Director

Astrid Edwards

Astrid Edwards, director and producer of music videos and other music programming for three decades, is still mixing things up.&nbsp;&nbsp;She has just been <a href="https://www.promonews.tv/news/2020/11/26/63rd-grammy-award-nominations-beyonc%C3%A9-nominated-best-music-video-and-best-music-film/68206" target="_blank">nominated for a Grammy</a>, for her part in producing the spectacular Beyoncé video for&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRFS0MYTC1I&amp;feature=emb_title" target="_blank">Brown Skin Girl</a>. By complete contrast, her video for Cornershop's I'm A Wooden Soldier is a real DIY effort: she directed, produced,&nbsp;animated, edited the video herself - and features in it too.&nbsp;The work&nbsp;is inspired by the cut-and-paste aesthetic of Sniffin' Glue and other fanzines of the punk rock era. With the help of designer Sim Tennant, Edwards uses stock footage and stop-frame collage animation to make&nbsp;the link&nbsp;between the politically-charged atmospheres of&nbsp;late 70s and today, to accompany a&nbsp;characteristic anthem&nbsp;from Cornershop's acclaimed album England Is A Garden, released earlier this year.[imgtoken data:1]

United Kingdom

Rockmother Films

Squire

Sim Tennant

Indie

Cornershop 'I'm A Wooden Soldier' by Astrid Edwards

CORNERSHOP "I'm a wooden soldier." Directed by Astrid Edwards.

Having directed her own videos for a while,&nbsp;Roisín Murphy now takes the plunge&nbsp;for the first time with another artist, coming up with a subversive knockabout comedy for The Fat White Family which gets to grips with the joys of Monty Python.The video for Tastes Good With The Money is a loose homage to some classic Python moments from the original Flying Circus TV series, in particular the most aggressively violent bits, and the Pythons&#39; fondness for dressing up as old ladies.So prepare yourself&nbsp;for a remake of Noel Coward&#39;s Salad Days, as directed by Sam Peckinpah, now reimagined by Roisin Murphy and FWF. It&#39;s bloody... Plus a nice cameo by Baxter Dury thrown in for good measure.

Róisín Murphy

Phil Tidy

Jamie Dyer

Gabi Norland

Chris Hayden

Theresa Adamson

Joe Williams

Claudia Lyster

Polly Banks

Darren Evans

Ben Unwin

Connor Coolbear

Electric Theatre Collective

John Moule

Domino

Jay Creagh

Josie Corben

Jason Bradley

Rock

Fat White Family 'Tastes Good With The Money' by Roisín Murphy

Fat-White-Family-'Tastes-Good-With-The-Money'-by-Roisin-Murphy

The third video to come from Róisín&nbsp;Murphy's collaborative ventures with Maurice Fulton is another wildly experimental vision directed by the artist herself.Following the overriding theme for the previous two, Róisín takes us to the dancefloor and really messes with our heads. This time for Jacuzzi Rollercoaster, there are cutout images akimbo:&nbsp;Róisín, Maurice, and her coterie of brain-addled, sweaty dancers are endlessly multiplied in mesmerising, elegantly rendered patterns.Nice job on the VFX by the extremely patient and hardworking post team at Squire - all achieved, of course, on a challenging budget. And it has been said before here, but it's worth repeating that as well as a great musician,&nbsp;Róisín Murphy is really a very talented director and visual artist too.&nbsp;

Lisa Turnbull

George Nelson

Matthew Emvin Taylor

Malte Huebner

Gabriel Jones

Massimo Fillipi

Charlotte King

Poppy Bell

Kirsty Graham

Peter Croker/andras Polonyi

Andras Polonyi

Bence Varga

Tom Dreller

Vinyl Factory

Dance

Róisín Murphy ft Ali Love 'Jacuzzi Rollercoaster' by Róisín Murphy

Róisín-Murphy-'Jacuzzi-Rollercoaster-Feat.-Ali-Love'-by-Róisín-Murphy

Long-time collaborators director Nicola Mills and producer Astrid Edwards team&nbsp;up to make this engaging short film in London and the wilds of Suffolk for Ex-Galliano frontman William Adamson to partner his track Flatlands, released this week on Gilles Peterson&#39;s Brownswood Recordings label. &nbsp;

Nicola Mills

Alex Ryle

Izzy Curry

Stitch Editing

Edwin Metternich

Framestore

Rob Gallagher Aka William Adamson

Gilles Peterson At Brownswood Recordings

Brownswood Recordings

Dilip Harris

Stacy Laing

William Adamson  'Flatlands' by Nicola Mills

William-Adamson--'Velvets'-by-Nicola-Mills

Using Go Pro cameras and improvised rigs to capture the young singer and rapper K. Koke's brooding performances around central London, and overlooking a runway at Heathrow Airport, it could hardly be further than Vaughan's classic pop vids for Robbie Williams, George Michael, etc. But then Vaughan has also been the go-to guy to launch numerous careers too...
"I've wanted to shoot a promo using only Go Pro cameras for a long time," he says. "The challenge of working solely with a simple £250 fixed lens camera has always really excited me. It was so refreshing to be able work in such a pared down, minimalistic way. 
"The real reward in this was being able to work more closely with the artist as Josh's movements were integral to the dynamic of the shot. We shot the entire film with a total crew of five people in one van, with two backpacks and several Go Pro cameras mounted on various bespoke rigs built by ourselves on the kitchen worktop. That was the weird thing - we would shoot, decide to move on and then automatically look round for the crew horde behind us only to realise it was actually just us! 
"Consequently, it was very fast to shoot although it took a while to get used to not having the luxury of playback to check back what we had shot." Mega-portable, guerilla film-making - which made possible the distinctive shots of Josh walking in a very wet and eerily deserted West End.

