Production Manager

Tara Bartlett

<h2>Tara Bartlett is the new Head of Music at Lowkey Films. We talk to her about her plans, and find out how her experience making different types of creative work for artists will impact on her role.</h2>&nbsp;She began in music video production, involved in some groundbreaking work at Partizan. Then she went into a different, all-encompassing type of production of creative at WMA&nbsp;- working on '360' content&nbsp;for a number of leading music artists.Now she has joined&nbsp;Lowkey Films, one of London's most forward-thinking music video production companies, as Head of Music.&nbsp;And its fair to say that her previous job - Global Director of Film and Photography at WMA - means that Tara Bartlett is bringing a distinctive perspective to her new one.&nbsp;In that job, Bartlett was involved in both video and stills shoots for artists including&nbsp;Louis Tomlinson, Olivia Rodrigo, Easy Life and more. She was also helping to redefine what we used to think of as content.So we talked to Tara about her plans at Lowkey - and how the humble music video can prosper in the complicated landscape of creative content.<blockquote>There's a question of what music videos are going to end up being in the next five years.</blockquote>PROMONEWS: How would you describe your new role at Lowkey Films?TARA BARTLETT: I feel like it's a perfect blend of everything that I've been doing up to this point. Music has always really been what's driven me throughout my career!&nbsp;My first in-house production job was at Partizan, where I worked about seven years ago, and I was primarily working on the music videos in my just under two years there. Then in my recent job, at WMA (Weller Media Agency), which is a 360 digital creative service agency for music artists [including Olivia Rodrigo, below], I was heading up the film and photography department, and working on multi-platform creative content.Lowkey, with both its progressive approach to the work we create and how we create it, felt like the perfect place for me to bring these two worlds together, and expand even further with the expertise Lowkey has in the long form space.&nbsp; Head of Music felt more appropriate than Head of Music Videos as there is so much creative to be made in the music space and across so many formats - music videos, photography, short form content, music documentary - the list goes on.[imgtoken data:1]Above: Olivia Rodrigo, client of WMA where Tara Bartlett&nbsp;was Global Director&nbsp;of Film &amp; Photography<blockquote>There's an amazing space for music videos, to use&nbsp;social platforms to our benefit - and create assets that can extend the creative or narrative of the main promo video, in an exciting and purposeful way.</blockquote>How are you bringing your experience to your new job at Lowkey?TB: Lowkey is already established in the music video space, with our great roster of directors, and making powerful narrative work in the feature world.&nbsp;What I'm so excited about with Lowkey, as well as a continued focus on music videos - is to expand our music offering across multiple platforms. With my experience across digital creative, and Lowkey’s expertise in narrative and feature, I’ll be expanding the department across content, photography, and in longer form music documentaries and narrative pieces. There’s a huge appetite from streaming platforms and independent distributors, for music documentaries, where pre-existing audiences already exist.There’s lots of conversation industry wide on how we can best navigate the landscape right now, but I think there's an amazing space for music videos, to use social platforms to our benefit - and create assets that can extend the creative or narrative of the main promo video, in an exciting and purposeful way.&nbsp;I'm personally so excited about what we can all achieve. [Lowkey co founders] Connor [O'Hara] and Jamie [Gamache] are so supportive, and of the direction for the department. Our directors we already have on the roster, are also all multidisciplinary creatives in their own right - in that a lot of them are already also photographers, designers or DOPs, so also really understand the landscape we’re working in - I think we’re all really excited about where we can push it, with considered creativity at the forefront always.&nbsp;How do you feel things have changed in the music video world?&nbsp;TB: I think people in the industry are definitely questioning what the music video will end up being in the next five years. It's quite exciting for me to come at it with fresh eyes -&nbsp; having gone from solely music video production, to focusing on creative in the digital space, and to now be in a position where we’re all thinking about how we can blend the two.It’s definitely more social consumer and engagement focused now as audiences are wanting bespoke content across all different platforms. Therefore, we as creatives have to think further than just the 'cut down' and consider a wider content approach upfront - ensuring that the main music video can be promoted in the right way to achieve success.[vidtoken data:0]What were your highlights of working&nbsp;at Partizan?TB: There were loads of exciting stuff in the music space happening, which luckily I&nbsp;got to be a part of. Dexter Navy had just signed to Partizan, and we did the A$AP Mob&nbsp;music video for Money Man/Put That On My Set -&nbsp;featuring A$AP Rocky, A$AP Nast, Yung Lord and&nbsp;Skepta - which&nbsp;ended up being a twelve minute short film. That's a favourite.We also did <a href="https://www.promonews.tv/videos/2017/02/06/nines-ft-j-hus-high-roller-nines-chris-day/45938" target="_blank">Nines and J Hus</a>, Sean Paul and Clean Bandit's Rockerbye, <a href="https://www.promonews.tv/videos/2016/09/01/jax-jones-ft-mnek-mike-dunn-house-work-ozzie-pullin/43355" target="_blank">Jax&nbsp;Jones ft MNEK</a>, Alma - and more! It was definitely my crash course into production - and lots of hilarious moments and often very stressful! But I&nbsp;learned so much and got to work with so many amazing people in production, and also with directors doing incredible things.<blockquote>[The job] changed very quickly, as content became so much more important in the music space.