition?I used to be part of the Vilafranca team when I was 10. I didn’t last many years, as many people there do, but I was there long enough to understand the culture, to share their passion, and to be able to connect with them 25 years later to help make this project happen. It has been quite an emotional journey for me. Were Travis and his team aware of your personal connection to the Castellers when they originally approached you about the project?I don't think they knew. They seemed very happy and relieved when I told them I had this connection and would do our best to make it happen. I heard they had a couple of "nos" before contacting us!Where and when did you shoot the video? How many extras did you have? It was shot in Spain in early July over three shooting days. The first day was the biggest one in Tarragona, inside the Tarraco Arena, where the original Castellers contest is held. We had over 1,200 people involved, including castellers, extras and crew. I’d dare say it’s the biggest shoot day we’ve ever done at CANADA. The second day was in a Barcelona neighbourhood called Ciutat Meridiana. That’s where we had hundreds of people running through streets and over rooftops. Over 600 in total. On the last day, we shot in an apartment and a studio to cover all the corridors and interior shots. We had around 200 extras involved. The tower was the centrepiece of the video... and it is not something that can be repeated over and over.Did you work with an existing Casteller team or club – or more than one?We mostly worked with Castellers de Vilafranca, which is one of the main teams in Catalunya, both for the complexity of their towers but also because of the amount of people they gather in the team. They are the ones who built the big tower in the video and the ones who taught Travis the basics for him to be able to be in one.We also had another four teams - Xiquets de Tarragona, Xiquets del Serrallo, Nois de la Torre and Castellers de Mediona - who were all crucial for Vilafranca to build a bigger tower on the day. The closeness, patience and hard work of all of them made it possible.What were the big challenges in filming the making of the tower? Did you need to shoot it more than once? The biggest challenge was that the tower was the centrepiece of the video, and that is something that only lasts about 4-5 minutes from start to finish. And because of its difficulty, it is not something that can be repeated over and over until you get the right shot. It’s really a one-off. Hence the multiple camera teams, cranes and drones are located at every angle we could possibly imagine. We were lucky enough to be able to get two of them, though not a hundred per cent completed. You can imagine the tension around them, not only in the castellers but the entire crew. Then the “gralles” started to play, and it became a magic moment. How many camera teams did you have shooting simultaneously on the video?We had three camera units working simultaneously on the first day with the castellers so we could ensure that we got all the necessary coverage in the very little time we had with the towers—and two camera units on days 2 and 3. Overall, it was a large crew for a music video, with over 200 people on day 1. We're incredibly grateful to every single one of them as it was a very tough day, even crazy at some points, but we managed to succeed as a team.And how many cranes and drones did you have surrounding the tower at any one time?We had two cranes, a Scorpio 45 and an E-Scorpion 45, a drone surrounding the tower, plus a third camera unit at the top of the stands.Travis appears to be part of the tower - at different levels. Were you able to do this for real? How much training did he need to become part of the team?Not 100% real of course, as being part of a 9-floor tower may take months, if not years of training. But I’d say we were able to do it more real and accurate than we first expected. We had planned for Travis to start at a lower ground first, having castellers climb on top of him, and then once he felt comfortable, maybe having him climb on top of a casteller. But when we came on set, he said he was happy to climb over someone straight away, and we went for it. He did a smaller tower that we combined into the big one; it made the VFX work much less complex than it could have been!I’ve read that building human towers is not particularly dangerous – but it certainly looks it! Did you have any tower collapses – and any injuries?It’s funny you say that because every time I talk to someone about castellers I keep repeating this same sentence, ‘It’s not as dangerous as it looks!’Of course, it is not a joke, but when you see a collapse from the outside, it feels way more spectacular than it feels from the inside. There is some sort of cushioning in the way the towers fall that, most of the time, prevents people from serious injuries. We, fortunately, did not have any collapses nor injuries on the day; it all unfolded very smoothly on that front. During the build-up of the tower, the team’s coach is purely looking after its steadiness and making sure all is progressing safely. I was honestly so nervous that I can’t really remember how, but then I realised we managed to get very beautiful shots. • Laura Serra Estorch is executive producer at CANADA in Barcelona. More on CANADA here.

London-based production company Blink's association with Sad Night Dynamite began before any of the Somerset alt-pop duo's music was released. Blink director Will Hooper was sent tracks from what would become the pair's first mixtape - and that was the start of a beautiful friendship. With its eclectic mix of musical styles - hiphop, dub, electronica, alt-pop and more - the wittily subversive and unsettling character of Sad Night Dynamite's music has certainly provided inspiration for a number of directors. But the relationship between the band's Archie Blagden and Josh Greacen and Blink - with directors Will Hooper and Lucas Hrubizna in particular - has been especially influential, spanning their career to date.After two SND collections - Sad Night Dynamite and Volume II - where Hooper and Hrubizna made vital visual contributions - the latter winning a UKMVA last year in the process - Hooper has been providing creative direction and direction on the first releases from the band's third collection of songs - including directing the video for first single Sick Of Your Sound (above), featuring a cartoonishly brutal street fight between Blagden and Greacen.Ahead of the release of an ambitious animated video for the next SND single - directed by Balázs Simon at Blink's sister company Blinkink - we talked to Hooper and Hrubizna, looking back at the work which has done the hard yards in establishing Sad Night Dynamite's imaginative visual world. SAD NIGHT DYNAMITE (SND 001) - Director: Will HooperVisually at this stage they had nothing. I was tasked with making that nothing, something.How did you come up with the idea for the video for (Sad Night Dynamite: Album)?WH: This project was the first time I was introduced to SND. I was given a handful of demos, a few WIP future singles and some instrumental works that would ultimately make up the mixtape that we made a movie for. It painted a pretty exciting picture of what they wanted to do and it was an instant 'woah' from me.The music was raw and intelligent and unusual. I remembered being floored by an early demo of Icy Violence and Smoke Hole (which used to be called Choke Hold, fyi).Visually at this stage they had nothing - and I was tasked with making that nothing, something. The process started by me putting together lots and lots of scratchy ideas and visual prompts that are essentially a reflex to things sonically - I usually try to do this for most things I write. A lot of these ideas were L’s, which is to be expected. But a few really resonated with the guys and they became quite attached to the idea of having a range of visuals that on paper shouldn’t really work together, but finding strange threads and atmospheric links between them.Ear we go: Will Hooper (above) and friends. "I was given a handful of SND demos... and it was an instant 'woah' from me." What was your process of making the video, And the most memorable aspect of the production?WH: There’s nothing better than making a movie abroad with your mates, and that is exactly what we were lucky enough to do for this. Somehow mega-angel producer Rosie Brear and mega-angel EP Laura Northover managed to wrangle the budget in a way so that we could go out to Prague to shoot it. The rural backdrop of the Czech Republic brought so much to the film. Likewise the crazy talented local crew that we worked with, particularly DOP sorceress Igor Smitka - he’s honestly the best.There’s something to be said about working in a completely foreign setting. The way you look at it is different to when you have a sense of familiarity present - I find that anyway. I get complacent here in the UK and definitely don’t always notice the potential of some things. So yes, being in Prague shooting, which was the first time I’d been abroad to work unlocked another rung on the ladder. A rung of power.My most memorable part of that shoot was getting a local farmer to literally dig us a six foot grave to shoot the funeral scene because it was cheaper to do that than build a piece of set and faking it.MOUNTAIN JACK - Dir: Will HooperMy terms were that 'we must build a giant mouth'.How did you come up with the idea for the video for Mountain Jack? I’ve always wanted to shoot a music video in a mouth and have attempted (and failed) to pitch it on other things in the past. So when Josh and Archie messaged me asking if I’d do another music video for them I replied “yes” but my terms were that “we must build a giant mouth”. Which was met with an “ok”.And whilst we didn’t have the budget to make the giant mouth set of my dreams, we enlisted