Editor/publisher of Promonews, editorial director of the UK Music Video Awards, and freelance music video commissioner.

Commissioner

David Knight

Sports Team prepare the ground for the release of their second album Gulp! with the anthemic The Drop - and arguably their most ambitious video so far.A.T. Mann's video involves the band cavorting stylishly through the halls of Carlton House in North Yorkshire&nbsp;- and then frontman Alex Rice attempts a spot of tightrope-walking across the gilded towers...

A. T. Mann

Rosie Ford

Jack Hartley

Zomdic Films

Etienne Newton

Rik Burnell

Sam James

Dan Mccaffrey

Adam Cook

Chris Sarginson

Nicola Bell

Louise Hood

Ailsa Chaplin

Island Records

Ornit Levy

Tal Baltuch

Sports Team 'The Drop' by A.T. Mann

Sports Team - The Drop

Gus Black delivers a story of passion and yearning on a huge canvas for The Amazons' full-throttle anthem.The video for How Will I Know? focusses upon a pair of young lovers (played by Cailyn Rice and Jason Marrs) who are now separated - her in Los Angeles; him on the road, driving across country&nbsp;- but both haunted by the memory of their last time together. And as the narrative switches between&nbsp;locations and flashbacks to the past, the band's performance, featured&nbsp;in black and white, further amps up the emotion.&nbsp;&nbsp;[imgtoken data:1]Self-shooting director Black drove across country from the Badlands of North Dakota to Los Angeles with his male lead, to capture him in some breathtaking, iconic locations in the American West - including impressive brilliant use of drone photography. As a result, this unapologetically romantic story has an epic quality to match&nbsp;the heartfelt emotion of the track.&nbsp;And will the lovers be reunited?&nbsp;Black keeps us in suspense to the very end...[imgtoken data:2]

United Kingdom

Gus Black

Alex Kennedy

Kelly Norris Sarno / Agency Arts

Agp Films

Tim Toda

Cameron Marygold

Jason Marrs

Cailyn Rice

Fiction Records

Rock

The Amazons 'How Will I Know?' by Gus Black

The-Amazons-'How-Will-I-Know?'-by-Gus-Black

The Amazons return to action with the anthemic Bloodrush, and a&nbsp;fun, carnival sideshow-themed video by James Slater that gets the blood, and adrenalin&nbsp;pumping.&nbsp;The band wander into this atmospheric setting, absorbed by the performers, including trapeze artists, a BMX rider, fire-juggler -&nbsp;and a knife-throwing act. It's the latter that provides the real thrills as the Zons' lead singer Matt Thomson finds himself in the firing line of the blindfolded knife thrower.[imgtoken data:1]&nbsp;&nbsp;Slater and his production team found authentic talent&nbsp;for their carnival characters - including knife thrower Simon Ratzka, and his assistant&nbsp;Tor Callis - for the video shot at an abandoned amusement park in Lancashire.All appropriate precautions were taken, of course, when it came to&nbsp;the knives being thrown.&nbsp;No lead singers were harmed in the making of this video...