</blockquote>What were your big projects while working at WMA?&nbsp;TB: There were lots of projects at different scales that I worked on in my five years there - development projects to global artist campaigns, every one was so different. When I started in 2017, the creative team was servicing a lot of the more ‘content creation’ projects as we understood it at the time - anything from behind the scenes, to stills and shorter form video shoots for various platforms. But that changed very quickly, as content became so much more important and considered in the music space.&nbsp;A big part of my role was also working really closely with the talent that we had, both in-house and on our global network. A lot of them went from content creators and photographers initially, to now incredibly established directors and photographers, all doing amazing things in the music and brand space today.&nbsp;[imgtoken data:2]We produced and shot a lot of big artwork shoots, for the likes of Aitch and Louis Tomlinson [above], worked a lot with Ellie Goulding on her wider marketing content - capturing and creating stills and video assets, often captured on the set of her music videos, that carried out the creative campaign across platforms. We also did a big campaign with Mumford &amp; Sons. One of our photographers at the time, Louis Browne, captured an amazing photo series with them, which was plastered all over the tubes in London, which I know was such a fun project and a nice moment for him to see that work stretched in so many places.We worked with global music talent, but also with developing artists to actually build their&nbsp; creative direction from scratch. We’d come into early conversations with management and label, working collaboratively to shape a creative lane for them, which would eventually become their creative identity as an artist, and influence all creative output across their campaign - stills, music videos, social content.<blockquote>I think we're going to crack TikTok very soon - so artists can avoid the trends, and we can create wicked content for them.</blockquote>More recently we did full creative direction for artist Jack Newsome, including all stills - social, press, single and&nbsp;album artwork - and three music videos across the album campaign - including Arms, directed by Louis Browne - logo and artwork designs, live sessions, social&nbsp;content, etc.&nbsp;We also did full creative direction for Olivia Lunny - again including all stills and three&nbsp; music videos across the campaign - including the one for Sad To See You Happy (below).&nbsp;[vidtoken data:1]So do you think that in general music videos need to fit in with a bigger '360' picture&nbsp; better than they have done in the past?&nbsp;TB: Well, in general, yes. I think a nice example of this are the recent videos for The 1975, by Samuel Brady, which as a consumer you really feel like you’re being told a story over the course of the videos, which is what so many albums sonically or lyrically want to do - so it makes sense for the creative to do this also. The videos are also incredibly cohesive with the entire creative direction of that campaign, so any assets you see - instantly take you to that intended visual world.&nbsp;I think especially where the albums themselves tell a story, there's an interesting opportunity for the promos, and wider content, to be able to do the same through the visuals. Almost treating music videos like mini-movies! You can have vignettes of the characters you see in the video’s, living on Instagram, or other platforms that give your audience a deeper dive into the world and narrative. We as creatives can have so much fun with that.&nbsp;There is absolutely still a space for those one-off, out-there, crazy promo videos that almost purposefully feel out of character from an artists recognised creative identity - I love those - and that’s what gets people talking. But largely, I think it’s important to look at an artist's creative more holistically, and for the music videos to feel like a considered part of that - as that’s what gets an audience really understanding them.[vidtoken data:2]Is TikTok-based content part of this larger content landscape?&nbsp;TB: TikTok is an interesting one! Not surprisingly, it was something that I had a lot of&nbsp; conversations around at my previous job, being in the content space, and am continuing to have with labels now.&nbsp;I think there's much more exploration to do from a creative side, because it is still very much a user-generated space, and very personality-led - so it often feels harder to blend into a creative direction that is more visually led on other platforms.&nbsp;Saying that, I think there's still a massive space for it, and it may almost just need some reframing from a music perspective. Video lengths on the app are getting longer, and I’m seeing more and more creativity in the content on there than ever. I think we’re going to crack it very soon - so artists can avoid the trends and we can create wicked, organic content for them![vidtoken data:3]&nbsp;Above: Bartlett worked with&nbsp;Equinox and The Dalai Lama&nbsp;to celebrate his album release of Innerworld&nbsp;and the track Humanity, released for The Dalai Lama's 85th birthdayAre you looking to expand the roster? Any&nbsp;new signings?Absolutely - whilst we’ll always want to keep the roster small and considered, to allow the directors to really thrive, but that’s a real focus for me over the next six months. I have already been having some great conversations with some incredibly talented directors and creatives, so that’s definitely something that’s in the works.We've also just signed the brilliant&nbsp;<a href="https://lowkeyfilms.co.uk/director/lusha-alic" target="_blank">Lusha Alic</a>, who is another multidisciplinary artist, who has shot artists like Billie Eilish, A$AP Rocky and Tyler the Creator. I’m so excited to be working with Lusha and transitioning her further into the world of music videos. She's already been pitching, and there’s a lot of excitement around her in conversations that I’ve been having - so hopefully we’ll be able to share something very cool from her soon.• See the music video roster at Lowkey Films <a href="https://lowkeyfilms.co.uk/directors" target="_blank">here</a>