production designer legend Laura Little, who ended up designing such a cool deconstructed, abstract version of a mouth. “The Chaos Mouth” we called it.Above: On set of Mountain Jack. "Laura Little ended up designing such a cool deconstructed, abstract version of a mouth."What was your process of making the video, And the most memorable aspect of the production?The main intention of this vid was to do some more “traditional” performance stuff with SND, which was fun because I’d not done that with them yet. So that set and the performance within it became the central pillar for the rest of visuals in that vid - which was deep dive of all things mouth. Lots of lo-fi silliness, more weird camera rigs, lots of Josh gagging on endoscopes that I put down his throat.VOLUME II - Dir: Lucas HrubiznaWe had to develop a way to shoot all seven locations in London without me being physically present.How did you come up with the idea for the project for Volume II?LH: For Volume II, SND came to us with a challenge: rather than producing a traditional music video for an individual track, we were to create a series of distinct pieces for each song on the album that were visually unique, but strung together with a thread that would tie them into a common universe.The conceptual basis for the album was a near-death experience that one of the band members had faced, and visually representing the idea of being stuck in a purgatorial environment - somewhere between life and death - was something that really resonated with them.I started to consider the seven levels of Danté's Purgatorio, and used them as a loose structure to imagine an equal number of unnerving abandoned spaces from present-day. Disused petrol stations, dead malls and empty waiting rooms became analogues for the terraces in Danté's myth.Above: Lucas Hrubizna. "Being stuck in a purgatorial environment - somewhere between life and death - was something that really resonated with them."What was your process of making the project? And the most memorable aspect of the production?LH: Because I was stuck in Canada under COVID restrictions at the time of production, we had to develop a way to shoot all seven locations in London without me being physically present, which would have been a challenge even if I was on the ground, given the tight budget and timeline involved.We found a solution in the volumetric capture stage at Dimension Studios, which allowed me to remotely direct performances by SND inside a huge array of cameras. The data from the cameras, all mounted at different angles, was fed into software that generated full three-dimensional animated models which I could then build environments around at home in Toronto.Above: Volume II's greenscreen shoot. "The sensation of becoming a disembodied voice on an actual working film set an entire ocean away was just plain bizarre."Lighting, camera movement and blocking were all developed virtually on my end, so most of the directing work actually ended up taking place in post-production where I took a sort of sculptural approach to building the project, picking away at the scenes and experimenting technically along the way to discover interesting images.This was my first major production with Blink, and I will always remember the strange feeling of sitting in the dark in my home office at 2 o’clock in the morning Toronto time, watching crew scurry around the set over Zoom as I issued directions to my surrogate AD. The sensation of becoming a disembodied voice on an actual working film set an entire ocean away was just plain bizarre.SICK OF YOUR SOUND - Dir: Will HooperIn a group chat riddled with their voice notes... I wrote about being so sick of listening to them that I wanted to kill them.How did you come up with the idea for the video for Sick of Your Sound?WH: I’ve been helping the guys with some general creative direction for the very very delicious new wave of tracks that they’ve been working on. We’d commissioned a vid for another of their tracks that’s being made by good friend and fellow Blink director Balázs Simon. The video in question is completely ridiculous. Live action, 3D environments, animation and a coked-up two-headed testosterone monster with tentacles made out of flesh and tech and amniotic fluid… Balázs has been 'no-lifing' it for ages to get it finished - and holyyyy heck wait till you see it! The guy is a genius.However! Issue!!!! The vid is so crazy crazy ambitious it had basically gobbled up nearly all the budget for their vids, and they wanted a couple to put out. Cue me ( •͡˘ _•͡˘)ノWhen the guys went on tour SOYS did super well and when they got back there was a bit of a flap to get something out for it ASAP. Which meant the lead up to making this movie was pretty go-go-gadget mode. We had no money and no time, which if you work in music videos, is the case 99.9% of the time.Above: On set of the Sick Of Your Sound shoot - Will Hooper (yellow hood), DoP Natasha Dursmaa (third left) and crew with Josh and Archie of Sad Night Dynamite So writing ideas for this track ended up being quite knee jerk and immediate. And there is something to be said when writing this way - not overthinking it (because you can’t) and trusting in your guttural response to something.In a group chat that is riddled with voice notes of ideas and thoughts for the video from Josh and Archie, I wrote about being so sick of listening to them that I wanted to kill them both. Which was the thing that prompted the idea.. That idea eventually evolved into the two of them killing each other on camera a la Homer and Bart Simpson until their heads exploded. Job done.What was your process of making the video? And the most memorable aspect of the production? As I already mentioned, we had lil money and lil time, so this was pulled together very quickly by producer/ ain character Jack Bingham and the lovelies at Blink. We pulled in a bunch of favours and luckily got crewed up with a pretty serious team of legends. The approach was lo-fi but ambitious. We had some stunt choreo, some SFX head explosions, lots of silly camera rigs, crowd scenes, multiple formats, etc.A few days before the main shoot day I ran around - just me and the band shooting a load of B-roll and teaser stuff on DV using this ShittyRig™ that I built that has two prosthetic hands fixed to the camera - a sort of Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom setup.Above: The result of the explosive finale of Sick Of Your Sound video shoot.The most lol part of the shoot was definitely the exploding heads that Machine Shop arranged for us.We used a bit of that day to rehearse some performance stuff too, blocking out some of the moments in the vid. It’s rare to be afforded the gift of rehearsing for a music, but it is such a luxury when it does happen, especially one that can occur on location and has the potential to yield footage that could end up in the movie (which is what happened). Very epic.We shot in a flyover just off Canary Wharf. There isn’t a crazy amount of footfall there which made it very helpful for us to control the space. As you can see from the vid there is some pretty physical and aggressive performance from the guys throughout, so being not in and amongst the great British public made it easier to carry out.The shoot was crazy fun, running around in quite a guerilla and spontaneous way. DOP & Queen Natasha Duursma made not a lot look like a lot.The most lol part of the shoot was definitely the exploding heads that Machine Shop somehow arranged for us. Despite our efforts to make sure everyone was at a safe distance, the blast radius was so mega that my jeans looked like they belonged to Patrick Bateman. And still do :(• Will Hooper and Lucas Hrubizna are directors at Blink

This summer, Stink Films' director Douglas Bernardt has relocated from São Paulo to the place that has inspired some of his most creatively rewarding projects - including the recently-released Inside The Blind Iris (above). So we grabbed the chance to talk to him about this remarkable film and other memorable work.Douglas Bernardt is enjoying his current stay in London, despite a recent cycling accident which has him laid up, nursing a sore knee. This São Paulo native is not in London just for its disappointing summer weather. For him, London is an inspirational place.“Creatively London is the city that interests me the most," he says. "For me, it's a big step, coming from Brazil."It’s also where Bernardt has expanded his scope as a director, exploring the fertile British jazz scene, creating music videos for Tom Misch & Yussef Dayes and Ezra Collective, and extending into live shoots for Misch and Dayes and Arlo Parks. And now he has made a bold step into capturing dance on film which is hugely significant.The most recent Berhardt-directed project is Inside The Blind Iris - a collaboration with British dancer/choreographer Botis Seva, as part of a commission through London dance venue Sadler's Wells. The 10-minute film fuses Seva’s expressive choreography with Bernardt’s virtuosity in creating memorable images, taking in the span of cinema history in the process. He references German expressionist and surrealist film with powerfully resonant monochrome imagery, but also creates blockbuster-worthy VFX in bringing the story behind Seva's choreography to life. Bernardt turned his hand to filmmaking in his early 20s, having established himself as a photographer. Both his photographic and film work can be described as ambitious, realistic yet lyrical - and it's always cinematically framed. He incorporates serious themes that are relevant to Brazilian life, through promos for the likes of Tagua Tagua, Baco Exu Do Blues and Nego Bala.With Inside The Blind Iris he employs a different palette and toolkit to confront issues of oppression, alienation and mental wellbeing. Our conversation began with his collaboration with Seva and Sadler's