I set aside Day Two. of my residency at The Shoe Factory in December to shoot some experimental viz for brand new Norwich two-piece GET UP AND USE ME. The guys had a few demos and recordings kicking around, so I snapped up DIVIDED for the occassion and shot some moving image, followed by some stills, both med-format and 35mm.
Having shot at the factory the day before I had a good idea of how the light fell, and mentally picked out the beginnings of a shotlist in my head. Predominantly performance based (I’ve spoken about my thoughts on musicians crossing platforms into acting for promo’s in the past) with a mix of highly digi-stylised, fairly clean looking cine… finishing in a vid-8 palette I barely leave the house without when music shoots spring up.
There’s a freedom when shooting to music, the edit comes into play a hell of a lot when promo’s are concerned, but I do like to feel involved in the instrumental when shooting handheld. The entire vid is tripod free and fairly fluid (although I was 36 weeks pregnant and retrospectively not so light on my feet as I would have liked - try telling me at the time however…). Industrialism is a key theme here, the disused factory setting gave a British time-gone-by feel, so aestetically, I wanted to utilise this as much as possible (as opposed to just having a couple of dudes rocking out in a cool-looking space). The set design with the empty chairs, a focus on the stained floor and the angle upwards to the red beams all come into play here.
Colour is always important, and I wanted a clear, almost transparent tone to this one. GUAUM is made up of Brandon and Jack from Painted Heathers, who I have a long-standing working relationship with, so I wanted to approach this in a different way, and whereas PH have often gone for a darker look, with DIVIDED I pushed through to a whiter grade, in order to make any minimal colour really pop. Note the red, white and black which bounces from backdrop to costume.
I can’t go much further into the writeup without mentioning the use of the factory as setting. Industrialisation and experimental brutalist themes are brother and sister in my eyes, and I still get a bit of a kick out of using these spaces. Working on the audio-viz collab in such an acoustically fantastic space was a really standout moment, hearing Brandon drum to the empty walls was enough to experience in itself.
Norwich can be a small place at times, creatively and artistically, and I try to steer clear of used models, and settings where possible. Whereas, others flock together, I find myself often standing at the waters edge, and being offered the Shoe Fac to wrap up what had been such a busy year flipped my creative process on it’s head slightly.... The guys at St Mary’s have been massively accomodating to creatives in the past couple of years, and I was very aware of how many others had used the factory for work, but like a blank canvas, I wanted to give the space a whack, in my own way. In retrospect it’s a great way to reflect on my practise. There I was, at the bitter end of quite a full-on pregnancy, wanting to go out in a bit of a blaze!