Lowkey Films

Tara Bartlett joins Lowkey Films as Head of Music - "It's an exciting time for music videos to marry up with the content world."

A$AP Mob - Money Man / Put That On My Set ft. A$AP Rocky, A$AP Nast, Yung Lord, Skepta

Olivia Lunny - Sad to See You Happy (Official Music Video)

Jack-Newsome-'Arms'-by-Louis-Browne

Inner World: Dalai Lama x Equinox

Louis Browne directs a sensual promo for Jack Newsome's Arms.&nbsp;Taking place amid&nbsp;the vast landscapes of the California&nbsp;desert, the video presents a series of performance vignettes, where Newsome shows off some charismatic&nbsp;dance moves across several distinctive locations.&nbsp;Taking inspiration from the chorus of the song;&nbsp;'What's the point of having arms if I can't wrap them around you?' director Louis Browne embraces the quarantine world and drops the artist into a world of isolation. A lover of films with American desert landscapes, like Paris, Texas&nbsp;and Nocturnal Animals, the UK-born director has&nbsp;found the perfect opportunity to explore shooting in such locations with the this video.&nbsp;

United States

Louis Browne

Emma Stehli

Peter Hou

Michael Justin

Ilya Chegodar

Greg Yaro

Oliver Vaughn

Ciara Maccaro

Cal Laird

Joseph Bicknell

Company 3 Nyc

Jack Newsome 'Arms' by Louis Browne

Louis Browne and Sam Leviton channel the 'Russian dancing kid' viral video in their promo for Dimitri Vegas and Like Mike's cover of Destiny Child's Say My Name - featuring talented young dancer Tavian Wong.

United Kingdom

Sam Leviton

Meghan Doherty

Naim Naif

Gaul Porat

Jasmine Chang

Sunnie Kim

Elliott Travis

Pili Weeber

Savannah White

Carlos Flores

Forager

Tavian Wong

Sony International

Dance

Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike Vs Regard 'Say My Name' by Louis Browne & Sam Leviton

Dimitri-Vegas-&-Like-Mike-Vs-Regard-'Say-My-Name'-by-Louis-Browne-&-Sam-Leviton

Youth Hymns take us on a trip into the mind of Snoop Dogg&nbsp;for&nbsp;Arman Cekin&#39;s track California Dreaming, a bright pink, animated world - illustrated by Sarah White - with&nbsp;sexy women, beach bumming, singer Paul Rey, and of course, plenty of Mary Jane.&nbsp;It&#39;s a hilarious visual with stoned rappers, beautiful women in bikinis&nbsp;and&nbsp;Snoop looking like Stevie Wonder at a grand piano. It looks like good times were had by all.And Youth Hymns said of the experience:&nbsp;&quot;We flew to California&nbsp;to shoot in a green screen studio, to simulate California. Now that&rsquo;s what we&rsquo;re talking about. Our favourite moment was when Snoop inevitably hotboxed the Jeep.&quot;