Wells, discovering why it was such an invigorating and creative experience - and how it differed to his more musical work. Above: Douglas Bernardt (left) on set of 'inside The Blind Iris' shoot with dancer/choreographer Botis Seva (right)I came up with an idea... to visually interpret the troubled mind.How did the dance film Inside The Blind Iris come about?It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Sadler's Wells created an initiative supporting filmic collaboration between directors and choreographers. There were three commissions available on the project, and Botis and I won one of them.Botis found my work online and he invited me. I didn't even need to do a treatment. We had one initial chemistry call, and we just bonded from there. It was really nice. And then we had complete creative freedom on the job - we just had to do a dance film that was abstract, and didn't have a structured narrative. That was the commission briefing.It’s a fantastic piece of work. When did you shoot it?We filmed in August and September of last year. Then there were three months of post production. So the final film was delivered in February, but it wasn't released until June. So how did the collaborative process work?I researched Botis's portfolio and found his choreography really inspiring especially because his movements are so strong. He always incorporates a lot of emotion in his dances, and it can feels like his dancers are trying to overcome something. We decided to use movement to explore what rebellion feels like, of fighting against oppression and the system. I came up with the idea of filming in black and white, and creating a known space - the hangar in the film - to resemble the character's mind. It would be an artistic interpretation of the troubled mind: to document pain or anxiety and imagine what it's like to fight your own demons.I love Buñuel, German Expressionism... and how much easier it is to light when you're shooting black and white.The dancers inside the building represent the haunted spirits following Botis. It's like a nightmare, but it ends up with a sense of hope, once Botis opens the portal and rips the wall out. It's a moment of freedom.I'm not sure that Botis fully understood all of my ideas at the conception stage – but he trusted me. Once we found the shoot location, things started to make sense. The venue had a great exterior, which felt like a place that could be magical and surreal. Yet inside it felt really oppressive, with its huge concrete walls.What and where was the location?It was a former aerodynamics test site, for aeroplanes in the Second World War. So there have this big wind tunnel, where they used to hang the aeroplanes to test their capabilities.And what about the references to classic cinema – including surrealism and even German Expressionism? Was that all there from the start?Stylistically I wanted to do something different to my previous work. I come from a DP background, so the aesthetic is really important to me. The visuals can to enhance the narrative or convey certain feelings. But I’m a bit tired of the stereotype that Brazilian directors only use tropical colours!I want to do something different that felt more European. I love Buñuel, German Expressionism and black and white movies - and I love how much easier it is to light, shooting in monochrome. It means you can focus on other stuff. By throwing a huge light source, you can draw amazing shadows and really focus on the movement, or think about how the dance arrangements fit into the narrative. It wasn’t the main reason we chose it, but in the end it helped so much.Our DP Harry Wheeler, is a master with 16mm. I wanted to invest to shoot in real black and white 16mm inside the building, rather than grade it from colour – because we were using the film as a narrative tool as well. It meant we could separate what is real stylistically from what plays out in his mind's eye. To bring the sense of oppression.Once you’re on set you also improvise a little bit - it's a nice way of incorporating dance into a narrative.Onto the performance aspect - how did you figure out the balance between the choreography, the camera and direction?The choreography was a really organic flow. Initially I didn't really know how to kickstart the process. So I began by presenting shapes to Botis, and he liked it. Once we had the location, we applied the shapes inside and started building outlines for each location – one circular setup, one was a line, a triangular setup and a square.We created five dance setups, and spread them through the locations, and Botis adapted the choreography to fit the venue. Then we focussed on the music, and made five tracks relevant to each setup too. It was a constantly evolving process - and we continued to improvise on-set. So it was a really nice way of incorporating dance into a narrative, because usually it’s the other way round - you bring the choreography in when everything else is set up.Of course the classic payoff shot is Botis encountering the whale in the middle of the City of London…So the idea behind the whale is that it represents this feeling of not belonging. It's abstract, of course, and there's room for interpretation. But how I see it is that this guy is so dislocated in the world that he feels outside and separate from reality - like a fish out of the water. And whales are so different from us, but at the same time, they're super-close to us - they're also mammals, the closest ally from the water.The only warmth in the film is when he looks at the whale, and the whale is about to die.So visually it's impactful and it builds an empathetic bond with Botis. No one looks at Botis with empathy, during the whole film. It’s the only moment of warmth in the whole film, when he looks at the whale, and the whale is about to die. It seems the animal understands the human’s struggle -as it’s dying in the middle of the centre of capitalism. Buses pass, people cycle on and continue to live their lives. No one has the capacity to really care or look at it. It's an abstract ending, but I think it does resonate with audiences, and that was the intention overall.This provided you with more freedom than some of your music videos, and definitely any commercial jobs. When you're making something for Nego Bala or Tom Misch do you have to become a different type of director to who you are commercially?Sort of. Every project has a goal that you need to reach. The Sadler’s Wells film was very much about how me and the choreographer worked together - a much more personal environment than my work for Nego Bala, for example. That’s his story, and I'm shooting on his behalf, so I have get into his mind as much as possible.Above: Bernardt (left) and Seva on the location of the Inside The Blind Iris shoot.Botis didn't always understand my initial ideas – but he trusted me.Working with Nego Bala was about understanding his reality, what he went through. That meant interviewing him many times, getting important details, and considering how to present these on camera. We were trying to summarise his childhood, his feelings, his perception of growing up in prison.Of course, I weaved in my own feelings, to make it feel more intimate. But its more about trying to translate what he told me about his reality. And It had a really important political side as well. There's a really important social aspect behind it to inspire Brazilian youth.The Tom Misch video [for What Kinda Music] was more like the traditional process for a music video. I received the music, and loved it, then slowly found the visual to make the music stronger and tease out a story to match the lyrics.You shot the narrative video in Ukraine, which led you to making live videos for Tom Misch and Yussef Dayes. How did that come about and how different are live videos?From the get-go we agreed to do the two video concepts - the narrative for What Kinda Music and live video for Lift Off. I was more excited about the narrative one. But I alos thought it was cool to do a live shoot with a smaller budget and capture the band’s synergy without a fixed storyline to follow.I didn't know I would have so much passion for shooting live performance.But when we got on set of the live performance video, and I saw Yussef and Tom play, it was mesmerising. They are so soulful together, and it's just beautiful to watch them perform.It was my very first time shooting a live video, and I didn't know I would have so much passion for it. But you're so in the moment. You have to be present, to find the right elements for the shot, including the right lighting and camera movements in the right moment of the track. I had to really get into the music, and try to translate that on-screen. It also felt I was playing with them while they performed. My instrument was the Steadicam.I just got into the zone on set. And after that, I wanted to do more of these sort of jobs. It just has to be with a truly exceptional performer – because its 100% about the performance.And that collaboration led to the Arlo Parks live video, for Softly?Yes, Arlo is amazing and has a wonderful voice. So that was a natural fit. For that shoot we found a location in New York, while I was shooting a commercial in Mexico. It meant I had to do a one day trip to New York just to shoot this. I was testing for COVID the entire time, and then on the day we were meant to do the shoot, I tested positive. I didn't have any symptoms (and I still think it was a dud result) but I couldn't go. It was more about Arlo’s expressions while singing. So the camera is much more about her.I called a director friend of mine in New York, to help me out. I was going to direct remotely, but I needed someone there on set, to feel out the space. He was my eyes, and at some point our visions synced up.It was a completely different experience to my first live video. With Arlo, it was all about the voice. We didn't