Guvna B ft Michaela Coel 'Bridgeland Road' by Joshua Stocker
Rob Ulitski - 6th Feb 2023
Joshua Stocker directs a beautiful and moving promo for Guvna B's autobiographical story of injustice, Bridgeland Road.
Through a series of powerful vignettes - captured in outstanding cinematography by DoPs Adam Singodia and Luke Dryden - Stocker's video provides an atmospheric visual context for the London-born rapper, author and broadcaster's reflections upon his life following an unprovoked racially motivated attack, which he reported to the police but who dropped the case four months after the incident.
Spurred on by Emmy award-winning actress and writer Michaela Coel - whose voicemail appears in the track around the halfway mark - Guvna B (aka Isaac Borquaye) reveals more about the attack and its subsequent handling by the police and legal process, while the monochrome video establishes the artist's world with artistic resonance.
Stocker sets the scene with well-crafted scenes of the place where the artist grew up, detailing normal daily life, lazy afternoons and meetups with friends. But then representations of the harrowing attack and its aftermath, start to intrude while Guvna's heartfelt performance becomes the heart of the video.
A director and photographer with considerable experience in bringing choreography to the screen - as in his excellent Olafur Arnalds video for Zero - Joshua Stocker's uses all that experience, including movement direction of his on-screen extras, to craft the stream of images.
That makes this piece, over five minutes long, a mesmerising experience.
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Rob Ulitski - 6th Feb 2023
Credits
Featured here in the credits?
Production/Creative
- Director
- Joshua Stocker
- Producer
- Ade Mogaji
- Producer
- Cayetano Noblia
- 1st AD
- Danny Rumbelow
- Production Assistants
- Marie Basil, Rosamund Bullard
- Prod Assistant/DIT
- Alba Skottowe
- 2nd AD
- Archie Holm Slack
- Runner
- Alex Hexter
Camera
- Director of Photography
- Adam Singodia
- Director of Photography
- Luke Dryden
- 1st AC
- Davide Scalenghe
- 1st AC
- Dimi Vakrilov
- 2nd AC
- Matthew Edge
- Steadicam
- Austin Phillips
- Camera Trainees
- Rob Grooms, Louis Peppiatt
Lighting/Grip
- Gaffer
- Max Conran
Art
- Art Director
- Nick Wallis
Wardrobe
- Stylist
- Jahnavi Sharma
Choreography
- Movement Director
- Hannah Mason
Editorial
- Editor
- Lucy Berry
- Editing company
- FC
- Sound design
- Machine Sound
Grading
- Colourist
- Alex Gregory
- Colour grade company
- No.8
Other credits
Special Thanks
Focus 24
Rob Ulitski - 6th Feb 2023