Nathan Miller’s new music documentary about Jamaican Dancehall dropped towards the end of 2022 and immediately caused a stir – just as his docs about the London and Toronto scenes did a few years ago. We caught up with the Biscuit Filmworks director to find out more about God Bless You, My Son, and discover why he returned to the singular filmmaking style that made his name.Nathan Miller has gone back to his roots with his new film, in more ways than one.As a Londoner of Jamaican heritage, Miller has been familiar with Dancehall music for most of his life, and aware of how the dominant music genre in Jamaica has evolved over a generation. Last year he set out to document that evolution, by visiting the island, and meeting and filming some of the main players in both Dancehall and the emerging sub-genre of Trap Dancehall, exploring the relationship, and the tensions, between the two.The resulting film is the vibrant God Bless You, My Son, a fifteen minute doc that acts as a fascinating primer on a form of music that has arguably been under-represented on film, certainly in terms of documentary. Miller’s filmmaking method, predominantly using audio-only voice-overs of the films's protagonists, while visually documenting general life in Jamaica, provides a layered portrait - both a broad-brush wide-angle view on the music, the people, culture, and the place itself, garnished with intriguing specific details.It also marks a return to a style of filmmaking for which Miller originally became renowned a few years ago, when he made the documentaries LDN and North – films that explored local music scenes in London and Toronto respectively – in which he connected with a group of young musicians in both cities, and then filmed them mostly himself, lo-fi and guerrilla fashion.Back then in the mid-10s, Miller was just setting out, a self-taught filmmaker who was aiming to convert his job as a doorman at the fashionable Ace Hotel in Shoreditch into becoming a full-time director. LDN was his way to put him on the map and then get employed by the hotel’s owners in a new role – making films at their other hotels around the world. And he succeeded.“A lot of artists were on the cusp of breaking through,” says Miller, of the London music scene at the time. “Grime was so hot – Skepta was having a real moment – but I wanted to look at other artists who were really about to kill the game - artists like JHus and Fredo.” But he was not anticipating the reaction that the film received.“The night before the film was released, I thought: 'If this film gets 20,000 views in its first month, I'll be happy.’ Then when it came out, on the first day it got 30,000 views. By day three, it was on 100,000, and by the end of the week, it was on 200,000. Then every publication under the sun that deals with music wrote about it.”It led to him making North, where he focussed upon up-and-coming artists in the exciting hip-hop scene in Toronto, with similar success. That really did put him on the map, and since signing to Biscuit Filmworks in London in 2021, Miller has been developing both scripted and unscripted film projects through the production company. Last year he also made his debut music video, shooting the promo for jazz outfit Ezra Collective’s Life Goes On in London and Zambian capital Lusaka.I feel at home working with musicians and entertainers.Promonews spoke to Miller just before Christmas last year, and discovered that God Bless You, My Son was very much a personal project. It was labour of love that allowed him to get back to the familiar territory of self-shooting, while taking on a typically ambitious subject in a world where he feels comfortable.PROMONEWS: How does this relate to previous documentaries that you have made, such as LDN and North?NATHAN MILLER: It relates to the previous work by just following the tried and tested method that got me into this space and I guess broke me out as a director. That method is: Just me, minimal resources, going with a camera and just putting your faith in a bunch of strangers to help you tell a story that you think might be great for the world to see. And try not to mess it up.I also feel at home working with musicians and entertainers. But in terms of it being more like a series, the only thing that really brings them together, is the execution of it and the curiosity to just go and go off and make them.Once again there is a juxtaposition there in that you are one guy, but the story that you want to tell is a big one. Why take on such an ambitious project.When I first got started, I used to want to pitch these ideas to companies. Whenever I tell people the ambitions of the film, usually they become too sensible. They think I’ll need a lot of money and resources. Or it just doesn't make sense to them.But when I wasn't getting the right reception, it just kind of fell back on me to make it myself. I wasn't going to be deterred. And that's why I tend to work alone.So how did this project, God Bless You My Son, come about?There were a bunch of factors that helped inspire the making of this film and made me just want to go off to Jamaica and make it. I was a little frustrated with having a number of projects in production at all different stages. As you know, the bigger the project or the more people involved with it, the harder it becomes to progress, or manoeuvre. When you're a one man band, it's like rowing a rowboat, so it's easy to turn it around.The second factor was just being a fan of the music. Coming from a Jamaican family, and being up to date with what's going on in Jamaica, I knew there was stuff coming out of Jamaica from a whole group of really exciting musicians. Surprisingly, a lot of their stories haven't been told before at all.It was my first time in Jamaica as an adult, exploring and experiencing the island.And I guess the third thing that made me want to go off and do it was for one of my uncles, Gaston Miller, who unfortunately passed away in 2021. I think the last conversation we had was at a family barbecue, and he asked me how the filmmaking was going. He said that I should make sure to keep on doing them, to do my own thing. Shortly after that, he became ill and unfortunately passed away. So this was a way to remember him.It let me do something that I haven't done in a long time - because the last time I did something like this was in 2017. But that's what really got me on my way to go and make it.Do you know Jamaica well? What did you know that you wanted to do before you left/arrived?I had only been there once before – to attend a funeral when I was 17. So this was actually the first time in Jamaica as an adult – I’m 28 now – and very much my first time exploring and experiencing the island.When I have an idea that I think is good, I usually obsess about it and then I break it down. Who do I need to put into this film to make the film that I want to tell? The funny thing is, because I'm not pitching to anyone. I don't need to make a treatment. So the first step is just sending the first initial emails to people who are wanting to be in it.If nobody responded, if nobody got back to me, the idea might have just died there and then. But I sent out a couple of emails on one evening in 2021, went to sleep, and I woke up to three emails of three musicians who I really wanted to be in the film: a guy named Governor, an artist named Squash, and another artist called Jashie.Ultimately, only one of them ended up being in the film. But sometimes that doesn't matter, because once you get those initial confirmations, you can then leverage those confirmations in your follow up emails to other people. Beyond that, this film came together through just knowing people. I know that person. Then that person connecting me with that other person, and so on. Most of the conversations I had on email were usually followed by them sending through their number and saying: call me. That really helped.I had to scale it back... but it acts as a great introduction to the current scene in Jamaica. How much of a plan - and a script - did you have before you started?I knew how I wanted the film to play out in entirety, from start to finish. But I don't tell people, just in case that it doesn't happen!I knew exactly what song I wanted to start with. I knew what songs I wanted to have in the middle. I knew what stories I wanted to get. And funnily enough, this film couldn't be further from what I wanted. In many ways, this film is like 30% of what it should have been. But that's because subjects I wanted couldn't make it - there were a couple of no-shows. It was really meant to be a 45 to 60 minutes doc, but I had to scale it back and make the best of what I had.Having said that, I think it acts as a great introduction to the current scene in Jamaica. And I think there's so much room and scope to do something bigger. And it's been getting a great reception too.Your visual canvas appears to be the whole of Jamaica, with its incredible beauty and character… I was out there with my friend Anthony Williams, who also helped me shoot the LDN documentary, and who I gave a co-directing credit on this. Anthony was on B camera, and we had two friends from Jamaica working on this: Carl, who subsequently became the driver, and Sator, who's a photographer.When there wasn’t anything in the calendar we would be capturing the B-roll, sticking the camera on a tripod and capturing shots of the island. Because once you leave, you can't come back and get it. So we’d do an hour and a half of filming, just capturing loads of details within the place, trying all the shots that you need to get. And yeah, in Jamaica, there’s just so much great stuff to shoot: the hills, the countryside, the beaches, and the city life.Having people in the shots wasn’t a problem. I would just be filming on the street, and usually not making a particular person the subject. But if they were the subject, I'd let them know and they'd be like, ‘yeah, that's fine.’What camera did you shoot the film on?I was shooting on a Canon C70 – a great camera. It's very compact, great for documentaries. And I think when you're doing the one man band thing, you don't want to have a big camera. You don't want to be too distracted from the moments. You kind of want to be in the zone, but not take away from what's actually happening, and not be the distraction. You just want to capture things.With a bigger budget, you can get drone stuff, Steadicam stuff. But the bare minimum I'd need to tell a story like this is a tripod, a camera and a mic – that’s it. We actually brought a light too, to light the interviews that we didn’t end up using on screen. So it was a bloody waste of time lugging that thing around!What about the night footage – no additional lights for that?No. The thing about documentaries is that they are quite forgiving if you want to bump up the ISO and it gets a bit grainy or anything.Often you don't know what you're walking into, you don't know where you're going. So it really becomes an important decision, about whether or not you want to carry around this heavy light? But for both comfort and safety, on those run-and-gun projects, I just think the best thing is just to keep it as small as you can.Much of the story about the music is delivered via voice-over. How did you go for that approach?That was a compromise. The initial plan of the film was to dive into some individual stories within the music world. And there were people in the film who had individual stories, but I just needed more time with them. But to do a well-rounded portrait, it would probably need going back to do more than one interview, to have enough B-roll of them in their own environment, have footage of them performing on stage.Rather than focus on that and it become something that you might notice, I just thought to blank it all with just the story of what you're seeing, and just let the voices be quite anonymous, just talking about the scene collectively rather than individuals telling their story. You do have some people who shed a bit of light onto who they are. But really, it's about the scene as a whole and their experiences of growing up in Jamaica.Did you arrive at that decision during the editing stage?Yes. There was a 35 minute edit of the film. That took me a while to do, and then I took a break from it. I think when you're constantly editing something, you can tell yourself it's good. The best thing to do is just walk away, leave it for a week, go do something else. That’s what I did.When I came back to it, I had a different view of it. It was okay, but it didn't have the fingerprint that I like to have on my films. So at that point I decided to scale it back. Just use the very best bits that captured a credit story out of that. It wasn't a U turn, but we definitely had to make a detour in how this story is told.Having released God Bless You, My Son, what’s the plan for the coming year?Firstly, it’s just to refine my storytelling skills. With storytelling and documentaries, I'd like to say that I'm here – but with storytelling and scripted, I'm not here yet. It’s a matter of bringing this up, because ultimately what I want to do is make films.We'll also see what happens with this Jamaica film. It’s had a lot of attention. Comment section is full of people saying ‘part two, part two, part two’. But I would really love to tell the story that I initially planned, and I think that could potentially be a project of 2023.And I'd love to do a commercial. We came very close to a few last year. Didn't land them, but I'm very optimistic. It's all about timing.• Nathan Miller is represented by Biscuit Filmworks. Watch more of his work here.