need to navigate between instruments, we just wanted to capture Arlo's emotions and how she expressed herself. So having her front and centre in shot was essential. Even when moving around the band, she's always looking to the camera.As you’re spending the summer months living in London, what are you enjoy most about being here?Not the food. I’m joking...I love the intersection of art in London. Music video-wise and commercially, the most creative work takes place here. You can see it in the fashion. I lived in New York before, and the two cities have a similar vibe. But I think in London it’s a little bit more… true. People really build a scene here, and that’s interesting.It's quite hard for me to explain, but it’s a place where I fit, where I have friends. It's been easy for me to make friends here. I also like that the whole city is flat and I can ride my bike. São Paulo is full of hills, so cycling is much harder! My music videos have been like short films - now my treatments are getting more surreal.I still do a lot of photography. That's how I started and though I gave it up for a few years, I came back to it recently. I'm investing in my photography more actively at the moment, and taking street pictures as I walk about. I love it.I'd love to express myself in an easier medium. Films take a long time, so photography allows me to express myself immediately, every day. While I've been here I've been organising my pictures, creating series, and taking more. It's been fun, discovering new neighbourhoods, and feeling connected to people.What else is in the pipeline for you in terms of films?My ideas now are different to what I’ve been known for. The dance film has spurred a new career direction. My music videos have always been more like short films, with a fleshed-out narrative, like for Bluesman and Nego Bala. My treatments are becoming more surreal, and feeling-led. And I'm trying to nurture this new wave of thinking.• Douglas Bernardt is represented by Stink Films for music videos and commercials.

After a run of critically acclaimed projects, Femi Ladi (above right) has teamed with Stormzy (left) to make his most ambitious video yet. We talked to him about mastering motion control and talk-therapy with the UK's biggest grime stars.In a relatively short period, Femi 'Ladi' Oladigbolu has shown he's destined for big things. Videos for Pa Salieu and Chase & Status, content for Adidas and others, and BFI-screened short film Oba, have all demonstrated Ladi's ability to get up close and personal with his subjects, using all tools at his disposal to grab the viewer's attention.Now one of those big things has happened - a video for the UK's biggest grime star Stormzy, featuring fellow grime icon Fredo, which gives full rein to the British-Nigerian director's ability to connect viewer and artist in a meaningful way. And for Toxic Trait, Ladi effectively combines two different filmmaking styles, using the magnetism of the artists as the glue to bring them together. I was invited into the Def Jam UK offices without knowing what artist the briefing was for.For one half of Toxic Trait, Ladi creates a world for Stormzy that is rooted in classic art - and employs motion control to have muliple versions of the superstar exist in one space, acting out lyrics from the track. It's a development of Ladi's breakthrough video for Pa Salieu ft Backroad Gee's My Family, which used the impact of a programmed motion control rig to capture a performance, but this time with added VFX complexity.Then Ladi switches things up to someting akin to straight drama - like a therapy scene in The Sopranos - with Fredo confessing his bad habits to a therapist played by TV host Alison Hammond, intercut with a shared performance by the stars, and then a group therapy session with a number of other grime artists.In the use of different styles, Ladi enriches the viewer's perception of these huge stars without compromise - a notable achievement. So we asked him how he it all happened. PROMONEWS: What was the starting point for the Toxic Trait video? What kind of brief did you have?FEMI LADI: It was all quite secretive and exciting, to be honest. I was invited into the Def Jam UK offices without knowing what artist the briefing was for. Once we were in the label they told me it was for Stomzy and then I heard the song a couple of times in the office.When I mean I heard the song, it was just a snippet - mainly the Stormzy verse, as the guest feature hadn't been decided yet. Then I had the link to listen to it, which expired after a certain amount of hours. Fortunately, the idea came to me pretty quickly so I just developed it from there. Stormzy and Fredo found creative ways to show their toxic traits whilst still flossing.The theme of Toxic Traits is reflecting upon one's failings, being self-critical. Is that a tricky subject to address in a music video? Or offered more opportunities? I think it offered more opportunities. The thing I enjoy about rap music in general is the braggadocious nature of the lyrics and both Stormzy and Fredo found creative ways to show their toxic traits whilst still flossing. This allowed us to exaggerate some of the scenes and be playful whilst still trying to say something real. The original music video for My Family you directed has the same dynamic camera move created by the G6 Moco. Have you been looking for a new opportunity to explore its potential?Yeah for sure. [I've been] working really closely with the G6 Moco team. They often provide great solutions to my creative ambitions.For this, we didn't necessarily use the concept of motion control in a new way, but we used one of the largest arms in the country. This allowed us to capture all our scenes without cutting, while also being fast enough to move around keeping up with the pace of the track. We were still swapping things around and creating new scenes as we were programming the move.How did you go about the process of planning and constructing your motion control move?In terms of planning the motion control move it was a bit of a maze. We had to figure out all the moves but also have in mind how this looks in the final image when we zoom out, and if we can capture the Renaissance-inspired painting at the end of the video.Myself, my producer Tom Gardner and my DOP Ruben Woodin Dechamps travelled up to Manchester to the G6 offices, and started working out the moves on the software that G6 had built. Here we decided on lenses, aspect ratios, and how the camera will move on the robot.It was quite touch and go as some scenes weren't approved yet. So we were still be swapping things around and creating new scenes as we were programming it.In terms of getting it approved, did Stormzy need convincing that he needed a wardrobe change for nearly every line of the song? Haha, nah. Changing for each line wasn't a problem at all. He has a great stylist in Melissa [Holdbrooke-Akpose] and all the changes looked cold, so I think he probably enjoyed it. Above: On the set of Toxic Trait video with camera on motion control arm shooting Stormzy's archer sequenceUsing one of the largest motion control arms allowed us to capture all our scenes without cutting.There’s a reference to the Muhammed Ali cover for Esquire Magazine in 1967 - which itself references a Renaissance painting of Saint Sebastian. Are there other references included in the video?Correct! Yeah, originally there were a lot more 'traditional' art references. But as mentioned the scenes were changing all the time, so not all of them made it. The only other one that did make it was in reference to Kehinde Wiley's Ship of Fool, which is on display at the Queens House of Greenwich. It feels seamless, and less complicated than it probably was to shoot. Was there anything really tricky that you needed to fix in post?Yeah, it was quite tricky to shoot. But I had a great collaborator in Coffee & TV. They did a lot of cleaning up and added extra bits like the dark sky. Also the end image putting together all the scenes we had to move just a few scenes around.The fix that really helped was making the monkey grind, as she struggled to do the action on the day, haha - not entirely sure how but they made it work. There were a fair amount of post overall within a tight turnaround and I'm really grateful to the VFX team on that. We built in the therapy scene to inject a bit of humour... Alison [Hammond] really took on her role well.The break of the therapy session adds another dimension - Fredo comes across well, and Alison Hammond is a great piece of casting. How did this get to be included in the video? Who wrote the dialogue for that section?I thought that maybe keeping Renaissance creative throughout might be a bit much and thought it would be nice to have a bit of respite. So we built in this therapy scene to inject a bit of humour. I liked the idea of Fredo rapping these outrageous lyrics to a therapist and sharing it with other rappers confessing their toxic traits. I would absolutely love to take credit for that line about the toenail clippers, but Fredo just made that up on the spot, with a completely straight face. They were both excellent. Alison really took on her role well and gave us the best facial expressions. The outtakes of that scene were hilarious.How did the other stars - Ivorian Doll, Wretch 32 and Specs Gonzalez - get involved? I pitched that we cut into a group therapy scene with other rappers and Stormzy's team made it happen. We all saw his incredible pull from his Mel Made Me Do It video. I actually didn't know exactly who was coming until the last minute, but I was very happy with what we got.Alison conducted a real session and asked everyone to express what their toxic traits were - which was funny but also very real. These were the final shots of the day, so it was nice to finish on a high. • Femi Ladi is based at Somesuch for music videos and commercials.