Youth Hymns

Lucy Rogers

Partizan Darkroom

Claire Stubbs

Lewis Crossfield

Electric Theatre Collective

Frankie Latina

Nathan James Tettey

Warner Music Group

Jeff Kopchia

freenjoy

Ms Wearer

Jimmy Stannard

Niko Philipides

Zac Adams

Arman Cekin ft. Paul Rey & Snoop Dogg 'California Dreaming' by Youth Hymns

Arman-Cekin-Ft.-Paul-Rey-&-Snoop-Dogg-'California-Dreaming'-by-Youth-Hymns

Nines &amp; Chris Day team up to direct a new music video for High Roller, in which Nines lives a life of grounded excess.Private planes, nice cars, and a party at a flashy apartment are all very nice, but Nines doesn&#39;t let it go to his head. Intercutting the excess of success in with scenes of London estates shows us that he still respects his roots. A slick, stylish promo that isn&#39;t afraid to celebrate.This latest video from new Partizan talent Chris Day comes after his first clip for <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFrBF0Ki_lQ" target="_blank">House of Pharaohs</a> - another great, slick piece of urban London documentation that came out last October.

Nines

Chris Day

Mark McPadden

Matthew Emvin Taylor

Robin Webster

Jomar O'Meally

Kilian Drury

Laura Cottle

Bianca Simone Scott

Charlie Reddie

Homespun

Adam Clarke

Absolute Post

Nic Sanchez

Kate Desmond

Chris Tobin

Caroline Simionescu Marin

XL Recordings

Hip Hop

Nines ft. J Hus 'High Roller' by Nines & Chris Day

Nines-Ft-J-Hus-'High-Roller'-by-Nines-&-Chris-Day

Youth Hymns bring their hyper-saturated toxic colour palette to a pop performance video.Alma here sings of dying her hair blonde whilst being accompanied by a dancing duo comprised of more hair than human. Only occasionally do we see any glimpse of the dancer&#39;s facial features (they are, of course, equipped with gold teeth) as Alma and the duo dance and sing around a green &amp; pink industrial complex.It&#39;s a bastardised pop performance through the gloriously grungy lens of Youth Hymns - adding some welcome weirdness to the genre...

Kerry Green

Rina Yang

Harry Wheeler

Johnny Lewis

Rik Burnell

Carrie Munden

Holly Sillius

Gina Blondell

Jake - Youth Hymns

Claudia Maybury, Carly Forrester

Emily Ann Sonnet

Island Records

Alma 'Dye My Hair' by Youth Hymns

Alma-'Dye-My-Hair'-by-Youth-Hymns

Dexter Navy&#39;s epic 12-minute short film for A$AP Rocky is an intense piece of social realism mixed with magic realism - set in London, but with universal resonance.A double video for the tracks Money Man and Put That On My Set, this is an impressionistic take on the thug life, where the drug being dealt are the butterflies that fill the city air. The cast includes&nbsp;actor and screenwriter&nbsp;Said Taghmaoui - from La Haine &ndash; as well as&nbsp;A$AP Nast, Skepta, Section Boyz and Sicilian Tina Kunakey, who plays Said&#39;s precious sister, and the object of Rocky&#39;s affections.Dexter Navy was inspired by seeing a friend&#39;s bags of butterfly wings to jump on the phone to Rocky to convince him that the drugs in the video should be butterflies. Days later Navy was shooting in Ladbroke Grove,&nbsp;transforming that idea into a harrowing, violent, yet visually stunning story.Everything was shot on black and white 16mm Arri (by Pau Castejon), and 16mm Bolex (by Mark Adcock), with visual effects work at Absolute Post - with a brilliant edit by Navy himself.