James Slater

Ruta Staseviciute

Ben Eve

George Haydock

Josh Lenaghan

Laurie Nutall

Lee Symington

Matthew Prickett

Work Editorial

Alexa Haywood at Free Agent UK

The Amazons 'Bloodrush' by James Slater

The Amazons - Bloodrush

Joao Retorta explores the connection between people and possessions in his quietly devastating visual for the American composer/performer Stephan Moccio.The video for Moccio's solo piano composition Halston&nbsp;is set&nbsp;in a&nbsp;Lost Property Office, where a solitary officer on the nightshift diligently records newly arrived belongings -&nbsp;photos, books, wallets, spectacles, passports, toys, and more - archiving and photographing each item.&nbsp;The viewer is invited to reflect upon&nbsp;the people who have lost these treasured possessions - who are represented in the film as anxious voices enquiring after lost items on the office answering machine.[imgtoken data:1]<blockquote>I was interested in the question of what the objects we leave behind say about ourselves.</blockquote>Retorta and his director of photography Fraser Rigg create a cinematic atmosphere in this setting with subdued and subtle lighting, complimenting the art direction by Louis Simonon, and allowing&nbsp;the plaintive&nbsp;refrain of Moccio's Halston&nbsp;to flourish&nbsp;as an emotional soundtrack to the human stories that accompany each object.&nbsp;And the understated performance by Linda Edmonds as the lost property officer provides a&nbsp;focus for the sense of loss and loneliness evoked by the music."I was interested in exploring the question of ‘what do the objects we leave behind tell us about ourselves?’," says Joao Retorta.&nbsp;"This setting works as a vehicle for us to look at these items and question their previous lives and owners,&nbsp;and how they&nbsp;came to be lost. I wanted them to work as small windows for something bigger. Something that is down to the viewer to fabricate."[imgtoken data:2]This is a&nbsp;real&nbsp;departure from much of Retorta's&nbsp;previous work in music videos. But the contained nature of the idea and the setting&nbsp;allows some magic to take place once the viewer is drawn in. Most importantly, it allows the cinematic emotion of Moccio's music to flourish."At its core, the video is about human experience," Retorta&nbsp;continues. "I wanted to create something that subtly explores life in the city by looking at the objects that its people left behind. Hopefully I achieved it to some degree.

Joao Retorta

Theo Hue Williams

Bullion Productions

Joel Spencer

Fraser Rigg

Riaz Ahmed

Louis Simonon

Liam Bachler

Tenthree Editing

Alex Gregory

No.8

Charlie Morris

Klong

OB Management

Decca Records

Modern Composition

Stephan Moccio 'Halston' by Joao Retorta

Stephan Moccio - Halston

James Slater's latest video for Leeds post-punk outfit Yard Act puts a modern twist on the&nbsp;'white syc' pop video trope - and on the wacky world of colourful Northern characters that populate the band's songs.While performing in that classic performance video set-up from the late '70s and early 80s, Yard Act's frontman James Smith delivers acerbic&nbsp;lyrics&nbsp;to the accompaniment of lettuce-selling orphan girl dancers. Slater updates the white syc theme with VFX, including wipes to transition between shots and radically alter perspective - and this disembodied space&nbsp;allows the whole band to also&nbsp;create new characters in the Yard Act world.&nbsp;As in Slater's&nbsp;previous videos for Yard Act, Smith again&nbsp;undergoes an eerily convincing transformation, this time as a grinning&nbsp;salesman, staring manically into the camera lens and exhorting us to 'take the money', as he throws around fake cash.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"The song reminded me of Crosseyed and Painless by Talking Heads, which happens to be one of my favourite vids," says Slater. "So&nbsp;it's kind of a homage to those bold and simple white syc videos, but with dancing orphan lettuce farmers instead of the Electric Boogaloos."The lead dancer&nbsp;Kayleigh actually appears in the first video I did for Yard Act&nbsp;for <a href="https://www.promonews.tv/videos/2021/09/14/yard-act-overload-james-slater/72771" target="_blank">The Overload</a>&nbsp;- we actually spotted her dancing behind a stall of a carboot whilst on a recce -&nbsp;and the Golden Rover makes a reappearance too. It's been nice expanding the Yard Act&nbsp;universe in this way."

Paul Mortlock

Dan Mccaffery

Tom McGoldrick

Lucy Gregory

Bethani Gowland

Emma Tierney

Post-Punk

Yard Act 'Payday' by James Slater

Yard-Act--'Payday'-by-James-Slater

James Slater brings the cast of characters bursting from the fertile mind of Yard Act lead singer James Smith to life in the video for The Overload - set in a car boot sale near Leeds.Smith has developed numerous of these oddball characters and voices in the band's releases thus far. Now with the title track of Yard Act's forthcoming debut album, he performs an energetic and&nbsp;splenetic stream of consciousness while persuing the goods of a quirky bunch of stall holders - including&nbsp;pink judges, morris dancing punks, fortune tellers, and dancing orphans.[imgtoken data:1]Then he transforms into his most powerful creation - a surly, gold Rover-driving promoter called Graham. It transpires he's not fan of Yard Act's mouthy lead singer, and his catchphrase is -&nbsp;"If you don't challenge me on anything, I'm actually very f*ckin nice."But ironically it is Graham who comes to James's aid, when the car boot community turn nasty, in Slater's rollicking, full throttle video.