Our round-up of the work featured here in July was a big month for creativity - as you would expect in the last full month of releases before the UKMVAs 2023 entry deadline. We certainly saw some more potential contenders for honours at this year's show.There were standout videos for Bakar (above), James Blake, London Grammar & Camelphat, Mura Masa, Harry Styles, Stormzy (twice), Paul Kalkbrenner, Zayn and The Chemical Brothers - and much more besides.

He's had a big year so far, with standout videos for Harry Styles and The Hives. Pulse Films director Aube Perrie tells us how he favours the classic craft skills of special effects over digital to make his wildly entertaining work - and savours the nailbiting moments. Aube Perrie (above, centre) says he is trying to keep his ideas simple, but that it has always been a bit of a problem for him. But on the evidence of the music videos he has produced in the past few years one is inclined to ask - where's the problem?It's true that are usually enough ideas in Perrie's videos - narrative, or otherwise - to occupy a much longer project. It is just that much more fun to have those ideas squashed into one furiously action-packed pop promo...Like In Harry Styles' Music For A Sushi Restaurant, where we get virtually a movie's worth of wacky narrative in about four minutes: Styles is half-man, half-squid, hauled in the fishing catch of a down-at-heel seafood restaurant, who avoids his fate to end on their diners' plates by becoming a highly unusual nightclub act. Well, at least for a while.Then the pop superstar becomes a side player in his own video for Satellite, where the true hero is an automated vacuum cleaner who falls in love, and heads out of the big LA venue where Styles is performing to embark on a nailbiting adventure - which takes the little guy (I think we can call it a little guy) all over America...And for The Hives - the Swedish garage band returning after a decade-long hiatus - Perrie has effectively made a movie - a four minute horror movie, in fact - for their comeback track Bogus Operandi, filled with the staples of the genre - bleak forest, log cabin, evil cassette, flying shovel and buckets of blood.That's the other thing. There's something very palpable and gritty about Perrie's videos and even works for the big pop stars, including Megan Thee Stallion and Angele as well as Styles, avoid slick digital cleanliness. He builds his fantasy visions in an old school fashion, with in camera effects, revelling in the traditional techniques of classic filmmaking... even if it gets a bit messy.The director, who hails from St. Malo in Brittany, North West France, made his start as a director in classic fashion, growing between MTV and skate films, shooting videos for local bands. He did not attend a film school, and as he reveals during our conversation a few weeks ago, he has always felt himself a bit of an outsider within the French filmmaking world, seeking inspiration from the US and Britain - just a ferry trip away from his hometown.We met on a scorching Friday morning in June, while Perrie was spending a few days in London. He was in town to see The Hives perform - twice - having just watched them play a 'warm-up' in a small venue before they supported Arctic Monkeys at their stadium shows in London. But we began by talking all about Harry...PROMONEWS/DK: I was going to say that you’ve had a busy year so far, but I guess that this run of work has been going longer than that…AUBE PERRIE: I have a bad memory for these things, but it's been pretty continuous. And I guess it started around a year ago, when Harry's team, actually H’s creative director Molly Hawkins and Columbia’s SVP Bryan Younce reached out and we started to try to make something happen for the new album. That's when, among other things, I wrote Satellite and Sushi. Satellite was actually written first.I mean, there were also a couple before that - it was a long process. Among many things, Molly Hawkins is a brilliant creative director. She’s very cautious about the work they put out there, and so is H, Bryan and this whole team. But I was very fortunate and spoiled enough for having them letting me explore on a couple tracks, being extremely open and supportive. The process spread on a whole year, but that was all to the benefit of pushing the creative, pushing the ideas, giving ourselves the opportunity to explore and use the time to make something that really feels right.When Satellite was written, I think we all liked it, but it just stayed only as an idea, we kept exploring, maybe we weren’t going to do it. And then it came back like, months later - after Sushi. It was a busy year but giving lots of time to reflect, to develop.We tried to make it as disgusting as possible - but Harry is so handsome. The beard is kind of hot...What did they give you, to prompt your ideas apart from the music?The briefs were very different. Satellite was completely open. For Sushi they actually mentioned just one thing: Harry wanted to be a fish. That was the brief.And he went from a fish to sort of disgusting Tulu octopus - that's what I was aiming for. I guess I didn't want to make a classic mermaid figure. And we tried to make it as disgusting as possible. But somehow, I don't know, Harry is so handsome…Yes. So it still ends up being quite glamorous...Exactly. It's terrible! But we really did our best to really make this world very slimy and gross - I kept insisting on that, and we were lucky to have everyone very much on board to go for a world that felt sweaty and textured. The texture of the tail and the squid body part had fight scars, our brilliant prosthetic lead Chelsea Delfino added the ones that white sharks have, went for a skin marked with shells. We really tried to put some gross details in there.I wanted to design a world and restaurant location as disgusting as possible, that had this very odd and long back story. My friend and producer Josh Sondock took me to this great location that was already pretty intense, it has this crazy backstory that has been untouched, an amazing kitchen to work with - and we made it ten times worse. Still, H’s beard is kind of hot...Above: Harry Styles's squid body, under construction in the prosthetics workshopHaving said that it's glamorous, he's still a very convincing man-squid. How did you go about creating something that good, that really does look like it was captured in-camera? It was very much captured all in-camera. Time was challenging because we had very little time to build the tail, the prawn masks, in time to fit the schedule. H was in the middle of the craziest tour, to say the least. We presented two different options. Something more fishy - closer to the classic mermaid I guess, but still pretty gross and unsettling, more like a slimy eel– and the squid, which was more difficult to do, but got us very excited. And H, Molly, everyone went straight for the squid. So much fun.A first thought was maybe to try to go like a mix between prosthetics and animatronics. But I wanted something as huge as possible, to me there was this hilarious idea that the logistics of hosting such an act with a heavy and slimy body required an absurdity far from the glamorous idea of a mermaid cabaret act, and we had something like two weeks to prep both the squid tail and shrimp masks for H's brass band in the video. Doing both wasn't possible, so we ended up just doing prosthetics.Yet, everything was made specifically for the video. As I mentioned, we worked with Chelsea Delphino, an amazing SFX prosthetic designer and makeup artist that I previously worked with. We met doing Thot Shit for Megan Thee Stallion.There's lots of performance videos that I've loved and been important to me. But I've always struggled to go for that.Okay, I remember what she did on Thot Shit...Exactly. That was a very nice bond we created back then and we became friends, so we went straight back to her and she found amazing solutions. Chelsea also brought on board Jason Hamer - quite a legend. He and his team have done so many legendary prosthetics, animatronics and SFX, lately on shows from Stranger Things to American Horror Story. They all did amazing on the tail.Then in terms of the shoot on set, it was quite a challenge as well. If the logistics of a gigantic super slimy tail was an hilarious element for the narrative because it was a pain for our characters to work with…it was very much the same in real life. And…we had only one day with H.Wow. Not much time to fit in a lot of narrative. Did you get a much of a chance to discuss with him beforehand what was going to happen?H definitely kept an eye on everything and it was nice to have him excited and on board jumping into a huge slimy tail and catching fishes in-camera beforehand, so we knew the main challenge would be to make it through the days. But at least we were all super aware of the challenge and up for it including H.A lot goes through Molly, but they're also very close, so if you're discussing with Molly, you're discussing with H eventually. But I guess there was not so much discussion, but more support, especially for Sushi. It was just very easy and supportive and went very smoothly. There was just a