Stink Films

Vaughan Arnell

James Whetherly

Max Windows

Daniel Millar

Josh Kumra 'Helicopters And Planes' by Vaughan Arnell

At long last on Promo News - Astrid Edwards video for Cornershop's Milkin' It, which is also just a short part of a documentary she's made in Oakland, the fourth most dangerous city in America. 
"I shot it on a wing, a prayer and some airmiles in East Oakland, Ca.," says Astrid. "The song is a lament to old school hip hop - so I went to USA's 4th most dangerous city and shot a film featuring turf dancers, grafitti artists and various other sorts along the way."
Astrid is a producer, of course, of a many music videos, plus a great deal besides, and has been directing documentaries too for a while. And she was spurred to make this by Nile Rodgers, another subject of a recent Astrid-directed doc. It was shown at the London Short Film Festival a few months ago, and a one hour doc is in the works.
An exhibition about the project has recently taken place at the Filmbase in Dublin, and below is Astrid's interview for the exhibition about her time in Oakland making the Cornershop video. 

http://www.youtube.com/watchv=EBti3lGmWqU
Astrid Edwards on making the video for Cornershop ft In Light Of Aquarius's Milkin' It
Your film features turf dancers. What is turf dancing, and why did you feature it in Cornershop?s music video
Hearing Cornershop?s ?Milkin? It? reminded me of the early days of hip-hop. As a 12-14 year old I tripped effortlessly from disco to punk and reggae, that segued nicely into funk, hip-hop and new wave. All of these genres had one thing in common: real communities doing it for themselves. Around the same time, Nile Rodgers [creator of one of the most sampled hip-hop breaks of all time - Chic?s ?Good Times?] sent me a link to ?RIP June? - a viral turf dance film. The whole thing blew me away. The dance was a language in itself: a mishmash of breakdancing, ballet, and tutting, usually done in response to a young friend dying - an RIP dance. I started researching the background to turf dancing and discovered that it?s unique to Oakland, California. And then I decided: if Oakland was the catalyst then that?s where the video should be shot. It wasn?t easy on a shoestring budget, but with a lot of focus, some rediscovered airmiles, and not taking no for an answer I made it happen.

Who are the dancers that feature in the film
You see two dancers in the film - Eninja and Chonkie - the two dancers I saw originally in ?RIP June?. They were the best I?d seen, so I decided to track them down. It took me two months and it wasn?t easy. The most important thing for me was that they trusted me - this is what took the time. They have their own dance group Turf Feinz. Many of them say that if they weren?t doing turf dancing they?d be dead or at best ?a gangster?. Turf dancing isn?t a fad or a hobby, it?s a way of life - and it?s literally saving lives on the streets of East Oakland.
The video features much more than dancing, though. Was that pre-meditated
I?d always intended the film to have an observational, documentary style. Turf dancing is about so much more than just dancing. The film is essentially about hope in a community and draws reference from the early 80?s hip-hop vibe - that lo-fi, DIY style that subsumed popular culture at the time. In saying that, I could never have quite predicted what we ended up with. I shot it very fast over two days on a combination of a digital SLR and a smaller HD flip camera. ]I met some serious characters along the way. Ex-Black Panther ?Ray P-Funk? was convinced I was a cop and frisked me a little too vigorously several times over. He was worried I had a gun. To be truthful, I was more worried he had a gun - he was very volatile at first and pretty high. Ray opens the film. We stopped by an impromptu eviction protest, and I agreed to film the residents? story. It all unfolded before my eyes. The police had gained illegal entry the night before, smashed up the property and intimidated residents. As I was filming a cop showed up - and, amazingly, admitted his force were in the wrong. My enduring memory, though, is of 7 year-old Kevere, bright as a shiny, new button presenting me with his dinosaur pictures, while I talked to Gordon. Gordon had recently become homeless: he had pneumonia, diabetes, and was living from his wheelchair in a bus shelter. He came out to support the residents on his way to hospital. He was hoping that they wouldn?t amputate his foot as he was struggling after having the first one amputated a few months previously. This harsh contrast of the beginning of life and the probable end of life brought together in one shot was overwhelmingly galling. I gave Gordon a hug as I left. I knew I?d never see him again. "Oh, I?ll be around somewhere" he said, looking up at the sky. I knew exactly what he meant. I often think of him. You?ll see Gordon in the film.

Did East Oakland feel as dangerous as its reputation of America?s 4th most dangerous city
The streets are eerily quiet - no one?s around, no one goes out - and by the second day I was beginning to understand why. The walls are covered in RIP murals to dead children and young people who?ve been gunned down either deliberately or via crossfire. Most people I spoke to said: ?Don?t go, you?ll get shot!?. Ironically, there was a double shooting by my hotel the night I arrived - and I actually felt safest on the ?roughest blocks?. I was considered ?a neutral? i.e. I wasn?t a cop or someone who was selling drugs on someone else?s patch. I had to talk to people pretty fast and tell them what I was doing as many were rightly thinking ?what the hell is that woman doing here? Most were receptive, others weren?t and I respectfully left them alone. I know people looked out for me. I was very much an outsider looking in, and I wanted to show the vibrancy and hope of a community that?s so slammed with the label ?broken?. Creative expression by any means necessary - that?s the true essence of hip-hop, and I hope very much that is what comes across in the film.

Phil Currie

Cornershop ft In Light Of Aquarius 'Milkin' It' by Astrid Edwards

Cornershop-ft-In-Light-Of-Aquarius-'Milkin'-It'-by-Astrid-Edwards

Promonews Podcast

Astrid Edwards

Director

Videos featuring Astrid Edwards

2020 (1)

2019 (1)

2018 (1)

2014 (1)

2012 (2)

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