Si Howells

Amii Priestly

Ash Fenners

Aaron Dunleavy

Aaron Dunleavy Films

Yard Act 'The Overload' by James Slater

Yard-Act--'The-Overload'-by-James-Slater

George Moir is the ice cream van man with his own weird, wonderful range of ice lollies, in George McCallum's video for Patio - arguably the staycation anthem of the summer.The&nbsp;West Country-based singer-songwriter's sweet,&nbsp;catchy song will ring true with nearly everyone this year - it's all about not being able to go on a foreign holiday, and having to make the best of it at&nbsp;home. Instead, its about working (mostly), and saving&nbsp;up 'to go next summer'.[imgtoken data:1]First-time director McCallum visualises this idea with inventiveness that owes something to his day job&nbsp;as an ad agency creative, and also to his&nbsp;'side-hustle' -&nbsp;as a baker of cakes disguised as very unlikely things - like a cigarette-filled ashtray.So Moir is not just a regular ice cream van guy, toiling through an English summer of variable weather - but also selling eccentric&nbsp;ices at odd prices, that are&nbsp;advertised on the side of the&nbsp;van, as you might expect, but&nbsp;which also come alive as animated characters throughout the video.&nbsp;And then, some are&nbsp;real - like a baked bean ice lolly, or one made out of loose change, or a diamond-studded ice cream.[imgtoken data:2]George Moir himself has a background as an animator, and this is his first video he has not directed himself. But McCallum has impressively built upon&nbsp;those previous DIY efforts, and allowed the singer's unassuming character to shine. And the attention to detail with the product range&nbsp;- designed by McCallum, animated by Jack Bailey - are&nbsp;the sprinkles and chocolate sauce on the 99.&nbsp;&nbsp;

George McCallum

Sam Page-Jones

Patio Productions

Natalie Steiner

Freddie Wright

Jan Vrhovnik

Devan Clarke-Sheward

Dan Howe

Ieva Petravičiūté

Rocio Cuenca

Chris Wilson

Homespun

Andi Chu

Black Kite Studios

Infectious

Jack Bailey

Oscar Stewart

Sam Knight

Jorinta Zarembaite

Andrew McNeil

Indie

George Moir 'Patio' by George McCallum

George Moir - Patio (Official Video)