How did Shan Phearon make the remarkable CGI-fired ode to auto-destruction that is his second video for controversial alt-pop artist Jazmin Bean? David Knight quizzed the Greatcoat Films director to find out. In making his music videos, Shan Phearon has become renowned for his drive for perfection for his music artists. It has resulted in a series of beautifully-crafted music videos for the likes of Potter Payper, Nines, Rimzee, Tiggs Da Author and Jvck James. Often the videos of Phearon's featured on Promonews have been the Director's Cut - another function of his perfection. But late last year, his latest video arrived which showed Phearon reaching a new level of achievement, and also his vision fully aligned with that of the artist.Phearon's video for Jazmin Bean's Carnage is a brilliantly conceived evocation of the dark fairytale world of Jazmin Bean, via Phearon's encyclopedic knowledge of music culture, and movies from blockbuster to arthouse, over the past 30 years. Crucially, the director has set the bar high - to somehow match the sensibility of one of those era-defining sci-fi fantasy blockbusters in a British music video. And he has triumphantly achieved his objective.From Jaz and companion Lucy Loone speeding down a city freeway, to flying through the night, post collision, to arriving on a floating rock in space, Phearon places Bean's nihilistic rebellious tendencies in spectacular fantasy setting. It looks like a big, expensive production, as might be made by a top American star. And Bean is not quite that. So how did they do it?The director and his team managed to achieve this by other means, including his vision, incredible dedication, and another valubable commodity - time. Carnage was the result of Phearon being on the Jazmin Bean project for a year. It was by no means all plain sailing, but as he points out, it may offer pointers in how British music videos can kickstart the creative juices in the important year ahead. Above: Shan Phearon (right) with Jazmin Bean on the set of Carnage.We need to work better - and this is down to the conditions given to work in - if we want world class respect.PROMONEWS: So Carnage was your 11th music video piece in 3 years and part of a year-long project?SHAN PHEARON: It grew to become a double-bill video campaign: first Puppy Pound, which led later to Carnage. A year invested, from 2021, concluded 2022. Ever seen ‘Heart of Darkness: A Filmmakers Apocalypse’? I’m joking. But it’s the end of one era, start of another.What did you have to work with when you got the brief for Carnage?SP: Jaz wanted to drive. They needed a car crash. And a flowery field at some point. Just top-line to decipher. By then, I’d spent months studying the artist and cult fanbase for Puppy Pound. Immersed like ‘method’ Christian Bale in the Jaz metaverse, I had enough to work with.The label had set us up with healthy time to nurture artist-to-director creative rapport, where I could coach artist development, as well as develop the videos. Getting results, the very supportive Island label team (Holly Williams, Emily Jefferies, Max Creswell and co) and artist manager Donny Tourette, whom I worked closely with, trusted the process.Now I had to bespoke tailor the next chapter in the artist’s arc and I could identify what was going on in their mind with all my insights as: an emotional joy-ride.What was the key aspect in your treatment that Jazmin and the label loved? I think they were surprised at how I’d become an extension of the artist’s psyche, maybe. I always try to respond to the interior of an artist. I want to understand them as human beings as well as a cultural avatar, so I show that.The subtext and journey of this video... has been a redemption arc.I’d written in solutions too for endless creative spec obstacles: car crashes (how the f*** we doing that?), flowery fields (unavailable in winter), lambs (unavailable in winter), out of this world fantasy road trip routes (ffs).We’d used Puppy Pound to warm up and test CGI expansion of Jaz’s distinct world-build, but now we were really going to architect a whole metaverse beyond with Carnage.What were the main references across the project?A vast library. Like sampling culture almost, I view it like my fave music producers (i.e. Dilla, Madlib, Burial, Fly-Lo, Premiere, Timbaland, Metro Boomin etc.), that approach. Many cultural fusions.It’s like crate-digging: David LaChapelle, Vivienne Westwood, TLC, Soundgarden, Slipknot, Nirvana, Busta, Portishead, Stefani, Gaga, Britney, Lil’ Kim, Devon Aoki in Fast & Furious 2, the Disney+ Channel, 1994’s Natural Born Killers, 1995’s Ghost In The Shell, 1996’s Twister, 2000’s era Zack Snyder, Frances Lawrence’s 2006 Constantine, Wachowski Sisters’ 2008 Speed Racer, Lars Von Trier’s 2011 Melancholia, Malibu Barbie, rap mixtape culture GOAT iconography, essays on BPD, bi-polarity, autistic savants, depression, suicide, nihilism, doomers, and so on.Everything shares a dot-connection, even if unrealized before through other’s lenses. You layer the samples, sometimes in a single composition. Visual musicianship, visual symphonies.No idea’s original. Originality is only a sum of its un-original parts. I think we’re all just striving to unearth something novel in that.What attracted you to the song, and to Jazmin as an artist?I actually DM’ed Jaz in Autumn 2019 after seeing their wtf video for ‘Saccharine’. Nothing, air. Understandable. Two years later a brief from an instinctive commissioner lands in my inbox… cosmic.I admire what Jaz symbolizes, their composite influences, the freedom of expression. I’m magnetized to artists whose output and framework for seeing things is outside of the norm - outsiders, misfits, outcasts, outliers – new age thinkers offering to shift paradigms. Felt I was living my Bjork, Manson, Arca, Kate Bush, The Cure, Linkin Park fantasies.True story… Jaz’s mum Angie, as a drummer, of Filipino heritage, was in a ‘90s all-girl UK Metal band called Fluffy – whose ’97 single ‘Black Eye’ is directed by Floria Sigismondi. Bloodline’s mad.I’ve also done a few music video pieces that interplay with takes on psychological health, or mortality. Repeat motifs. I like exploring powerful ideas with my artists in unexpected ways.Above: The Shan Phearon workstation, and creative inspiration.Is it true you went into self-imposed exile for the Carnage post-production phase?Sort of. I was locked away in a studio for a while, with limited outside contact, except my lead VFX Artist Gino Fernandez 24/7, and the artist/label remote.To hibernate and meditate with the material, shaping step-by-step. Flow-state. Musicians do it whilst recording albums. Directors are kinfolk. Label, artist and management wanted to empower us, to trial more progressive processes. Everyone appreciated commitment.Is it fair to say this is a departure for your work in music videos - both musically and in the style of the video? Maybe. It makes its statement. But it’s probably also a spiritual successor.I’m very proud of my roots, and my video foundations, in Alt Rap, R&B, Soul etc. I carried one ethos at the start of my MV journey – to help elevate the cultures I was codified by in youth. That’ll continue. It’s a Hip Hop-centred attitude and we carry some of that energy.I did over a year of CGI VFX filmmaking historical research - the ‘90s, the ‘00s and in the ‘10s.But I’m an eclectic head too. Always loved Electronic, Alternative, Experimental Pop, etc. Same with visual languages. Many others like me, yet they’ve become caught in the conditions of the current British commissioning glass ceiling, or stifled by their digital environments and own audiences.So this video asserts for directors of similar heritage that they deserve a shot at other music genres too. Can cross-pollinate worlds. Bring alternate perspective.There’s a controversial debate raging in our circles that the UK music video scene has been flat-lining in the last period. If stagnation and a self-regurgitative tribal visual culture, here’s at least one recipe to discovering innovative angles eventually. Eschew pigeonholes. Open minds.There are some beautifully conceived and executed sequences in the final video. Can you explain how you prepared and then achieved the main set pieces in the video?• The artists in the speeding car on the highway: Ghost In The Shell/Manga inspo. I devised a giant green-screened rotating turntable to put the physical car on. I did over a year of CGI VFX filmmaking historical research, the ‘90s, the ‘00s and in the ‘10s, three key eras of advancements, so I could better direct workflow. Think I picked this one idea up after watching some BTS for The Fifth Element (1997). It’s all exploration of artifice.I’d been thinking about how people at times say some CGI “looks dated”. But I feel like, if the CGI in a 1999 film looks like 1999, that’s unavoidable for those people in 1999 – so really it’s part of the charm. Their CGI artistry is an endearing sign of those times.This led me to thinking more about the idea of retro CGI nostalgia. To purposely have one or two elements feel almost like retro 2000s CGI VFX, because the 2000s decade was the first real era of CGI overload creeping into cinematic culture. Hypothesis test.I got my team to build a big green screen trampoline and paired that with Phantom cameras.• Jazmin and Lucy Loone floating, post-car crash: Melancholia/Watchmen/Donnie Darko/Portishead kinda inspo. I got my team to build a big green screen trampoline and paired that with Phantom cameras.What’s mad is that I wrote this idea as a scene in an unrealized Pa Salieu/slowthai treatment a long time ago. Jaz’s chorus just hit me emotionally and all I could visualize is what you’re seeing. Lucid dreams recycled from the vault.