I started thinking about go-carts with a modern twist, not just pram wheels and fruit boxes, and built these carts out of a wheely bin and a regular rubbish bin. Once Odissy had painted them we knew we had to use them, but didn’t have a song. Skint sent over the Goose CD and we knew Black Gloves was the one almost instantly.There are cameras mounted all over the carts, so we had loads of angles to work with. We made sure most of the hand held shots were nice and low, giving the carts a real sense of proportion and emphasising the action. We shot in locations all around Brighton and knew there was never a hope of getting any streets closed officially, so we did it ourselves. It was early in the morning and people were getting out of their cars shouting ‘Get out the way, I’ve got to go to work’. I’d shout ‘No you fucking haven’t, I’ve got to get this shot’, then a pair of wacky racers would whiz past all these pissed off commuters and we’d be on our way.
South Central – ‘Golden Dawn’ – Director Steve Glashier
The idea for this had been knocking around for a while, but none of us thought we’d be able to sustain it over a whole video. We teamed up with Grafik Warfare for some tests and it looked really good: all kinds of torches, light sabres, lasers, taped up to break up the light and make it a bit more dynamic, and shot it all on a stills camera with a long exposure. For the video itself, we must have taken thousands of stills in the freezing cold rain. Each time Fash had to give a three second count in, the camera took the shot everyone would move as instructed: it was gruelling, really fucking gruelling. After hours of it you just became dead to the ‘1… 2… 3… Click’. It didn’t come out exactly as we’d planned, mostly because of time and money once again, but it looks good and it certainly doesn’t look like any other video out there. This will most likely be the last video I ever make.
Blood Red Shoes – ‘You Bring Me Down’ – Director Steve Glashier
We had to be meticulous with each of these set-ups, because the effect of chopping between locations is completely lost if they’re even an inch away from the mark. I think we did well, and the editing is very sharp. We had literally no money, not even for lights; by the end of the day we were driving around looking for streetlights bright enough to film under. True, green screen would have saved us a lot of bother, but it’s the bother that usually makes a good video.As has usually been the way, this was a video we made with fuck all money for a band we really liked. Like the video for ‘That Old Pair of Jeans’, which was gratuitously ripped off for a Heart FM advert, this was mercilessly plagiarised in a video for Phoenix. Although the idea wasn’t original, the way we went about shooting it was- if you compare the opening shots you’ll see how blatant they’ve been. Mind you, who the fuck has a microphone front and centre in the first frame when the vocals don’t come in till half way through the track? And they probably spunked £40 grand making it too!
The Lodge – ‘Noose’ – Director Steve Glashier
The Lodge had played at a house party at the same house weeks before, so the idea stemmed from that really. When the guys who lived there agreed to letting us film a video they had no idea of what they were letting themselves in for: literally half of Brighton turned up! We had such a nightmare trying to get people out of the way of shots, they thought they were at a real party. The amount of times I had to say ‘Look mate, get out the way and do as you’re told or I’ll fucking belt you one!’ was just phenomenal. We were chucking people into this bedroom when we need to get them out of the way; in the end, there were so many people crammed in there the door actually burst from its hinges! It was crazy. The coppers turned up at 4am to shut it down and turf everybody out- I don’t think they were expecting so many people to pour out, about 280 stumbled out of this semi detached house, all pissed up and gurning.There was no question about how we’d film it, we knew we wanted Johnny in the cage and shoot his progression through the party. We sped the playback up slightly, so there’s a slur to his movement that really adds to the feeling of detachment. He did really well to be fair to him, we had him in there for hours whilst everyone else was getting drunk and getting their swerve on.
Kunt & Scorpio – ‘Copper’ – Director Steve Glashier
This was a lot of fun to make. We shot it all in an afternoon after coming up with the idea literally the night before. There was no money for anything, not even food; I think someone had some avocado dip, but that was about it! We spent the afternoon driving around with Bob Tech, who’d painted his car up to look like a police car, watching as he kept on getting pulled over by the East Sussex constabulary who would tell him ‘You’re not a copper, stop fucking about!” This carried on for months afterwards because Bob being Bob, he actually painted Police up the side of his car! Fucking idiot!