Georgina Cammalleri digs deep into the intricacies of British folk tradition, and sends Sports Team spinning into a&nbsp;Wicker Man-esque frenzy, in her video for Happy (God's Own Country).The song - it's the band's first since the release of their Mercury-nominated debut album Deep Down Happy - is a scattershot vision of Post-Brexit Britain, and Cammalleri uses that as the jumping-off point for an irreverent metaphor, transporting viewers back to a&nbsp;"Merrie" old England, that is really not merry at all.After a crop failure, things move quickly down a path where old superstition and rituals take control. And when you have a ritual, you generally need a sacrifical lamb. Or in this case, a bear.[imgtoken data:1]The band play their part in these proceedings with rumbuncious energy and vigour -&nbsp;led by uninhibited frontman Alex Rice as the on-his-uppers squire (ostensibly playing the Christopher Lee role in&nbsp;The Wicker Man) and keyboardist Ben Mack, playing the 'straw bear', who's purpose is to bring back good fortune.DoP Pieter Snyman&nbsp;creates a surreal, dreamlike energy to this fastmoving narrative&nbsp;through a heavy use of zooms and handheld camerawork, replicating the mood of the cult 1973 British film. And it all&nbsp;builds to a chaotic&nbsp;finale, as the band and the Morris dancers - led by the shamanistic Phoenix Man - and head towards a big bonfire for the final ritual.So if anyone asks you if you want to wear a Straw Bear outfit, you should definitely refuse.GEORGINA CAMMALLERI ON MAKING THE SPORTS TEAM 'HAPPY (GOD'S OWN COUNTRY)' VIDEO:What was the process after you heard the song? Did you want to make a&nbsp;Wicker Man-style video, and then started going deeper into British folk culture? Or the other way around?GC: When I listen to a song, I try to find a world that resonates with the band or the song, lyrically or musically. When I heard Happy, the idea of our small island – isolated post-Brexit and further isolated by the pandemic - came to mind.&nbsp;This idea of our world being reduced to our borough, village, street… made me think of that village-type mentality. It made me think of that song&nbsp;Village Green Preservation Society&nbsp;by the Kinks, as well as&nbsp;The Wicker Man,&nbsp;and how they receive an outsider (the detective). They’re all tongue-in-cheek observations of that British village mentality which drew me to it, especially as the band are also somewhat dry-witted and tongue-in-cheek, so tonally those worlds felt right.[imgtoken data:2]<blockquote>This idea of our world being reduced to our borough, village, street… made me think of that village-type mentality.</blockquote>Once I had found my grounding and setting, I started to look at how I could give it a twist or an angle to elevate it further. That’s when I began watching countless archive clips of English folklore traditions on the BFI database and also the documentary Arcadia by Paul Wright. People have asked me if I’m referencing Midsommar and to my shame, I haven’t seen that film!What is the origin of the Straw Bear character that Ben plays in the video? Is that actually a thing?During that research, I came across a quirky tradition from Whittlesea called the Straw Bear Festival. This was rooted to a 15th century agricultural practice called 'Plough Monday,&nbsp;which involved parading a man dressed in a straw costume to raise money around town before they end up burning an effigy of it. I thought it’d be interesting to add this to the story about what sacrifices are made in the face of a ‘bad harvest’; in our modern case, the bad harvest being Brexit and Covid.I saw the photos of the costume from this tradition and it looked iconic - strange but also quite amusing. I’d noticed that in previous Sports Team videos Ben was quite deadpan in his expression, which I found very funny. I thought it’d be amusing to put him in the costume because it’s so rurally outlandish and yet he’s so deadpan.So was a Straw Bear expert involved in making the ‘straw suit’ for Ben? &nbsp;I reached out to the Straw Bear Festival organisers to see if they could create this costume – thought it’d be a neat idea to have it properly, traditionally weaved. The main organiser was extremely helpful but declined into being directly involved, as they felt it would cause a stir in their village. Apparently, they had fought quite hard to re-instate the festival which was deemed pagan by the church and my treatment’s heavy Wicker Man reference would certainly 'reignite debate', in their opinion.[imgtoken data:3]<blockquote>I wanted to put Ben in the costume because it’s so rurally outlandish&nbsp;and yet he’s so deadpan.</blockquote>At that point I was reassured that idea was perfect for the song as the themes from ST’s lyrics were almost playing out in real life. But I was also slightly stressed not knowing who could pull off such an intricate costume made with flimsy straw. Luckily Kashmir Wickham came to the rescue and, with guidance from the Straw Bear organisers, was able to create it. We did find that various other countries around the world also have a similar tradition involving men in ‘straw suits’ and that it’s not unique to the UK.There’s the Morris dancing element - with Sports Team joining in, and looking like they know what they’re doing. How did you make that happen?I also noticed was how much Alex likes to move and perform. Rather than keeping it rooted in narrative alone, I thought finding a dance that belonged to this world would be good for Alex and&nbsp;the band, and would also inject the video with an energy that goes with the tempo but still keeps it in that folklore world.I sent about 20 emails to various Morris sides in London and only two got back to me. The Phoenix Morris group [based in Rickmansworth] were so generous and game for anything, so they became part of our team. Then the band learned the steps via Zoom before the dress rehearsal. There was a moment during the shoot when we had finished a take of the dance and we kept saying&nbsp;“Cut” -&nbsp;but they all kept dancing, as if they had been possessed by the spirit of Morris.[imgtoken data:4]<blockquote>We said “cut”&nbsp;but they all kept dancing -&nbsp;as if they had been possessed by the spirit of Morris.</blockquote>Where did you shoot the video, and what was the key to getting everything you needed for the storyline?We shot the video in Amersham and in a charming place called The Chiltern Open Air Museum where they have medieval barns, cottages and a small church kept and preserved there. The locations were perfect because they struck that right balance between an arcadia feel against that small-village mentality – it felt very&nbsp;Wicker Man.Is this a comedy, or a horror – or something else entirely?Depends how much it made you chuckle… I’d say it’s a dark folk comedy.&nbsp;