• The main tornado sequence with the falling car and the flying goat: Twister inspo. The most complex VFX and a few experimental touches. To me it’s the absolute power of CGI as an artform, one often maligned, disrespected as ‘low culture’, misunderstood. Some cineaste are caught in the ‘practical VFX’ myth - too many Chris Nolan YouTube fan essays.When was the last time we saw a big natural disaster tornado going wild in a UK music vid?Both practical or CGI can be respectable solo, or often ultra-powerful when combined. So that’s the moment I’m proudest of. Gino (proud of him too) worked on that for weeks, whilst literally on a Covid deathbed, as a bunch of other things were falling apart around us both in our lives.I remember its earliest draft landing in my WhatsApp whilst I was flat-out on the floor and I realized we’d just reached transcendence. Eureka. Like, when was the last time we saw a big natural disaster tornado going wild in a UK music vid? Did they manage that in the UK MV scene during ‘90s / 00’s golden age? And we’re doing it now in these austere times?!I hoped it would be symbolic, defiant and bombastic, lol.Also, the flying goat easter egg is inspired by the iconic flying cow in Twister. No animals harmed.The piece has a unique aesthetic. What’s the 35mm and digital image fusion idea?I’d discovered over time that the theme of artifice – maybe response to the virtual simulation-style hyperreality of internet culture - is a big one in Jaz’s metaverse.So I designed a ‘synthetic-analogue’ appearance. We formulated a special and more complex than usual process so the CGI became 35mm.Modern CGI-driven videos are nearly always too polished. And most 16mm / 35mm-driven videos are aping a nostalgic / timeless simulacrum idea.I wanted us to bridge two seemingly opposing schools of thought. Hyper-digital and analogue marriage.Above: Shan Phearon (foreground, back to camera) supervises the positioning of Jazmin's crashed car, on set of the Carnage shoot.What were the biggest challenges in making this?Any project can have these if going in with ‘elite mindset’. We do our best to educate those around, to uplift them. We don’t try to encourage mediocrity. New worldviews, are the biggest challenge.Some feel in our UK music video scene culture, it’s a more and more for less and less era. But if tight budget, offer time. If tight time, offer budget. Here Film Creatives are often denied both tools. Which is why many UK directors, EPs and commissioners are suffering, as is the art.But label, artist and management equipped us more time to craft on Carnage, they believed in optimal. That super-powered us, over a common industry challenge.Maybe there’s a 15 year old fan somewhere and we saved their life last night. That’s our hope.We’re in a phase where even at our UKMVAs, parts of our scene get slept on. Output from international, outboxes ours. Briefs go to overseas directors and our UK pool of talent isn’t nurtured. We need to work better - and this is down to the conditions given to work in - if wanting world class respect. Reform and new frameworks are healthy convos for everybody’s benefit in ’23 on.I guess tricky junctures included first draft with pre-viz jpegs keyed into backgrounds and everyone looking at it like “wtf is this Blue Peter sh*t”? Haha. And then it’s Director’s job to encourage imagination, combat over-thinking in the abstract. Delicate psychological processes that I’ve learnt to handle.Also the artist wasn’t always in the best of health. With resources, we were punching above our weight. As well as over 100 shots of VFX to be crafted out and made fluid - an insane feat. But all of us together as a collective unit, we were on a mission for our artist’s next era.In the end, everyone was overwhelmed, as were those most important that we all really do this for: the music fans.And what was the most satisfying thing about making this?Well, this is public info, but the artist sadly had to spend the summer in rehab for addiction. They’re very open about these things, it’s part of their art. We all had to manage that, with strength, collectively.Addiction in a variety of forms is a deep-seated epidemic, especially amongst the creative community, exacerbated by this current socio-political and digital climate. Directors feel there’s a growing mental health crisis in the UK music video realm at the moment that’s going ignored and will reach a tipping point. Musicians I know are experiencing a similar epidemic in their scenes. Artists can understand each other.So I feel like the subtext, as well as the journey of this video to release, has been a redemption arc.We’re very proud of the artist, who is doing better. We’re proud of the video, because it’s healthy when this medium is an outlet for expressing the troubled weight of the creative psyche. Unbridled expression can save lives.Maybe there’s a 15 year old fan somewhere and we saved their life last night. That’s our hope.What were the key decisions that made the vision all come together as well as it does?Translating the artist, playing the orchestra, incepting vision, etc. It was a coach procedure.I give flowers to my holy trinity: DoP Nathalie Pitters approach with lighting, production designer Anthony Hensman’s practical art direction, and indispensably our ride-or-die Lead VFX Artist Gino Fernandez who saved my life. They lived on this whole other planet with me and Jaz.Plus the whole gang: super-producers Mel Massey, Talor Hanson, Maneet Sandhu, legendary EP Simon Oxley, 1st AD Paolo De Battista, Becky Seager on Wardrobe and Sofia Sjöö on MU.All were about craftsmanship and worked with heart, some for extensive periods. This lot were my heart.It starts with character first, an assembly of people with it. If the assembly ‘believes’, the mosaic of creativity will follow.What did you learn that you didn’t previously know, or your biggest take away, from making this video?I feel like we cracked another code and Walter White formula.Imagination… nothing is impossible now.I’m thankful for everyone that has shown us love and support for our effort in these current bleaker times for the UK music video scene right now. Hasn’t been easy for some of our peers. We’re just trying our best to keep this culture and our people energized. Journey continues.• Shan Phearon is based at Greatcoat Films. Watch more of his work here.

As we near the end of a tumultuous year, we can look back on a number of videos that have addressed the social issues that affect modern society. But only a few have risen to the challenge of tackling the political turmoil that continues to engulf the UK. One that does so, with biting wit, is for London rapper Kam-Bu's acerbic critique on the ruling party of British politics: Eton Mess. In just two turbo-charged minutes, Jay Green's video dramatises the corruption of the British political class, personified by Richard Fibber, a Prime Minister who serves the interests of shady businessmen, but is challenged by angry everyman Kam-Bu and is undone by a fatal flaw - his nose, which has a Pinocchio-like tendency to grow when he tells a lie. Which is all the time. With a judicious use of VFX in addition to his dramatic setpieces, Jay Green has created a powerful modern political satire, with a hero we can all root for in Kam-Bu. So we spoke to Jay about how he managed this impressive feat, on a shoestring budget. How did the project start for you? Did the idea and the Fibber character come directly from the song, or were you influenced by the brief and/or a chat with Kam-Bu?JAY GREEN: Kam had DM’d me telling me his initial ideas of a visual depicting the failures of the Government. After a few phone calls and back and forth I came up with the idea of a Pinocchio story centred around a prime minister going up for re-election.You directed the impressive video for Kam-Bu’s Call Me Back before this, which addresses political issues in a different way. This is more comedic and satirical – but also post-heavy. How much did it feel like breaking new ground for you?Yes I agree, this was a lot more narrative-driven than some of my previous work, which is something I want to move into more now that I feel I have things to say.It was made when the country was (and still is) in political turmoil. So how many Prime Ministers did we get through while you were making the video?From Kam’s first message to me to delivering the final video we went through all three Prime Ministers. Ha!There's a responsibility to truly believe in the message you're sending.Presumably the song was written and recorded when Boris Johnson was PM. Richard Fibber is not particularly Boris-like in appearance at least. Was that deliberate?I felt it was important to make Richard a more universal character than have him attached to any one person. In order to convey the message that this is a more systematic issue than individual.What were the big challenges of the shoot? Did you get everything you wanted?Greenscreen shoots are always challenging as it requires an extra level of direction to ensure that all the cast know exactly where they are and what they are doing. However it did allow us to move a lot faster and get a variety of locations/shots we needed to sell this story.So let’s talk about The Nose! Is it a combination of in-camera practical effects, and post FX? If so, how much was practical and how much was post?The noses ended up being about 75% CGI. We did have prosthetics but I felt that to truly get across the message we need to exaggerate and animate the nose a lot more than just prosthetics alone.How much time did you have to do the VFX and post work? What were the main challenges there?Because we were on a shoestring budget, we didn’t even have money for an art director. So a lot of the production design, props, etc were added digitally which meant mountains of VFX work for me after. Fortunately Kam and his team gave me the time I needed to get everything right. I had about 2 weeks total to finalise the edit and VFX.How did it feel to make something that has a political edge, reflecting the state of the nation in these strange times? And what did you learn or take away from making the video?I think whenever you make something with a political edge there is a certain responsibility to truly believe in the message you are sending. It was great to work with an artist like Kam-bu who I share a lot of the same viewpoints and values with.So the whole process felt so much more organic rather than performative - which is always a danger when creating reactionary/political commentary while it is still ongoing. And I learnt a lot of how to shape a narrative while retaining my style and to not be afraid to challenge authority with my work.• Jay Green is represented by COMPULSORY. Check out more of his work here.