lot of trust. And we were all here to try getting something fantastic.Above: Aube (left) and 'H', on set of the Music In A Sushi Restaurant videoI think we were all very strongly convinced it was actually good to try going for what was not so much expected of him. And I think we all were very excited picturing a result that felt like it had the potential to be quite unique. Including H.He's familiar with the film world, having done features, and I guess he's toying with his image in quite an interesting way. Obviously not all pop stars are prepared to do that.More should - because…it’s fun. Take Sushi. The shot list was wild. We had one day with H. At some point, you have no time to always explain what you’re shooting all over the place with A & B cam, you just need to get on with it. I guess it was way more indie film than blockbuster. But H is blockbuster. So the day would be impossible without him being very much prepared to be on the same boat as everyone one else to get it, embracing it and having fun with it. There is just no other way.But I’m so glad that’s who he is. Everyone saw that day he’s definitely amazing at doing that and getting it. He’s very much prepared indeed. And by focusing the energy on nothing but getting it, it allows space for fun. And more than anything, it was all a lot of fun. That’s how it should be.As is usually the case in your videos, there's a lot of stuff to fit in a relatively short amount of time.I've been trying to go for simplicity, as much as possible, but I guess it's not something I'm very good at. I grew up in the 90s with MTV, and I've seen a lot of performance music videos that I've loved so much and became important to me. But somehow I feel that I've always struggled to go for that. What helps at least for me is that narrative work in my music videos means shots are very detailed and specific. It’s already pre-edited to the half-second on paper. So you work on the packing-in early in the process. Then you just hope that the artist you’re working with embraces it, because often due to lack of prep time we rarely go for that detailed storyboards to sign things off, so it looks quite heavy on paper.I've always rather jumped straight for the prep, than losing too much energy and time, convincing on all the details. It helps working with artists already convinced and sharing a vision. You want every bit of energy to pack-in even more details..'French touch' electronic music created this very interesting generation of both music producers and music video directors. I came after that. Can we rewind back to earlier in your career? What were the most important videos before you started making videos outside France?Well, I feel there was a generation of music video directors before me, that surfed the many waves of a 'French touch' electronic music environment. It created this very interesting generation of both music producers and also music video directors. I definitely came after that, and for me it was a bit of a struggle [in that environment]. I was just not a big listener of French music and not so aligned with where the need was at the time in terms of music videos.What was in front of me was not where I wanted to go. So, for me, it was a lot about trying to reach the UK, reach the US. But nobody is going to put you on an international pitch if you have nothing to show.I guess my really first what you could called big music video was for Belgian artist Angèle - that was in 2018. We actually met before she released any music. We met through friends over coffee, I showed her a video I made for some friends, and she told me she was about to release some music. We agreed it would be cool to do a video together.Above: Aube (centre) with crew on location for Angele's La Thune videoI actually wrote this idea for her, which was completely irrelevant because she had no budget, no even music released. So obviously it didn't happen. But then she released the music, and it blew up, quite impressively. All of a sudden, she was becoming a promising potential superstar here in France. She and her team came back to me a year after and they said - oh, we actually want to do it. Yet it was still very lo-fi in terms of how we built it. The props were made in our living room with my production designer and partner Louise [Mekylla Bachir], yet we ended up having the music video screened in hundred of movie theatres all over France and Belgium. The post work was all done at home, yet all of a sudden we were exporting for a subway digital screens campaign in multiple cities. It was very homemade, yet we got lucky with how it was received.But we did quite a couple after that, long before we got anything coming from outside the country. One day though, we did one for French band L’Imperatrice, for a song called Peur des Filles (Afraid of Girls). Somehow, it seems Megan and her team saw that, and really liked it.So Megan really came out of the blue?Yeah, they reached out directly. For me, that was really odd, because I watched Megan's videos at the time, and there was a lot of amazing dance performances, studio work. It was a long way from anything I ever did - or what I was interested in doing. So when they reached out, I had no idea what they really wanted with me.The first treatment I sent was actually something that we finally did a couple of years later. It was like The Hives - a homage to Sam Raimy's The Evil Dead. It was extremely gory - way worse than anything I've done. So we knew by sending that either that we would never hear from them again, or we set the ground upon which we can work. And they came back and say, 'oh, we love it.... but can you write one more?'We ended up, I don't know, writing ten of them - and [that idea for] Thot Shit was the last one I wrote. And to be honest, it was, like, not detailed at all. It was like a three page thing. We got a call the next day and they were like - yeah, let’s do it right now.What’s funny is that this last idea was somehow very different from what we actually shot. It had the same intention and main idea, was opening with that same phone call. But in th elittle time that we had, we kept developing it until the last moment. It was all a huge bet that felt like it would crumble any second. But also because I had no interest in doing it any differently, there was no temptation of taking any edge off to make it happen at all costs. So it kept evolving to push it as far as we could. Even the ending was not the original ending.With the message that the video was conveying, I felt we should do something powerful for the ending.So transforming the racist senator's mouth into a vagina... that was a late addition to the video?Yes. I was already over there, a few days from the shoot. We had an ending, which was cool but not as powerful as I wanted it to be. With the political message that the music video was going for, I really felt that there was something powerful to do here. Very luckily, Megan felt exactly the same.And I got this [new] idea. But I really couldn't tell if it was the absolute worst idea, the worst thing to suggest days before the shoot, or the most exciting thing. You're quite alone when you have an idea like this, days before a shoot for the massive artist Megan is. But I was excited so I called my producer right away and I actually sent him a Photoshop of the idea, I guess it felt like the only way of even discussing it, saying I'd like to suggest that to the label. It felt crazy but unavoidable.Above: on set in the restaurant scene with the dancers from Megan Thee Stallion's Thot Shit videoBut the label were really nice, they let us show the idea to Megan. And she went straight for it. She was like - 'Fuck, yeah!'.I'm still grateful, too, that YouTube let us put this out there. There was a conversation on how to handle it, and we [were sure] that it would be blurred. In fact, having it any other way felt so impossible that my dream for this music video was to get to have two versions - a nightmare to ask - firstly, the blurred version, but then they let us release the other version. That was already a wild hope and a long shot. But Megan and her team were very much on board, very much pushing. We got a call one day, and they were like, yeah, we do only one version and there is no blur. We couldn’t believe it until we watched the live premiere.Above: Skip Pipo, who plays the 'politician in Thot Shit, tests his prosthetic 'mouth'.So what about MK's Chemical? That was the first video of yours that we featured on Promonews...Actually both Megan and MK happened at the same time. We shot Thot Shit in LA, and then I took a plane the next day and went straight to the MK shoot. It was an exciting time.MK definitely felt like a breakthrough for me, because I pitched on it prior to Megan reaching out. It was my first UK pitch, something I had been wanting for a long time. And that's how I met Pascal Molina, who did the animatronics on MK, who has since become a close friend, and we then worked together on our robot in Satellite. Developing animatronics and building the dog head all in-camera was the most inspiring process. [Animatronics] might not have brought what digital has brought in the past few years, but that