Georgina Cammalleri

Lucy May Miles

Greatcoat Films

Sandra Spethmann

Monica Georgieva

Pieter Snyman

Ethan Lodge

James Taylor

Conrad Russell

Kashmir Wickham

Louise Burhai

Adam Clarke

Las Bandas Be Brave

Alternative

Sports Team 'Happy (God's Own Country)' by Georgina Cammalleri

Sports-Team-'Happy-(god's-Own-Country)'-by-Georgina-Cammalleri

TV Priest take on the role&nbsp;of shady 20th-century business execs in Joe Wheatley's mesmerising promo for Press Gang.Dissecting the media's omnipresent role in world events, and the changing tides of the news cycle and dissemination of information, the enigmatic video takes place in an unspecified&nbsp;past, reeking of late industrialisation and analogue technology. Frontman Charlie Drinkwater -&nbsp;playing both pinstriped boss of a cavernous factory, and TV director barking orders in a vintage control room - exudes macho strength&nbsp;at first, even gangster-like threat. But then the facade is stripped away, as Drinkwater's businessman character is pursued by unseen forces.Switching between abstract narrative segments and calm, quirky portraits, the video is infused with a sense of dark humour and parody, whilst turning a critical eye on the world's news media. This is delivered with an anachronistic, vintage aesthetic, achieved through the use of 16mm film and retro styling.DoP Rik Burnell&nbsp;creates a frenetic yet balanced energy, switching between static shots and&nbsp;no-holds-barred, jerky&nbsp;camerawork.&nbsp;Meanwhile the band's modern day performance is delivered through the tiny monitors of the 70s-era TV control desk. A brilliantly executed promo with style and attitude to boot.&nbsp;

Joe Wheatley

Aidan Robert Brooks

Hayley Williams

Femi Anderson

Matt Hillier

Thomas Reid

Fabio Cachucho

Federico Belloli

Phoebe Shakespeare

Sophie Rechtberger

Cassie Walker

Adam Jones

Jason Wallis

Electric Theatre Collective

Kodak

Agile Films

TV Priest 'Press Gang' by Joe Wheatley 

TV Priest - Press Gang [OFFICIAL VIDEO]