Last winter Hector Dockrill had a call from Chase & Status, via their creative directing tream Crowns & Owls, to come up with an idea for one of the tracks of the producer duo's new album What Came Before. The upshot was the video for When It Rains, where a young man's singleminded attempts to find a cigarette, while the shadow of criminal retribution hangs over him, grips the viewer with its gritty, real-time intensity and unfolding narrative of mounting disaster.Jack McMullen, one of the UK's leading young actors, is mesmerizing as the flawed everyman who's nicotine addiction provides a distraction from his other troubles. He is the continued focus of a white knuckle ride through a grim urban landscape, evading his enemies as he pursues that one last ciggie... It is also arguably the best example yet of Hector Dockrill's talents as a narrative director within the music video medium. These have been evident for a number of years now, in the Pulse Films director's work for Maverick Sabre, Jorja Smith, Sam Fender and others. But the approach for When It Rains suggests at a wider ambition, and now the video has become an extended short film.With the video garnering award nominations this year - including for Best Editing at the UKMVAs in October - and short film currently on the festival circuit, we talked to Hector Dockrill about the project and the process of turning the music video into a pulsating short drama.PROMONEWS: How did the project begin for you? And at what point did Jack McMullen come into it?HECTOR DOCKRILL: Crowns and Owls (creative directors on the Chase & Status campaign) gave us a brief, asking for a character profile - a character study that focussing on the kind of ways that people are currently expressing themselves.I'm a friend of Jack’s, and I bought him to the project, right at the beginning. I then replied saying ‘look, I've got an amazing actor here – who is down for the Chase and Status video.’I sent them 13 top lines of sentences of different characters in different situations where something inside their head is just kind of broken. I said: ‘Here's a bunch of top lines and I think this will work for Jack.’So they then picked out this one about a guy who is basically just on a hunt for a cigarette. It's something so simple that it's a man that basically will stop for nothing to get that nicotine hit.Quite a lot of stuff came from experimenting on the day.As the songtitle suggests the saying “when it rains, it pours”, was that a factor when you wrote the whole story about this character?In fact, When It Rains wasn't really in mind until right at the end, when it was like ‘hold on, what if I just rains on a cigarette?’ And then it all fell into place.When it came to the original script, it was just like a one-pager, where there was almost zero feedback. They kind of let me run wild with it.It just so happens that my idea was about a guy who just gets himself in deeper and deeper trouble. One bad decision can lead into another. Uncut Gems was a good reference for that.In short, the whole idea was based on the current climate of everything that's going on – something has clicked in his head on that day, and he was just going to stop at nothing until he got that cigarette. There doesn’t have to be anything too profound about it.I think the fact that Jack was tied to the project before it was signed off is probably why they gave us so much trust. And then the scripting evolved out of that. Jack also had some say in it. I would send him voice notes over WhatsApp about the idea and he would come back with ideas and kind of how he sees it.But if I’m honest, a lot of it was just hashing it out on the day. Yeah, there was quite a lot of stuff which came from experimenting on the day.We shot everything on a long lens that felt observational while giving Jack the space to improvise.There's sort of suggestions in the piece like the beginning where you've got like a sort of funeral booklet. Is there a backstory there?Yeah, with the pamphlet in the beginning I wanted to lead you back to the idea that the world is against him – even to the point where his dad has passed away. There is no love in this world and it’s quite brutal and cold. That’s kind of what we were trying to lead to with that.Tell us about the shoot day. It really does capture that sort of real time experience, and clearly it wasn't that. But when were you shooting it?To be honest, it was that! We shot in a single day - a short day as well, because it was winter. We knew that we had limited time. We had from eight in the morning, maybe even nine, till about four in the afternoon. And in order to fit it into this day, we needed to have all the locations next to each other.The whole idea was that we had to shoot the story in order. So the flat was there, the stairs were there, the shop was there. He then jogged down to the cash converters, went through the back of the Cash Converters and that alleyway was at the back. The floor plan and shooting plan was an absolute miracle.Above: Hector Dockrill, director of When It Rains. "We were basically just turning over non-stop."Where did you shoot the video?In New Addington, near Croydon, which my producer Joseph [J Goldman] found. We needed a high street, where we could shoot for the whole day, and it was ideal. We blocked it out so we knew there would be six scenes, and we had about an hour in each. Just shoot and get as much as we could.We also needed to shoot everything on one lens. The idea was to shoot on a long lens that felt very observational while giving Jack the space to improvise.Jack's professionalism and talent is what allowed us to do that. In the nine-hour shooting day, we probably had three hours of rushes. We were basically just turning over non-stop. And I wanted every single scene to hit the ground running. As soon as we got into a location we just started rolling.The camerawork is as fluid as the action, but if you were shooting on a long lens did you use a Steadicam?It was just straight handheld. Great work by Pat Golan. He is an incredible DoP, and really rolled his sleeves up. He just got stuck in and wasn't fussy about lighting or particular in his angles. He's got an incredible eye for story.There is no love in this world, it’s quite brutal and cold.The scene in the Cash Converters is the big one. There’s a great encounter between Jack and the girl behind the counter – she’s really good.That’s Shakira Newton. Shakira is incredible. She was actually cast to be in another of the Chase & Status videos, but we ended up shooting this first, and they suggested that we use her.When did it become a short film as well as a music video? Was it just the obvious thing after you shot it? Or did you have that in mind already?If you want the honest answer… there was always an intention to make a short film out of it. I wrote a short film, with the intention of cutting a 12-minute short. But then there was that moment in the edit when I was like ‘okay, now we've got to present this to the label.’Luckily the commissioner, James Hackett - the legend – said: ‘This is amazing. This needs to stay.’ So in fact, the music video is actually a cut-down of the short film.Who else played a role in making it happen?Nena Nwakodo is an amazing EP who, again, has an incredible taste in story. And she helped develop the script. And obviously Joseph Goldman, my producer. Nothing was a no. We made 50K stretch that far. And we had a wicked AD, Joe Mulvihill, who also managed to fit a two-day shoot into eight hours.Elena Isolini, our production designer, was unbelievable. She created these mini-worlds, and with everything 360 that gave Jack that space to kind of immerse himself into it. And our editor, Rich Woolway, is also a great storyteller.Then there’s Lee Walpole at Boom Post – he’s an amazing sound mixer, top guy and he just did us a favour and did the sound on it. I also did my Post Malone documentary with him. I sent him the edit and he just said: ‘I want to do this with you, this is wicked.’In the short film, scenes just have time to breathe and invite you into the world.How does the short film differ from the video? You feel it in a different way; it’s all the quiet muttering, the swearing to himself, the candid little details that make him, him, where you really feel his frustration. It’s hilarious.It’s also nearly twice the length, so the scenes just have time to breathe and invite you into the world and hearing conversations is what takes this from a fun music video to a story, in fact, human that you’re invested in.What are you hoping for the short film? For people to watch right until the last frame. That’s where the gag is!What have you worked on recently?Shooting-wise - mainly commercials. We’ve just finished one that we’re extremely proud of - you’ll it see very soon. But in terms of writing, I’m in development on my debut feature. It’s a slow process, of course. But the craft cannot be rushed.Jack and I are also keen to make another short which will be set in Ireland. So we’ll be exploring that while the feature incubates. • Hector Dockrill is represented by Pulse Films. Watch more of his work here.