technology has also kept evolving.Obviously people have been doing animatronic and prosthetic masks for decades and doing amazing things. And this was a small budget music video, so we weren't competing with the work that has been done on amazing feature films. But the interesting thing is that these practical technologies, even though they might not have brought what digital has brought in the past few years, have also kept evolving too. Engines inside the animatronics have got smaller. Those technologies can be mixed with facial recognition, vocal recognition - and that's what Pascal has been doing the past few years.When you do anthropomorphic characters, you usually see people working with prosthetic masks that will move with the movement of the human face behind it. But a human face is not a dog face. Features and dimensions are very different; And I really needed the dog emotion. But still have it on a human body.Above: Animatronic bulldog mask under construction in Pascal Molina's studio, for MK's Chemical video So there was a big challenge here to overcome, to have it wearable and respect a relation between the size of the head and the size of the body, and these evolutions in animatronics made this possible. They used this silicone gel that was quite a breakthrough in the way it allowed them to us certain material that gives you the the flappy jowls in the dog's face but to combine them with wearable animatronics. And we had something close to 30 engines in the face - but you could still put the mask on.It's incredibly convincing. When I first watched it, I just assumed it was somehow done in post production. Yeah. It was kind of odd. Even seeing it right in front of you, on set, it was still very weird.Above: The completed Bulldog mask for the MK 'Chemical' videoI really needed the dog emotion, but it still have a human body.It's amazing. It's also a video in which the setting is both realistic and non-specific. It could be Paris, or London...I’ve had this issue of shooting in France, in Paris, especially outdoors. It’s one of those things where if I put a camera in Paris, it looks very much like Paris to me. It just feels way too locatable, maybe because I’m French. It leans toward an aesthetic I’m not inspired with, where it feels hard to me creating a non-specific non-place world. Anyway, with MK, we very much shot it in Paris because we had to for various reasons. We had a very small budget for production design, and because I wanted this story to exist inside a world that would not necessarily makes sense on where it’s happening or how it functions, and have that world not existing in Paris, we had to build the snack shop from scratch, dress streets and an apartment.In our research, my production designer Louise Mekylla Bachir thought of this insane location that I loved straight away. It looked like the foundations of a Disney backlot idea for a dirty night market. It came with lots of textures, metal, concrete, hanging cables. It felt realistic and textured, but with a great potential to build fantasy on. And what's amazing about the location is that it's actually indoors - it's covered. So logistically it was easy to shoot there, but it looks like rough streets.Above: Jamel Elgharbi tries out the Bulldog prosthetics before completionIt was a great location to build on, in order to blur the frontiers of where this world actually existed. It was very much the same process and idea behind the world for Music for a Sushi Restaurant, when looking for the venue location and the outdoors. That place is grounded in realistic elements, yet it feels pretty weird, far away, but you just embrace it.Same thing designing Thot Shit’s world, that’s very much US, because of how much I wanted to connect it to US politics. But the world is built with so much US aesthetics clichés, an overdose of classics, it makes no sense. It doesn’t have to, so you can make it as fun and enjoyable as possible. Yet, I also did Satellite where the story very much exists in our real world. But in that case, that link to the real world and real places, starting with H’s residency at the LA Kia Forum, was needed to have our story open as far away possible from a sci-fi or magic world, so our hero starts out as something as mundane as possible.And then, the MK video led to the robot vacuum cleaner in Satellite for Harry Styles, thanks to Pascal Marina...Yes, and just like with our dog, our robot is 100% practical there. Actually, especially in the beginning when we started working on it, I had a hard time calling it a robot because it's exactly what I didn't want. Pascal is not only a genius magician and he will always push the idea that you bring - but not only in the engineering. He's passionate about his work, about stories and bring a lot on the creative level. And he's definitely a nerd, and he will push for doing as much as he can - but sometimes you don't want to do too much.So we could have done a proper transformer robot like this, turned this Hoover into something technically incredible. But in our initial conversation, I actually told Pascal that it was exactly where we should not go. That we needed to work only with actual vacuum cleaner parts, and we needed to not do any eyes, not do any mouths, not do anything that was 'robot-y'.It was about looking at those automated vacuum cleaners and thinking, oh, they look like the Mars Rover... and they're both very much alone.I know there's been a lot of links to Wall-E, which is amazing. I'm not going to complain about that. Wall-E such an amazing character, an amazing story. But, believe it or not, this is definitely not how it started. It definitely started by looking at these objects, and thinking: 'oh, they look like the Mars Rover - and, oh, there is something interesting there because they're both very much alone.' This was the start of it all.But when I started showing the treatment, Wall-E got mentioned and that did get me scared. I thought that if people see a robot at the start, and it feels sci-fi, its not going to work. It would not have the emotion that I want to bring in. I wanted something very mundane. I wanted this object to have nothing. And we tried that as much as possible. Pascal actually found those hybrid automatic vacuum cleaner that exists that are a mix between the classical one with the Hoover head and round one, and that's what we used. He said - this is interesting as it has the Hoover head and we can start working with that. That's what we did. But it was definitely critical, the way you would see the object for the first time in the room, but I think people got it.Above: 'Stomper', the vacuum-robot, encounters man and dog on location of Satellite shootAt the same time, you had to have the viewer identify with the 'robot', so you need a shot in the video, in the auditorium, where convey some form of personality...Definitely! That was one of the benefit of the classic vacuum head. It gives you a element to read the mundane object that it is, and allowed us to work on a strong personality. That’s a very important shot, the birth, one of the most important ones, and I spent quite some time on it when shooting it. I think everybody wanted to move on with it, thinking we got it, but this shot needed to be absolutely perfect.You were confident that you could portray this character properly when you wrote it?I'm never confident [laughs]. I think there is always a moment when you go super anxious and scared. And I feel that if I don't have that, at some point it might be even worse. There is somehow something comforting about anxiety. I’m talking in the creative process. The fact that your idea can be bad makes you anxious, but by telling yourself a good idea necessarily starts with a bad one, you allow your anxiety to evolve into something better.I never felt that I was someone that was pushing through frontiers. I don't see myself as someone bringing so many new stuff on the table. I'm a very nostalgic person, I like old stuff - so long as there's one thing that feels new to make for me, like in terms of the emotion of it, or some tiny detail.As long as it gives me the feeling that I'm not sure how to do it, I'm not sure how it looks, I quite feel good about that. I quite like it. It doesn’t feel so interesting and worth it if I’m too confident to begin with. But the emotion of this character felt right and that was the most important part. The rest what just exploring and working on solutions.The emotion of this character felt right and that was the most important part.This one was a pretty unusual process. Obviously most shoots are always very contained, you remember quite precisely when you shot. But Satellite was very spread out. We had to change the original plan. We were going to shoot everything happening in the Forum - the venue Harry was playing - and then to go straight for the travel section. But then Harry got had to cancel a few dates - and this happened right before the shoot. Was very unfortunate.But in the end, it turned out to be amazing for our little hero. By having the shoot more spread out, we got to spent much more time with it, working on its personality and getting to know what worked the best in terms of emotions, simply