The UK Music Video Awards 2020, held in a virtual live show earlier this month, presented an exclusive and hopefully one-time-only award, to reflect the music industry and music video makers' response to the coronavirus crisis: Best Lockdown Video.This prompted the team at Promonews and the UKMVAs to produce an explainer of how the phenomenon of the Lockdown Video emerged, and the various forms it's taken across 2020. The result was this - A Brief History Of The Lockdown Video, which premiered during the UKMVAs show on November 5th, prior to the announcement of the winner of the Best Lockdown Video award.The film takes us through the successive iterations of lockdown video - from early crowd-sourced, Zoom-inspired efforts to the videos about lockdown itself; the&nbsp;boom in DIY videos and&nbsp;remote working by directors; to the evolution of animated videos as lockdown and post-lockdown restrictions kicked in.&nbsp;&nbsp;The video - written by David Knight, edited and narrated by&nbsp;Rob Ulitski - including clips of nearly 40 videos created and released during this extraordinary period, plus additional material from the Music Videos In Lockdown series featured on Promonews in May this year.It was premiered on the evening that&nbsp;Lockdown 2 got underway in England - but hopefully the history of the Lockdown Video will not have to be any less brief.&nbsp;Videos featured:Owen Pallet - A Bloody Morning Directors: Vincent René-Lortie &amp; Brittney CandaThao &amp; The Get Down Stay Down – Phenom Directors: Erin S Murray &amp; Jeremy Schaulin-RiouxChaz Cardigan – Not OK! Director: Will KindrickMajor Lazer ft Marcus Mumford – Lay Your Head On Me Director: Filip NilssonBlink 182 – Happy Days Director: Andrew SandlerThe Academic – Anything Could Happen Directors: Hope Kemp &amp; Ronan CorriganLYR – Lockdown (In Age of Refuge) Director: Daniel BroadleyOK Go – All Together Now Director: Damian Kulash Jr.The Rolling Stones – Living In A Ghosttown Director: Joseph ConnorJ.Views – Featuring Director: Vico Sharabani &amp; J ViewsTom Grennan – Oh Please Director: Tom GrennanSports Team – Camel Crew Director: Sports Team &amp; Ben UnwinGlass Animals – Dreamland Director: Colin ReadElla Eyre – Dreams Director: Sophia Ray&nbsp;Bree Runway – Damn Daniel Director: Gemma YinJonas Blue ft MAX – Naked Director: Isaac RentzGracey – Empty Love Director: Aidan ZamiriDuchess – Blame Director: Ruby &amp; Boya&nbsp;Jeshi ft Celeste – 30,000 Feet Director: Charlie Robins645AR, FKA Twigs – Sum Bout You Director: Aidan ZamiriC Tangana – Guille Asesino Director: Diana KunstLittle Mix – Break Up Song Director: Zac EllaSG Lewis – Chemicals Director: Yousef&nbsp;Katy Perry – Tucked Director: Hoku &amp; AdamIDLES – Model Village Director: Michel &amp; Olivier GondryDua Lipa - Hallucinate Director: Lisha TanTove Lo – sadder badder cooler Director: Venturia Animation Studios&nbsp;Snakehips &amp; Jess Glynne – Lie for You Director: Nicholas LamJorja Smith – Come Over Director: Amber Grace Johnston &amp; Future Power StationBronson – Keep Moving Director: Stylewar&nbsp;Trevor Daniel &amp; Selena Gomez – Past Life Director: Vania Heymann &amp; Gal MuggiaEverything Everything – In Birdsong Director: Jonathan HiggsTravis – A Ghost Director: Fran HealyProspa – Ecstacy Director: Joao RetortaAitch – Raw Director: KC LockeAitch – 30 Director: KC Locke&nbsp;Declan McKenna – Daniel You’re Still A Child Director: Will Hooper&nbsp;Ashnikko – Daisy Director: Charlotte RutherfordAnderson .Paak – Lockdown Director: Dave Meyers&nbsp;&nbsp;

Rob Ulitski

'A Brief History Of The Lockdown Video' by Promonews

A Brief History Of The Lockdown Video

Joe Wheatley brings&nbsp;post-punk outfit TV Priest's piledriving Decoration&nbsp;to the screen with a series of brilliantly oddball, occasionally poignant&nbsp;scenarios, featuring the band's mercurial frontman Charlie Drinkwater.Drinkwater's vocal is&nbsp;a witty digression on the detritus&nbsp;of modern life that sticks in your brain - sparked by a quote from Simon Cowell on Britain's Got Talent, of all things - against a thrilling wall of guitar and drum noise. Joe Wheatley has made the connection with those lyrics and the really strange stuff you see on the internet - and has recreated many of those set-ups, mainly with Drinkwater as his muse and accomplice.Eating pasta from a bag, hanging from a tree, walking the dog while dressed as a dog, having bread as your head, kicking a TV into a grave while wearing a Georgian outfit...&nbsp;the images just keep coming, and coming. And through Adam Jones's canny edit, the non-sequitor stream of images bonds with the controlled aggression of the track.The result is testimony&nbsp;to Wheatley's resourcefulness as well as vision - it was filmed in Nottingham with a crew of just himself and&nbsp;DoP Rik Burnell over a weekend- and to the band's willingness in creating a video that resembles&nbsp;an art piece. A wonderful way to mark this longtime group of friends' forthcoming debut album - and their recent signing to legendary Seattle label Sub Pop.[imgtoken data:1]&nbsp;

Sub Pop

TV Priest 'Decoration' by Joe Wheatley

TV Priest - Decoration [OFFICIAL VIDEO]