Ben Coyle-Larner - aka Loyle Carner - won the coveted Best Performance in a Video at the UKMVAs last month for his on-screen work in Hate, which he also co-directed with Greg Hackett. As Hackett explains it was a project that benefitted from what each of them do best."Ben has amazing ideas for films," says Greg Hackett about Ben Coyle-Larner - better known as Loyle Carner. We are talking about the the project that brought them success as co-directors - and Loyle Carner the artist - at this year's UK Music Video Awards: the music video for Hate, which was the first release from Carner's just-released third studio album, Hugo.It led to a Best Performance in a Video award for Carner's multi-faceted on-screen performance at the UKMVAs on October 27th - in a video which was their first collaboration as co-directors. But Hackett is explaining that their creative partnership has developed through a series of projects, and in some ways, the Hate video was two years in the making. Hackett is an experienced commercials director who is adept at executing technically complicated film shoots. As the founder of Spindle he is also committed to the development of new talent - which is how he started working with Ben Coyle-Larner, and his brother Ryan, before the pandemic. It began with the Coyle-Larner Brothers, directing the Arlo Parks video for Eugene in 2019, which Hackett executive produced. "Then we made a film for EA FIFA 21 [featuring Eric Cantona] which I DoPd for him," explains Hackett. "Then moved into the Yesterday video [for Loyle Carner] that I EP'd again." That video was a complicated and ambitious one-shot idea, and Hackett also brought his technical knowledge to the table, to help the brothers in a more executive-directing role.That provided the foundation for what happened when Loyle Carner completed the new album and started talking about the visuals for the first release. As Greg Hackett explains, from the start it was clear that Ben wanted to do something different with his musical alter-ego: basically no more Mr. Nice Guy. Furthermore, this would be a production which not only demanded a new, unexpected scale of performance from the artist renowned for his likeability, but was hugely challenging on a technical level: motion control, multiple Loyles - and the everything compressed into four shots...Ben would say to me: I want people to see the other side of who I am.PROMONEWS: How did the project start for you?GREG HACKETT: Ben had this original idea of wanting to be in this car - which is his dad's actual car, and is called Hugo [the name of the new album]. Because that's where the relationship between him and his father came back together. The two had been estranged for a long time, and then Ben's dad gave him driving lessons during lockdown. That brought the two of them back together again.So Ben said - look, this is the first video back. I know I want to use the car. I know I want to be inside the car all the time, and I know that I want to appear multiple times. That gave me some boundaries to work within. And it became a really fun, true collaboration between someone who had the idea and knew what he wanted, but then brings a [full-time] director into this - myself - to help facilitate and execute it.So why are there multiple Loyles in the video?GH: Throughout all of this project, Ben would say to me: I want people to see the other side of who I am. People are aware of this nice young man, who's into Liverpool Football Club, into his cooking, his music is very summery, and he's basically a great guy - a stand-up values-led dude! And all that is true. But he had been going through some shit over the lockdown, and he wanted to show people that there is a darker side to him and his music.Hate is a dark song - talking occasionally about what he loves, but mainly talking about what he hates. And he says himself, he was in a dark place when he wrote it. So I think it's just him coming to terms with the fact that there is a darker side to his personality, that we all do get angry in different ways. It's kind of the perfect visual to reflect that hate in some ways.He's also saying - he's trapped. The whole lyrics of the chorus is, they said it's all that you could be if you're a black playing ball or maybe rap. They said it's like a trap and we're trapped. So, yes, there's this whole part of this film which is about the internal workings of Ben himself. But there's another part which is literally to be taken as he's trapped in this car, he's trapped in this cycle.I'm technically-minded and I have a lot of experience on set... I'm able to take what's in his head and bring it to the screen.There is indeed a lot of rage in the video - including road rage...GH: Actually the road rage element kind of evolved in our conversations about keeping people's attention through the video. He's driving in the car, but things need to happen. So we had this idea that we would create an antagonist through another driver; a kind of catalyst for his anger to bubble up and boil over. Practically, this driver would try and overtake him and he wouldn't let him, when he does, it leads to the anger spilling out.I’d use that as action cues I would give to Ben for his performance to gradually build and build, until the point he stops and then have to go out of the car and have this off-screen altercation. That was something that Ben was really keen on - that it happens off-camera. He wanted the camera to always be in the car. And then go into multiple versions of himself to show these many sides of his anger bubbling over...That posed a directorial problem that needed to be solved. How do we keep the camera n the car, and make the move around to the back and back again? That's kind of our working relationship. I'm technically-minded and I've got a lot of experience in directing on sets with commercials. So I'm able to take what's in his head and then we bring it to the screen.Above: Ben Coyle-Larner (aka Loyle Carner) on set of the Hate video shoot. So when it came to the problem-solving, what were the key things that you did to make it work?GH: Technically, the way we had to shoot it was in four parts. The first minute and a half - or one minute 27 seconds, to be exact - is one unbroken take of the camera handheld in the passenger seat.That's followed by the motion control section, which required ten layers of takes; from an empty car plate, to takes of Loyle in each seat. The third section is where it escalated out of control with the inner Loyles trying to take control of him; and the fourth is the exterior shot at the end of the video where you see the car swelling with Loyles as he fights to regain control. And we had to find a race track to make it happen. So Nosisa Majuqwana, who is our exec producer at Spindle, spent a week on the phone calling round every possible race track in the south of England to find something that would allow us to do what we wanted to do. And that really was to the wire.Everyone had to perform that first minute and 27 seconds perfectly...So talk us through that first shot...GH: The first one minute 27 seconds is one unbroken take of the camera handheld in the passenger seat. So we have to time that out on the road from point A to point B, where the car stops.That point A to point B, we needed to time all of the cars in the counter movement coming along the road, the stunt driver pulling alongside him multiple times and ultimately landing at this very specific point on the road. They have to perform that 1 minute 27 seconds perfectly, and then it hands off seamlessly.We had to match this frame of inside the car's door to the next frame, which is the motion control camera. And in fact, the only way to do that was to reverse the order on the day: shoot the motion control first and then go back and shoot the first 1 minute 27 of performance...So you actually started with the motion control section, presumably as that was the most complicated part...GH: The motion control required about 10 layers in all, including an empty layer of the camera movement around the car, and then a layer of every single Ben within the car. Then we needed Ben leaving the car and getting back in the car, and so on. Then at the end of that camera move, I planned it so the camera would come past the seats on the way back so we could hide a transition on the final front passenger seat. You'll see it in the film that the front passenger seat is the wipe that takes you into the third verse.It's worth saying that we had to cut half of the car away to be able to do that camera move. Not Ben's dad's car, I hasten to add! We actually had two cars - Ben Mealing, the producer, sourced a replica, a slightly newer version. So any Volkswagen Polo Mark 2 geeks out there will see that it's a slightly newer interior for the internal shots!It was pretty much the worst motion control environment you could ever have.How did it go from a technical point of view?GH: On the day, we didn't have the budget to do what you would usually do in that situation, which would be to tent off and isolate that lighting, or control that lighting above the car. And it was pretty much the worst motion control environment you could ever have. We had sun, bright sunshine, we had rain, we had wind. It was crazy.The last plate that we shot - when Ben gets out the car, has the altercation and then comes back - is so bright and so sunny, that most of the time in post was spent trying to bring that down. They were painting out every highlight in the car, painting out bits of sun and water on the floor. It was nuts, to be honest.Then you moved to the third shot, when Loyle the driver is being manhandled from the 'Loyles' in the backseat...GH: The 'cut' car was now on the low loader - so that Loyle could then perform freely. And to get that performance out of him, we had to do really key things.It was his first performance video back after three years out. We knew we wanted him to go to a dark, heavy place, and for the film to a have a heaviness to it. So everybody was hidden away from the monitors or near us. It was a locked set with only the performers and the camera department, so Ben could really go deep and give that performance that he gave.Above: Greg Hackett (left) and Ben Coyle-Larner during the greenscreen element of the shoot He is being manhandled throughout, by the other Loyles...GH: That was amazing. We used dancers as the other performers, because we wanted that kind of movement to manhandle Ben from the front into the back of the car. There had to be drama there, and for drama, there needs to be resistance and conflict. It needed that resistance from the guys in the back, to be some real fight in it. One of the guys gave it so much he virtually punched Ben in the face as he's driving. Essentially, it just makes the whole thing feel so real and so dark.There were twelve extras all wearing the same clothes as Ben... in that car.Things change at the end again, with the final shot - the only exterior shot of the car, with lots more Loyles all packed inside...GH: On the one hand, it's the kind of classic shot of driving off into the sunset. But again, we're also ending with Loyle losing total control - and we're not sure whether everything is actually going to be okay. Essentially that tussle for control within Ben's own brain is playing out on screen. From a practical perspective I think there were twelve extras all wearing the same clothes as Ben, being driven in that car by the stunt driver. The truth is, we nearly didn't actually get that whole section because we were overrunning so badly after doing the motion control section - we were about two and a half hours behind.The light was fading fast, and from a VFX point of view, we used sky replacement where we could. We