Dexter Navy

Natalie Wetherell

Lucy Hayes

Emma Stone

Pau Castejón

Mark Adcock

Fran Western

Dan Wombell

Julian White

Will Field

Holly MacDonald

Aj Juttla

Leema Williams (Tina)

Matt Turner

Belinda Grew

Zdravko Stoitchkov

Chace JOHNSON

Polo Grounds Music Inc

Madeleine Sanderson

A$AP Rocky ft A$AP Nast & Skepta 'Money Man /Put That On My Set' by Dexter Navy

Ozzie Pullin&#39;s House Work video takes the household products advert format to a whole new level of strange.In the dystopian future we&#39;re currently living in -&nbsp;a world in which Cillit Bang have gotten rid of Barry Scott and replaced him with a younger, sexier model &ndash; it can feel like there&#39;s little hope to cling onto. That&#39;s where Jax Jones and Ozzie Pullin come in.This brilliant clip is a surreal descent into the madness of a man trying to hold it together to sell some dish soap. The set is perfectly familiar to viewers of daytime TV as,&nbsp;probably, is the cold, dead, thousand-yard stare of the protagonist.&nbsp;

Ozzie Pullin

James Blann

Michael Hobdell

Oliver Hogan

Paul Rodgers

Jamie O'Donnell

Cut+Run

Jack McGinity

Time Based Arts

Yvette Farmer

Sophia Aiudi

Hanan Cher

Polydor

Jax Jones ft MNEK & Mike Dunn 'House Work' by Ozzie Pullin

Jax-Jones-Ft-Mnek-&-Mike-Dunn-'House-Work'-by-Ozzie-Pullin

Between going to the shop, buying food, getting her hair done and force-feeding tea and biscuits to her tied-up neighbour, it&#39;s an active and eventful day&nbsp;in the life of a&nbsp;middle-aged dominatrix for&nbsp;Tom Beard&#39;s humorous new&nbsp;promo&nbsp;for&nbsp;Jamie T&#39;s track Power Over Men.And it&#39;s a recognisably Tom Beard production too, sharing the same seedy darkness and lo-fi look as his previous, unsettling&nbsp;collaboration with Jamie T for <a href="http://www.promonews.tv/videos/2016/07/13/jamie-t-tinfoil-boy-tom-beard" target="_blank">Tinfoil Boy</a>.

Tom Beard

Toby Goodger

Kit Mackenzie

Max Lincoln

Jack Singer

Vic Parker

Raised By Wolves

Taryn Kay, Billy Wright

Helen Kennedy

Universal Music

Jamie T 'Power Over Men' by Tom Beard

Jamie T - Power Over Men

Tom Beard&#39;s video for Jamie T - his first for the London artist, having worked with him on several other kinds of visual projects previously&nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp;is disturbing and compelling, even though not that much happens. As a teenage girl starts her day, she preens in front of her cameraphone - and from that point everything she does, as she meets up with a boy and they set off on a day out,&nbsp;is caught on that camera.&nbsp;The relentlessness of the track - and lo-fi performance footage of Jamie T and band is cut into the narrative&nbsp;&ndash;&nbsp;encourages&nbsp;a sense of unease that works on at least a couple of levels. Quite apart from the threat of something bad about to break the&nbsp;mundanity in the video, it&#39;s that constant&nbsp;self-documentation - and the distancing effect it creates &ndash;&nbsp;that really strikes a chord. It&#39;s not what might happen, because&nbsp;it already has.&nbsp;

Gaia Borretti

Emma True, Adam Bracegirdle, Ross Cahill

Virgin Records

Indie

Jamie T 'Tinfoil Boy' by Tom Beard

Jamie-T-'Tinfoil-Boy'-by-Tom-Beard

Youth Hymns have delivered this delightful candy-coated video&nbsp;for New Zealand singer-songwriter&nbsp;Ladyhawke&#39;s A Love Song, set in an 80s video rental store where a bored employee is having a bad day rewinding returned VHS tapes - until she pops in a tape returned by a mysterious character.&nbsp;When Pip Brown aka&nbsp;Ladyhawke flashes onto the screen singing A Love Song, it hits the girl like a cupid&#39;s arrow, driving her to fall in love with - and&nbsp;plant kisses on -&nbsp;everyone coming into the store. Much goofy fun ensues, as the Youth Hymns guys indulge their obsessions with the 1980s and all things VHS, all to a soundtrack of irresistable electro-pop.&quot;Pip wanted to shoot in LA. We took her to Croydon instead,&quot; say Youth Hymns.&nbsp;&quot;When it dawned on us that no video rental stores actually existed anymore, we called our mate Dale from VivaVHS who saved the day. He lent us a few thousand ex-rental classics. Cheers Dale!&quot;

Tara Bartlett

Production Manager

Interviews featuring Tara Bartlett

Videos featuring Tara Bartlett

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