We spend half our lives looking at screens - so NOISY&nbsp;and director Joao Retorta pose a crucial question: are we wishing our lives away?&nbsp;&nbsp;In his blistering video for I Wish I Was A... Retorta sends us into the head of a VR set-wearing youth, triggering an avalanche of imagery that idealises body image, sex, love, and pulsating, visceral excitement. But is any of it actually real?NOISY, with their distinctive brand of dance, pop and indie-rock, become a crucial part of these scenarios - particularly frontman Cody. His charisma and&nbsp;energy provides the focus as we waver between fantasy and reality.Shot in Kiev before Covid restrictions kicked in -&nbsp;at the Soviet-era Expocenter of Ukraine - a range of&nbsp;spectacular scenes are beautifully shot by UKMVA nominee Harry Wheeler,&nbsp;and graded by Jason Wallis. It's definitely worth some of your&nbsp;screentime.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Jack Newman

Aleksey Savelov

Harry Wheeler

Daniel Dubrovsky

Brendan Jenkins

TenThree

Dasha Deriagina

2332 Films

Ruslan-Bohdan

Kate Maksymova

Yarik Kutnik

Dima Tartishnikov

Denis Kumeiko

Sasha Timkov

Sergey Volniy

Dance

NOISY 'I Wish I Was A...' by Joao Retorta

Noisy-'I-Wish-I-Was-A...'-by-Joao-Retorta

Stuck in a very small house together has not helped Sports Team's esprit de corps.The band have taken to making voodoo dolls of each other, compelling their bandmates to fly around on magic carpets, dye their hair, and jerk around like mad puppets. Then there's the lazer bolts, and frontman Alex mysteriously sprouting devil horns...In this joyously unhinged video, Sports Team have channeled their favourite old-school TV shows, while banging out&nbsp;a cracking version of their fan favourite Camel Crew. It's one of the more chaotic yet weirdly satisfying videos created during lockdown - devised and filmed by the band, marshalled by remote direction and editing by Ben Unwin.&nbsp;It's high-energy, bonkers, a treat for secret fans of Dick &amp; Dom and Scooby Doo,&nbsp;and&nbsp;a worthy addition to the group's offbeat videography.[imgtoken data:1]&nbsp;

Sports Team

Ben Unwin

Phil Tidy

Squire

Natasha Lawes

Miland Suman

Sports Team 'Camel Crew' by Sports Team & Ben Unwin

Sports-Team-'Camel-Crew'-by-Sports-Team-&-Ben-Unwin

At the beginning the pandemic crisis, music video producer Natalie Steiner decided&nbsp;to tell the stories of her peers and contemporaries - directors, producers, camera crew, choreographers, stylists, hair and makeup artists, and more -&nbsp;who were affected by the suspension of&nbsp;music video&nbsp;production as they knew it when the lockdown hit.The result has been the five-part video series Music Videos In Lockdown, a document of life as it happened for the London music video-making community during the first weeks of the crisis. Each episode was premiered on Promonews last month, from the 6th to the 27th May.&nbsp;&nbsp;The series began with Last Jobs, in which&nbsp;Steiner and co-interviewer Eleri Evans&nbsp;ask their panel of interviewees about&nbsp;the work they were doing just before lockdown - and how work stopped.&nbsp;[vidtoken data:0]In the second episode, Spending Time, they discover&nbsp;how the community were redirecting their energies&nbsp;in the absence of long shoot days and other work commitments, and elicited a range of&nbsp;illuminating and entertaining responses from her panel.[vidtoken data:1]In Episode 3, Working During The Lockdown, Steiner investigates&nbsp;how work was continuing, the sudden dependence on&nbsp;Zoom (and other video conferencing apps), the all-round resourcefulness of music video creatives - and the emerging phenomenon of lockdown videos.[vidtoken data:2]Things turn more serious in the fourth episode, Wonderings And Worries, with the spotlight falling&nbsp;on the real impact of the Covid-19 emergency&nbsp;for many within the industry. At this stage, it leads some of the panellists to voice the need for a substantive change in how the industry operates.[vidtoken data:3]In the final episode, The Future Of Our Industry,&nbsp;the panel of interviewees talk about&nbsp;what they have missed about their pre-lockdown work routine, the good things that they want to experience again, and also ponder upon how the industry can get moving again, and what it will look like, in the next few months.[vidtoken data:4]The&nbsp;panel of interviewees in the&nbsp;Music Videos In Lockdown&nbsp;series are: 1st AD Clara Paris;&nbsp;Virgin EMI director of video James Hackett;&nbsp;My Accomplice EP Imogen Harrison;&nbsp;wardrobe stylist Terri Higgins;&nbsp;director Aidan Zamiri;&nbsp;directors Zhang &amp; Knight; director Will Hooper; Knucklehead EP Ore Okonedo; Greatcoat Films' EP&nbsp;Kareem Adeshina; choreographer&nbsp;Simon Donnellon; FRIEND EP Luke Tierney; DoP Diana Olifirova; Envy colourist Jax Harney; director Oscar Hudson; Atlantic Records' director of video Dan Curwin; DoP David Wright; camera assistant Jomar O'Meally; Blink EP Laura Northover; producer Tom O'Driscoll; wardrobe stylist&nbsp;Taff Williamson; OB Management director's agent Sam Davey; hair and makeup artist Jessica Summer; marketing manager&nbsp;Olivier Massey; production runner&nbsp;Amelia Mullooly; Pulse Films' EP Rik Green; director Myles Whittingham; Object &amp; Animal EP Morgan Clement; director Ian Pons Jewell; and runners' agent Julia Patterson.The first two episodes of Music Videos In Lockdown were edited by Chris Wilson at Homespun, and Episodes 3, 4 and 5 edited by Meg Thorne at Cut+Run.