also swapped Ben's face onto the extras, in specific places. When we go from section three to section four as the camera comes out of the car for the first time, the extra leans over and grab the wheel and you can see that we put Ben's face onto his face, and you can see that some other faces in the back of the car are also Ben.Ultimately within this highly technical shoot, Ben has given an award-winning performance. How did that happen?GH: As Hate came in as the first single, it was only natural for us to work together. And he knew that he wanted a performance based video and he trusted me. There's a level of trust there - which goes both ways - and which allows the actor or the artist be vulnerable enough to get that level of performance. The truth is that without Ben's performance that film wouldn't be as good. No way. But ultimately, it was having time to develop the director and artist relationship, to build that rapport and develop the idea in a more meaningful way that was so important. Who were the other important people who helped you make the video?GH: Todd Martin, who's the director of photography on it, played a huge role in this. And it really was the three of us, as a truly collaborative little unit of creators, essentially pulling this together from the very technical aspects of what the film required.Todd is American, he lives in New York, but he's a massive Loyle fan. And I'd worked with Todd on some really sensitive documentary films four years ago. So I knew that he would have the set discipline and the attitude and the sensitivities around Ben to allow Ben to be vulnerable. Little things like all staying together the night before the shoot in a B & B. And it just being easy. Todd also came to the rehearsals on the previous Saturday. So we're building that rapport with the people that are going to be on set. And of course Nosisa, Ben, Stitch and the production team, who were incredible. Above: Greg Hackett and Ben Coyle-Larner celebrating the Best Performance win at this year's UKMVAs in October.You've also done a number of visualisers for the album too...GH: Owning your own production company helps, right? You can turn around kind of small budget stuff, but with a lot of love and a lot of passion, and things look great. So with these, there were five very simple ideas. I think four of them he had ideas for himself.What's so fun about those visualizers is that they're not music videos. A music video works best when the music scoring the visuals in a way so it's like a scene out of a movie and you're using that track to bring the scene to life, whereas these were the opposite. You don't actually want your brain to engage with them in the same way as a music video.But there has to be enough visual interest that there's at least something going on. So actually, it's about the small details. It's about that in HGU, the orange peel or the manager keep texting him and turning his phone over, while he's playing chess with his Dad. These tiny little details that I love putting into my films anyway.The same with Homerton. He's outside the Homerton hospital where his child was born. And we don't know why he's waiting or who he's waiting for, but he's waiting for somebody. And even though you don't see his kid, his kid is on the back seat.• Watch Greg Hackett at Spindle here; and The Coyle-Larner Brothers here

Deepfake is a magnet for controversy. But what if the technology could be used to make a positive impact? Elliot Lee and Rory Peyton-Jones aka BRIGHTNIGHT have done just that with a video that brings a young rapper back to life to highlight the tragic consequences of knife crime. In the video for Life Cut Short, the grime artist called Depzman stands in a disused church addressing the camera with impressive confidence, rapping about his childhood and his career - and the day he died.The fact is that Depzman - otherwise known as Joshua Ribera - was a rising star in the London grime scene when he was stabbed to death, at the age of just 18, in 2013. But now, he has been brought back to life, via the eerily convincing power of Deepfake tech, in the video for a new track, Life Cut Short.Depz talks to camera, addressing a new generation who love grime - and leaves them with no illusion about the tragedy of his entirely avoidable demise. With knife crime having taken so many other young lives in the UK since his death, this is a film that uses technology that is often regarded as controversial in order to send a powerful, positive message, with the intention of preventing further tragedies. The film was commissioned by The Joshua Ribera Foundation, the charity that combats knife crime in his name that was founded by Alison Cope, Depzman/Joshua's mother; and also by SBTV, whose founder Jamal Edwards was integral in the creative conception before his death earlier this year. And since its release its been featured on BBC News and shared by leading grime artists Jaykae, JME and Skepta. It was devised by Elliot Lee and Rory Peyton-Jones, a creative team at the ad agency McCann London, who also directed the video, under their directing alias, BRIGHTNIGHT, through Intergalactic Studios. Lee and Peyton-Jones were inspired to find a new way to talk to young people about knife crime through culture. But it was a long time in the making - a full three years from conception to delivery.That began in earnest with the writing and recording of the track, and recreating the voice and recognisable flow of Depzman. Midlands’ rappers ShadowCV and T-Roadz ghost-wrote the lyrics with support from Alison Cope - inspired by Depzman’s life and music, emulating the cadence and style of his rapping - and the track was produced by music company Native Music.Birmingham producer PhazeFX produced the instrumental in the style of grime from 2013 style with a 140bpm grime beat complete with choir sounds and melancholy piano. To bring the vocal to life a base recording was manipulated by Native Studios to recreate Depzman’s voice, combining samples, different voices and autotuning. They also reached out to Depzman’s old crew, Invasion, to make sure it was authentic, resulting in a sound that matched Depzman’s voice just before he died.We spoke to Elliot Lee and Rory Peyton-Jones about how they approached the next challenging stage of the project - creating the visuals to match the music, and their reasons for using Deepfake technology.Technology can always be used in a good or bad way. We think it’s important to showcase the good side of what can be achieved.PROMONEWS: At what point did you get involved in the project?BRIGHTNIGHT: We were involved from the very start of the project. Coming up with the idea, to delivering the final music video. It was an extremely daunting task to initially present this to Alison (Depzman’s Mum) being such a sensitive idea around her son. However her resilience, bravery and belief in this concept kept us going for three years!When was it decided to go the Deepfake route? It's often surrounded in controversy, so were you involved in that discussion?To be honest Deepfake seemed the only viable solution. For a few reasons. Being a charity project the budget was very limited (if any), and we just felt a CGI version of Depzman wouldn’t deliver the level of realism that we needed. This had to feel like he’s returned from beyond the grave.Over the three years of the project, Deepfake technology had grown exponentially and a couple of Deepfake artists were really pushing the boundaries of what could be done. For us technology can always be used in a good or bad way, and we think it’s important as directors and creatives to showcase the good side of what can be achieved. To create a compelling Deepfake you need to have lots of footage of the person you’re looking to copy.Technically speaking, what were the challenges here? What footage or material did you have to use to create Depzman for the video?The main challenges were definitely making sure we had enough data points of Depzman that we could feed into the deepfake AI system. Many of his old freestyle videos were 720p or lower, some maybe pushing HD.Luckily our deepfake artist MagicofBarca would send us tests regularly in order to make sure his system was learning. Overall from videos and old photos we managed to get over 22,000 different frames that were good enough to use and map against our body double.How did the footage that you had of Joshua/Depzman impact upon the shoot? Technically the shoot was actually fairly simple. When Tom [Ringsby] & Rhory [Danniells] at Intergalactic found the church location we knew aesthetically that would do the heavy emotional lifting in terms of set design and art direction.We wanted the video to have the feel of an old SBTV freestyle - a rapper simply performing to camera but with added gravitas provided by the location of the weathered church. To achieve it we needed a body double for Depzman who could lip sync the lyrics and mimic Depz’s characteristic movement, down to the movement of the head and hands. A hard but necessary job to cast.Then Paddy [Cartwright] our wizard DOP was aware that we had to keep everything fairly stationary and no crazy camera moves to make sure the deepfake would stabilise in post. It was a really fun but challenging task as he usually likes to shoot things with loads more energy. He felt that shooting everything on 25mm and on a gimbal with just a slight bit of floaty movement would be enough to give the film interest, but again always aware of not interfering with the Deepfake process.Above: Alison Cope, anti-knife crime campaigner and mother of Depzman, appears in the Life Cut Short video, introducing the Deepfake version of her son. Alison Cope's resilience, bravery and belief in this concept kept us going for three years.Was it a difficult process to make a convincing likeness of him? Have you done anything like this before?No we’ve never done anything like this before. One thing that was important was we had to shoot our body double in three different types of lighting - natural, dark and spotlight. Capturing loads of stills and 360 footage around his face and body was key. What’s so great about the technology is once you capture your double with the desired light, then the AI tries to replicate this - which again is why we were keen to use deepfake over building a digital CG version of Depz to simulate that extreme level of realism.Who else was involved in the creation of the VFX? MagicofBarca, one of the top YouTube Deepfake artists is the man behind the technology.Is there a 'key ingredient' in making a good DeepFake? Data sets. In order to create a compelling Deepfake you need to have lots and lots of footage and imagery of the person you’re looking to copy. It’s the difference between when you see the really badly done versions that are shaking and falling off compared to the ones that look exactly like the person.The video has been shared widely by some top grime artists. What are your hopes for the project? Grime music and Deepfakes are both artistic mediums that have received a lot of criticism in the press but music, including Grime, can be an incredibly powerful tool to tell stories and tap into emotion. And Deepfake video is yet another filmmaking tool that can be used in many ways. In this case both have been used to make something powerful, positive and provocative. Hopefully it will save lives.• More from Intergalactic Studios here