If I had any reservations about this one I’d say it was the fight scene at the end, which seems a little bodged compared to the start. The start is very tight, the credits and everything look great, but we rushed the end because Scorpio had to go and catch a plane back to Australia. Still, even though it’s rushed it looks much better than anything they’d have came up with themselves: they normally film their videos on mobile phones, the fucking pikeys!
Super U – ‘What News From Cornwall’ – Director Steve Glashier
There aren’t many bands that would’ve made this video work as well. Usually bands are fairly pissy about everything and need directing for simple tasks like breathing and walking at the same time. I knew the Super U lot were a really good bunch and that they’d get involved, what I didn’t expect is how well they’d do it! I was expecting everyone covered in paste and paper flying everywhere, but they were like a military outfit. They delegated the work out and just got on with it, not stood there on a side of a hill moaning ‘What are we supposed to do, I’m cold, my feet hurt etc etc.’ like 99% of other bands would.We used a 35mm Prime Lens on the camera that, along with the great weather conditions, gives it a filmic quality. The band came up with the idea for Mo playing the flute in the picture frame and the last shot of Ivan on the floor, we were wrapped up by the end of the afternoon and had all had a really nice day, which I think comes through in the finished video.
Nostalgia 77 – ‘Hope Suite’ – Director Steve Glashier
I downloaded hours and hours of footage from archive.org, probably 17 hours worth of footage from world fairs, newsreels, student films and American stock footage dating back to the 1930’s. I went through it all, pulling out sections that I liked or thought were pertinent to the song and edited it together. I’d got about half way through the tune and asked Ben to come and watch it- by the time it had finished he’d gone pale, because it was really quite heavy and questioned the darker side of human nature. He seemed intrigued as to how we could pull it back to being something positive, but that’s where the third movement comes in, where everything reverts back to nature. That last shot of the kid is the payoff for all the bombs that get dropped earlier on.
Juliette & The Licks – ‘Hot Kiss’ – Director Steve Glashier
Our corporate video! After all the fighting we’d had with other videos we thought ‘let’s just give them what they want’ with this one. We planned it all out, story boarded it, did an animatic… we were really methodical. Anyway, I met Juliette on a Sunday and it was one of those occasions when you instantly click with someone. She just really wanted to do the video, so we started filming the following Sunday. They’d been supporting the Foo Fighters in Hyde park the night before so no one got to bed anytime before 4am. There were some bleary eyes come the following morning but it all went fairly smoothly. She was a bit troublesome at times so I told her to shut the fuck up and get on with it: people don’t talk to Juliette like that ever, but she responded really well and played it perfectly.
Taken over the course of two gigs during The Lodge’s tour supporting Juliette Lewis and The Licks, this video is just a lot of filming, loads of stills and even more fucking about: it’s a proper tour video, and tour videos are really easy to do shit. I shot everything myself with one camera and an SLR, so I had to plan exactly what I needed to film during the live shows and had to make doubly sure I got it. Johnny (the vocalist) needed a little jigging about in the edit to make sure his live performance matched the record, but other than that it was really straight forward and a lot of fun to make.
Fatboy Slim – ‘That Old Pair of Jeans’ – Director Steve Glashier
Everything we’d done up until this point had been really gritty and nasty and very heavy on concept, so I just wanted to do something nice. The original idea was of a girl leaving home, plugging in an iPod and walking to work hula hoping, but as I was driving to the planned location, a cul-de-sac, saw the windmill and changed my promptly changed my mind. There was a small team of us working on it, Angie was brilliant- she had that proper hardcore Aussie attitude of ‘Let’s just get it done mate’- and the light was perfect. People think it’s shot on film in Dakota or something, but we were just really lucky with the weather.The video was an entry into a competition: Make a film about Juggling and Fatboy Slim uses it as a music video. We looked into it and the definition juggling states that it’s the movement of objects through the air. There’s no mention of balls or clubs or fucking chainsaws, so we thought we’d use hula-hoops. Herein lies the best part of the story- when we were announced as the winners the world’s juggling community went absolutely fucking nuts! Of everything I’ve done, I’m probably most proud of that: I fucking hate carnies!