Eleri Evans

Meg Thorne

Cut+Run

'MUSIC VIDEOS IN LOCKDOWN' - all five episodes 

Music Videos In Lockdown | EP 1: Last Jobs

Music Videos In Lockdown | EP 2: Spending the Day

Music Videos In Lockdown | EP 3: Working During the Lockdown

Music Videos In Lockdown | EP 4: Wonderings And Worries

Music Videos In Lockdown | EP 5: The Future of Our Industry

Ruthless Cuts, the behind-the-scenes series produced by top London editing house&nbsp;Cut+Run, returns with a brand new episode featuring&nbsp;Georgina Cammalleri and Matt Prickett, respectively the director and editor of two videos for Swim Deep last year which marked Cammalleri's first outings as a music video director.It's the latest Ruthless Cuts episode presented exclusively by Promonews. And in this one, Georgina Cammalleri charts her initial progress as a director having already won a&nbsp;BAFTA as a TV documentary producer.Cammalleri explains to interviewer Martin Macnamara how her original idea for Swim Deep's To Feel Good was ditched, and replaced by the video's intense scenario (where singer Ozzie Williams is repeatedly punched by different members of a baying mob, while being overlooked by a gospel choir) and how the visual&nbsp;style was influenced by her love of the German Expressionist cinema of the 1930s, embracing 'heightened emotion' and melodrama.Matt Prickett explains how the input of DoP Lorenzo Levrini was important to ensure the realism of the sickening violence in the video. He and Cammalleri then explain how the narrative structure&nbsp;of the follow-up Sail Away video had to be reshaped in the edit due to a problematic shoot: it was&nbsp;mostly shot off the coast of Margate in a small boat, and the crew were struck down by seasickness.This episode of&nbsp;Ruthless Cuts is the latest in the long-running series where music video directors talk about their work, acting as a soundtrack to clips from the videos and BTS photos. Previous episodes have featured <a href="https://www.promonews.tv/videos/2019/09/04/ruthless-cuts-nathan-james-tettey-his-videos-dave/60540" target="_blank">Nathan James Tettey</a>, <a href="https://www.promonews.tv/videos/2019/04/09/ruthless-cuts-dave-bullivant-his-videos-george-ezra-friendly-fires-and-shame/58187" target="_blank">Dave Bullivant</a> and <a href="https://www.promonews.tv/videos/2016/09/26/ruthless-cuts-jax-jones-house-work-ozzie-pullin/43790" target="_blank">Ozzie Pullin</a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Martin Macnamara

Toby Abbott

Michael Haines

Factory

Clara Cohen

Karen Lo

Ruthless Cuts: Georgina Cammalleri and Matt Prickett on their Swim Deep videos - exclusive to Promonews

RUTHLESS CUTS - GEORGINA CAMMALLERI

David Knight

Commissioner

Featured Work