We spoke to Will Hooper and Max McLachlan about why turning Bally Gill into a cactus in their UKMVA-nominated video for funk band Franc Moody was just part of a bigger masterplan. Will Hooper and Max McLachlan have made much more than a music video for Franc Moody's new release. The pair have pretty much created a world to accompany the main single from the acclaimed London funk outfit's third album, Into The Ether. And a very strange world it is too. The project centres on the music video that Hooper (above left) and McLachlan (right) co-directed for the single Raining In LA - a comic-horror piece with very surreal overtones, in which a businessman in need of a holiday, takes a trip organised by the mysterious travel agency named FM Travel. It turns out he is heading to a barren desert - where he will undergo a remarkable transformation: metamorphising into a cactus. Prickles and everything.Starring Bally Gill (Sherwood, Slow Horses, RSC's Romeo & Juliet) the Raining In LA video is the centrepiece of a collection of films to support the song and the album. It also includes an 'infomercial' for the sinister FM Travel, featuring the band led by Ned Franc and Jon Moody as shifty salespeople, pushing the FM dream - included as part of the Raining In LA promo; the video for I'm In A Funk where a manic individual (Charles Timpson) distributes FM Travel flyers among the bemused public in a London neighbourhood; the visualiser for In Transit, also featuring Franc and Moody as the wheeler-dealer travel agents.This is also the first time that Hooper and McLachlan have worked on a project together as co-directors. Will Hooper has built his reputation since signing to Blink in 2018 with his videos for IDLES, Declan McKenna, Rag 'n Bone Man, Dua Lipa and others, and is now usually busy making commercials. By contrast, McLachlan is an up and coming talent, busy working on promos for the likes of Ibibio Sound Machine, Naima Bock, Girli and October and The Eyes.So we spoke to the two directors about how the Franc Moody project and their collaboration came together.From the beginning the imagery of a journey into the desert was crucial to the band.PROMONEWS: How did the project begin for you? What were the label and band looking for? WILL: Quite a long time ago actually - way back in October of last year. The band’s management reached out to myself and Laura [Northover] at Blink. They sent us a few early mixes for a handful of songs that would feature on their next record Into The Ether, and straight away I could sniff the delicious promise in the tracks. They were really good and I was immediately interested.We then got an epic conceptual breakdown of the whole album that they’d carefully put together for us, with a little breakdown of each track individually. This was incredibly useful to form a total picture of what the album was trying to tell everyone. They also told us they wanted to shoot in the desert. That was very important to them as so much of the record is inspired by the vast expanse of the desert.So I bought some Factor 50 and met the band, bringing with me a rucksack full of initial ideas to chat them through, mainly to see if anything tickled their fancy. It’s always a stab in the dark at this stage, so I always enjoy over-egging the pudding a bit and write far too many ideas than I should…Above: Will Hooper (left) and Max McLachlan in the offices of FM TravelWhen (and how) did you two decide to work together on the project?WILL: As the job was brought to us super-early in their album campaign launch, it ended up being one of those ones that drags out quite a bit - which ultimately is epic as you have actually have time to think about stuff and develop stuff, which is very rare to be afforded in music videos.At one stage in this long process however, I was looking a bit silly busy juggling a few commercial jobs and we decided that we needed an extra mind and pair of hands to do a bit of the leg work. We couldn’t find one of those so we got Max in.I jest. Max has been a long time friend of mine and someone who’s work I greatly admire. So we were super lucky that he’d agreed to come onto this job and co-direct it with me. Ideas came from Mormon educational adverts, Looney Tunes, and ancient internet videos.MAX: Franc Moody were magnetically drawn to Will’s unique and grubby genius - as was I when I first found out about Blink. After I started running there and got to know him, we discovered we had the same disgraceful taste.I’ve been lucky enough to assist Will with some jobs. And when he became really busy with commercial work we spoke about me coming on board and diving into the deep end of the sand-filled world that Will was already forming for Franc Moody’s album.Will had already created a bank of desert and office-laced imagery for each track. Then when we sat down we began to tie it all together and build a world we were excited to make real. From there it was pretty organic. I've definitely learnt a lot but luckily at every new stage our creative approach together came naturally.WILL: Max brought so much of his genius to it. He probably made the movie at least 69 times better than if I had not forced him to do it.Above: Hooper (centre) and McLachlan (right) with DoP Carlos Feher, on location in the Tabernas Desert. We found ourselves out in the harshest desert Spain had to offer... How much material have you created for the album, and how would you describe it, in terms of the ideas it’s exploring, and its relationship to the band and their new music?WILL: It’s funny, this project has been going on for quite some time, [so] I feel like we forget how much has even been created for the album.The core of our project was always the Raining In LA video. So most of the other content acts to expand the world, or create crumbs leading to that video, which hopefully gives more context to the previous work.MAX: Throughout the project we knew we had to balance the strange tone we wanted to create, and the themes of self-discovery, with the utter funkiness and groove of their music. We wanted to make sure it always had a sense of fun and energy that didn’t strip away any of the pure danceability of the tracks.Anna Kennedy... said the two words that changed our lives: BALLY and GILL.The tone is quirky and surreal to the point of being unsettling - and arguably quite a sobering message. What were your main reference points? WILL: David Lynch was a crucial reference from the very beginning. There was never anything specific from one of his films we wanted to draw from, but the tone he creates is perfect. The malaise of his movies which allows you to laugh at the oddity of them while still forcing you to keep your wits about you at all times.MAX: As far as specific ideas we drew from, they came from Mormon educational adverts, Looney Tunes, and ancient internet videos - which is the only way we can communicate.How did you come up with the concept of FM Travel, and what is its significance in the whole project? How does this reflect what Franc Moody are about?WILL: The album is an exploration of self-discovery, and from the beginning the imagery of a journey into the desert was crucial to the band. However, we were worried about making a 'go to the desert and you’ll find yourself' movie that sells cheap answers and false hopes, inadvertently promoting a ‘move into a luxury RV in the desert with a pug called Petunia and you’ll never feel sad again!!’ Instagram-lifestyle.Above: Bally Gill prepares to become full cactus, hands-first.Instead we decided to flip it on its head and focus on someone having been sold a dream journey of self-discovery, only to be left stranded with more confusion in place of answers. Thus our dream journey salesmen/hucksters, aka FM Travel, was born. Once we started to discuss why they would want to trap people in the desert, we delved deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole of the lore.The centrepiece is Raining In LA, where a man’s dream holiday turns out to be a one-way trip to the desert. Where did you shoot it and what were the main challenges of the shoot?MAX: We looked at a lot of deserts. Big ones, small ones, skinny ones. And when we got the recce pics through from the Spanish contact we were talking to it was a stop in tracks moment for us and we knew [the Tabernas Desert, in South-Eastern Spain] was the one. It wasn’t immediately the easiest location to service however, but the setting was so important to our story, that we found ways to make it work.So yes, we found ourselves out in the harshest desert Spain had to offer, our skin frying in the rays of the Tabernas sun. It was hot, it was sweaty, it had few toilets... [but] it was amazing.WILL: Naturally it’s difficult to film in the middle of nowhere, there’s hardly access to a nearby Argos if you forget anything, let alone figuring out getting anything out there in the first place. Massive respects and honour must be paid to the one and only Laura Northover who mastered riding the treacherous, gnarly dunes with a rented minivan…How did you cast award-winning actor Bally Gill in the role of the hapless traveller? Was it a difficult makeup job turning him into a plant?MAX: We were crazy lucky to have a hand from the casting legend, Anna Kennedy. She saw a list of actors we had created who we thought would be of the right sort of vibe, and she said the two words that changed our lives: BALLY and GILL.As soon as we saw his reel we knew he could bring the goods and my god did he deliver. I can’t believe he was told “can you become a cactus for these two human worms for a music video?” and he said “get me on that plane”.After he came out of that make-up chair with sticks on his green-painted face, fear boiling in his eyes, you knew it couldn’t have been anyone other than Bally Gill.Above: Art dept assistant Ricardo Leon and production manager Ana Gamiz prepare the cactus for final shot of Raining In LAWhat's the story about the guy in the I'm In A Funk visual trying to hand out FM Travel flyers? And when and where did you shoot that video?M: When Will started the project, he threw out a blast of bizarre and distinct desert visuals for the band to chew on; the image of a man wandering with a plastic bag constantly pouring out sand really stuck with them.Once we got deeper into the project together we started to discuss what this could add to the world we were building. We already knew we wanted our main character in Raining In LA to have been drawn in by a flyer, so it dawned on us this mystery man could be a FM Travel employee, sent from the desert on a mission to lure people.We decided the plastic sand bag was a sand timer, counting down the clock before he is banished back to the desert realm. Then it was just a matter of finding the right guy and running around Peckham with him, and boy oh boy did we find thee guy in Charles Timpson.How did you organise the production, in terms of shooting what, and when? WILL: We didn’t organise a single thing. We are hopeless. Endless <3s and praise goes to producer Rosie Brear for her tireless and resolute work on this job. The amount of deliverables and deadlines and moving parts was a headache that our tiny brains could not comprehend. Rosie has a galaxy brain and made the impossible happen with this. What a clever and talented and lovely egg she is.Rumours are the band have created nether-realm version of ourselves called Mill and Wax...Is there anything else coming out? And if so what can we expect?MAX: The sand-filled well of Franc Moody may never run dry (...or drier I suppose). There may be videos coming out we don’t even know we’ve created. Rumours are the band have created the nether-realm version of ourselves called Mill and Wax, who wear almost exact copies of our famous red and green plumber outfits but in disgusting purple and yellow, concocting and filming bizarre videos for eternity.WILL: Sorry about him. Yes, there is one more movie coming out - featuring Toni C, the Cactus Driver...• Will Hooper is represented by Blink for music videos and commercials. Watch more of his work here and Max McLachlan's work here.