because we grew very fond of it, and by spending so much time on the roads all together, we couldn’t very much experiment how it had the ability to move us, and therefore to move everyone. Also, it allowed us to come back to shoot key scenes much later, when we had all that knowledge on what our hero should be. It gave me the decisive benefit of reflecting on it, something with very rarely have with music videos.Above: Aube, holding Stomper the vacuum-robot, with his "indie-config" crew on the Satellite shootWe got so very lucky with this one. Getting to have days with solid configs and big crew, lots of stuff to play with, use The Kia Forum. But also got to shoot with a very 'indie' config, when we shot all the travel sequences. We were just eight people in two cars - just travelling through the US and shooting whenever you want, going wherever you want.In the end, I think we shot total like around ten days, something like that. Doing it got me thinking how crazy it would be to work with a massive artist music video budget just on a very low-key config like this. It could be pretty insane. You mentioned Wall-E and one scene that does have that Pixar movie sense of jeopardy crossed with wonder, is when the robot is crossing the Los Angeles freeway... How did you do that?The freeway scene was also done practically. The first shot, the lock shot over six lanes is a two pass - one with the vacuum cleaner and one with cars. But when the car passes over ‘Stomper' - and the camera - is one shot done for real in-camera.So we only had one vacuum cleaner, so we definitely had the conversation with the post house to achieve it safely. But to be honest, I got a bit bored with it especially on set. I sometimes can be reluctant a bit with post work. It's really my bad, I guess. I've often felt that if you can shoot something in camera, you should do it in camera. There was a benefit of not doing it in camera to protect ourselves, but for me, that was kind of a bad argument, a bad reason.Above: shooting the LA freeway scene on the Satellite videoI made the call on set [to shoot the freeway scene for real]. Yeah, it was terrifying...You can’t block the six lanes for two hours. They give you like, a couple minutes - windows, with police officers at the entrance, holding up traffic. I could see the benefit of just going for it, logistically and very obviously to get to a result that called for it. I made the call on set. I don't know, I must have looked at Pascal and Chris [Ripley], my DP and Chris, and I said, 'okay, let's just do it'. Yeah…that was…exciting and terrifying [laughs]. I think Pascal, really hated me - but also loved it so much. We all did. There was only one machine.We said we’d do it once. And then we did it a second time, a third, a fourth... and in the end I think we got something like 7 or 8 shots. And we have one version of that where Stomper was touched by the car. One where the wheel brushed past Stomper. That's a massive car.I feel sorry for the driver, he must have been petrified.I’m grateful we had very confident drivers for the car, for Stomper, but also the RC camera car that was filming. Cause obviously there are actually two things that the car passed on top of. There's Stomper, but there is also the camera and RC car that the camera is on. Those guys were absolutely amazing. They never said 'ah no', they were like 'absolutely' - which was very exciting. It’s always 100% a collective job, everyone is just as important as anybody, everybody needs to be on board, and everyone was, which was amazing. I just hope that in the near future, I can push Pascal way further because there is no limit to what those guys can achieve, to be honest.The Hives' Bogus Operandi came out virtually the same day as Satellite. Although very different, it's very much an Aube Perrie film in terms of quality - but must have been a different level of budget to Harry... Very different. It basically happened as the result of the goodwill of so many people. But when Rik [Green] my producer said 'there's a Hives song for you', I got so excited. I was amazed. I've been a massive fan of The Hives since I was a kid. I bought my first skate VHS, and the opening skate sequence was happening - a huge drop of a building - to Hate To Say I Told You So. It was so surprising, as they haven't really done any music for ten years, and they've done plenty of music videos that are a lot about the performance - that's what they do really well and built their legend.I would never have asked Pulse to reach out to them, because they absolutely don't need me. That's what I told Pelle, their lead singer. We met, when we were in LA shooting Satellite, in January. I said: as a fan all I want is to see you perform. But I don't see any value that I'm bringing to you. As a fan, I didn't want to ruin the Hives.Above: Aube, with camera, overlooking The Hives on location for the Bogus Operandi videoAs a fan, I didn't want to ruin the Hives... but they got me convinced that I might be the right person.By this point, something had been written. There was this narrative, around the new album, about the Hives' secret member - he's always been their secret member - called Randy Fitzsimmons. Randy has been secretly directing the band, he's like the secret producer, and Randy was gone for ten years, and that's why they didn't release music. And they had this narrative that there was some stuff out there left by Randy. I responded to that, yet I told Pelle I might not be right for them - but they got me convinced.So how did you get to a full-on Evil Dead-style horror movie idea?They came up with a lot more than I'm used to. There's a grave on the cover of their new album, and they definitely came up with the idea of Death, and something that has been left behind by Randy. So when I read their first words that they put down, it just struck me as the Evil Dead story, reading something that was left out there from the dead and all of a sudden it sets off evil.Above: The Hives, inside the cabin on the Bogus Operandi shootI also liked the idea that as they've not been releasing music for ten years, they were kind of dead. So it was definitely pretty obvious that it was them coming back from the dead. And as those suits are such powerful items, it was also obvious that we needed to see a transformation.I wanted to see them without the suits. For me, the thing I wanted to bring in was seeing them as more mundane people. One of the first thing I told them was that they could be a cast in a Coen Brothers movie. I mean, they're like this weird gang. The perfect cast. You can’t make it up. I remember thinking that as a teenager, watching their videos back then.But then when it came to what they should wear, I thought about having some potential slight colour in there, let’s be clear, not bright yellow and pink, just brownish and yellowish tones. They shut that down straight away. 'Aube, people have been trying for 30 years to put colour on us. You're not going to succeed.' I guess I didn’t.Above: shooting 'spade-cam' in the forest for Bogus OperandiBut one of the exciting things for me about working with them was shooting in Sweden. They were okay to shoot wherever we wanted. But I was like - no, we absolutely need to go to Sweden. That's kind of the deal. I wanted the band to be very much present on its territory, give us a lot of time and help. They are basically national heroes, and it led to us getting so much support. We shot four days - which is quite unusual for that kind of budget.I spent like two weeks there before the shoot, because I wanted to hang with them and benefit from the environment. It might be just like a cliché I had about the Swedish outdoors, but I wanted that sort of Fargo-eque feeling of Northern Sweden, which is also their real life background, as they all come from this very small town called Fagersta. Although in the end the budget meant we shot near Stockholm rather than in Northern Sweden.All the crew is Swedish: DoP is Swedish, production is Swedish. Even the VFX. They're amazing talents over there. A great film industry. But many parts of Stockholm are somehow a bit too beautiful to shoot.Above: Pelle from The Hives prepares to perform on the Bogus Operandi shootThere was a bit of rewriting on the video I did while spending time over there, and in one version we had them not drinking in the cabin straight away, they were at a bar. And a bar can be something challenging to work with. I wanted something like a tiny local sport club room - like the ‘Pass This On’ video by The Knife, that was actually shot in Stockholm twenty years ago. But the problem with Stockholm is that it's absolutely beautiful. The whole city was redone. It's so brand new and designed. Unless you're Ruben Östlund and you work with that aesthetic, it's the worst. You want something with patina, you want something old with texture.And of course at the end of the video, we do get the suits, and we do have a band performance...Yeah, we did some performance because for me it was absolutely impossible to do a Hives music video, even a narrative video, without one.• Aube Perrie is with Pulse Films and represented for music videos in the UK by Hands London.