We talk to Teeeezy C about his powerful video for Bandokay's Memories, the young rapper's lament for his late father Mark Duggan - who's death sparked the London riots in 2011 - and his approach to the issues addressed in the track. Teeeezy C's new video for Bandokay marks a move into new territory for the director, presenting him with a different challenge to any of the many videos for hip hop and grime artists he has made before. How do you channel a genuine feeling of grief and loss into a medium that rarely deals with these matters?Bandokay - real name: Kemani Duggan - is the son of a man who died in 2011: Mark Duggan. His death, after being stopped by police in North London sparked nationwide riots that summer. Thirteen years later, Bandokay has released Memories, focussing upon the father who died when he was ten years old; still grieved by him and his family. Teeeezy's video for Memories chooses a combination of symbolism and documentary reality to capture the dichotomy between personal feelings of loss and the environment in which both he and his father rose to adulthood. There are representations of both religion - the iconography of Christianity to be specific - and also the side effects of warfare, plus more footage of life in 'the ends', all captured in almost tactile grittiness on 16mm film by Henry Gill.The video for Memories marks a notable new step for the director, so we talked to Teeeezy about the project. All those mentioned in the video... should not be forgotten.PROMONEWS: How did this project start for you? ? Was Bandokay someone that you were aware of? TEEEEZY C: I first worked with Bandokay back in the summer of last year. But this was the first time I had a chance to really sit down and delve into the meaning of the track. It’s quite a dark and ominous expression of pain and street culture. I felt it needed a visual representation to match.Did you get a lead from Bandokay and/or the label about what they wanted?I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to take the lead on this project and had creative freedom to take it where I saw fit. I worked closely alongside Mus who is part of Bandokay’s management team and when he sent me the track, I knew it was something special.What was the key element in the treatment for Memories that won them over?I think there are a few interesting themes that got their attention. Firstly, Bandokay mentions his late father, Mark Duggan on the track. It was that event that was a catalyst that led to the events of the London Riots in 2011 and a wider conversation on the legality and dark underbelly of the use of extreme force by the Metropolitan Police Service. I think management knew that I understood the ramifications and background to the song, and as such, I’d be able to capture the essence of what the song meant.Shooting on film appears to immortalise what you capture.Depending on who you speak to, some news outlets simply attempt to label Mark Duggan as a criminal, and as such a police execution is somehow just or acceptable. I wanted to show the flipside of this bigoted and counter-intuitive thinking. Mark was a father, a brother, a friend and most importantly, a person. Capturing the loss and void left by his father was one of the most important components in this visual.When you watch the video, you can really see the pain in his Bandokay’s eyes. Losing a parent is heart breaking but having them stolen from you by an extension of the government is horrific. I think this sadness is reflected by the violin on the instrumental as well as the manner in which Bandokay is captured on camera. Many of the moments are natural and unscripted, it was important to just observe instead of choreograph.Equally, the Church in the video and the biblical themes also corelate to the notions of life and death. The Last Supper setup was a nod at the Bible with an important twist. The table is laid with golden dinnerware, a symbol of status and wealth. It represents the material items in life that many strive for.However, the blackened food juxtaposes that material wealth with the idea that in such pursuits, we can often lose ourselves, compromise our morals and damage our spiritualty. More specifically, it relates to the pursuit of materialism from a street perspective, sinning in order to acquire, which is no doubt toxic and erodes one’s wellbeing.Finally, the Russian Roulette setup develops on the Last Supper scene as a metaphor for risking ones’ life, represented by the spinning gun. Involvement in street life can come with consequences - it’s essentially a gamble. In conjunction with the Confessional setup, I think the video offers an honest and truthful outlook on the song. It does not glamourise the subject matter, but instead captures it as it is.Broadwater Farm... holds a presence like no other council estate I’ve ever been to.How much of the content came out of trying things out on the day, or was everything storyboarded? Probably around 85% of the video was storyboarded prior to the shoot, perhaps a little more. I knew exactly what I wanted from many of the setups, reinforced on our recce and tech recce.I always like to leave a little room for experimentation and improvisation because I definitely feel some golden moments you cannot anticipate; you can only react to. Given that we shot on 16mm + 35mm film, having a really solid plan was important in ensuring the edit flowed correctly.What inspired the decision to shoot on film?I was working alongside my good friend and repeat collaborator Henry Gill who has DP’d quite a few videos for myself. If you know anything about Henry, he’s one of the best DP’s on film around at the moment, so that was a factor in shooting on the medium.My main focus this year has been to develop my skills in the craft of filmmaking.Equally, I’ve been getting the ever-increasing sense that shooting on film appears to immortalise what you capture. When I watch the work of others on film, the projects always age well, they never feel dated or out of touch. Instead, I feel like I’m right there with them in that moment, it gives for an incredibly immersive viewer experience.Henry also DP’d Bru-C’s Playground for me earlier this year and we had some really positive feedback on that. As such, building on that foundation and keep the momentum going felt natural.When and where did you shoot the different elements of the video? The video was shot across two days in London. We used a stunning Church dating back to the 1600s as our main shoot location. The architecture and styling of the building felt grand but still gritty, a reflection on the track itself.On our second day of shooting, we travelled to the Broadwater Farm Estate in Tottenham, where Bandokay hails from. It was built in the late 1960s and holds a presence like no other council estate I’ve ever been to. The roads within the block are like a maze, once you’re in its very easy to get lost and very hard to get out. The urban decay of the area provided a powerful backdrop for the block performance scenes, presenting Bandokay as a refined artist - a stark comparison to his surroundings.We also filmed the cemetery scene at Mark Duggan’s burial site. This was perhaps one of the most powerful moments for me on the project. It was a very humbling experience to film at such a location, and a reminder of how very human we are. Just a stone’s throw away from the cemetery was a park, where the sound of music and laughter could be heard. It was quite poetic in many regards, the contrast of life and death was so simply poignant.The aim was to bring awareness to the issue as the recent events sadly echo those of Mark Duggan.You have addressed the political controversy and feelings of injustice that followed Mark Duggan's death in a restrained way, at the start and end of the video. What was the thinking about taking this approach?The initial message at the start of the video and tribute at the end was something Bandokay wanted to incorporate. This song was very personal for him, even more so given it was released on the birthday of his father. It was a touching note and a very pure moment in the video.It just so happens that the timing of the video falls in line with the recent incident involving Chris Kaba, very much a tragic coincidence. The aim was simply to bring awareness to the issue as the recent events sadly echo those of Mark Duggan. All those mentioned in the video and indeed all those that lost their lives at the hands of police deserve to not be forgotten, instead we hope that spreading awareness can help motivate social change and promote reform.There appears to be quite a development in your own work since the start of the year. Where does that stem from?Since the start of the year my main focus has been to develop my skills in the craft of filmmaking. I’ve been spending a lot more time researching different directors and videos, as well as the technical side of blocking, storyboarding and using symbolism to simplify ideas yet still conveying a message.Equally, spending more time working on fewer projects has really allowed me to get the best out of my team and myself. I’m always asking myself 'why are you doing this?' or 'what motivates this setup?'. If I’m unable to answer, I force myself back to the drawing board. Motivation is so important as a driving force in telling stories, and questioning my own reasoning helps as a self-regulator.• Watch more of Teeeezy C's work here