AIRPLAYUK 04
Director Profile: Rupert Jones
Edited transcript

I was interested in music and I was sort of interested in writing perhaps, but I was interested in working with actors, I was always interested in that world. And it was actually my brother who said the good thing about film is you can be thinking about all those different things, and it was a good idea – you use different facets of creativity.

INTRO STING

My first film project was… I kind of co-wrote a script called “Triphony”...

Excerpts from TRIPHONY

And a friend of mine offered to produce it. So I plucked a figure out of my head and thought it’s going to cost £5000. And I spent about a year trying to raise £5000. I got off on the idea of making it a big affair as I thought it would raise my game a bit. My other strategy was: tell everyone you’re going to make a film, so and then if don’t make it then you’re a complete loser. So you have to make it!

On the last shot we wrapped and I promptly burst into tears. I was so overwhelmed by the culture of a film set and the people who work in it and that first impression has been with me ever since.

I started touting my very bleak short film, bleak Eastern European film around and people very politely went “it’s not really early 90’s pop”!

Excerpts from PHOTEK – HIDDEN CAMERA video

Photek: he was sort of regarded as the drum & bass artists’ drum & bass artist, and he wanted to make a short film. He wanted to do something about… set at night and the track was called ‘Hidden Camera’ and it had loads of atmosphere to it, it was a really filmic kind of soundtrack. So we wanted to do this kind of thing where Photek was driving around and he was being followed by two cops and he had all these boxes he delivered…and they mistake this for some sort of contraband. And ultimately we learn that they’re just records that he’s pressed.

Excerpts from FLUKE – ABSURD video

I’d sort of done a couple of videos and then suddenly this track came along and again, it was just that the band didn’t want to be in it. And because I’d met and known all these people who were in the theatre, a lot of very talented physical actors who were very funny, very good with their bodies. So I sort of thought “Well, I’ll get 20 of them”, and their brief from me was “This is the last audition on earth”. We just bought lots of junk in and then we had a whole dressing-up department, just sort of an actors’gift really I think. And there was also freedom in the shooting, and even in the editing as it always is for promos really.  It’s like that anyway, because you’re picking the finer moments…

FLUKE – ABSURD video

You write an idea and then that idea changes as you’re shooting it then it changes as you’re editing it so you’re trying to preserve something but compromise is constantly coming at you. You compromise with time and you compromise with resources and you’re constantly trying to sort of keep, preserve something through that whole process.

Excerpts of GOMEZ – GET MYSELF ARRESTED video

Yeah, ‘Get Myself Arrested’ was one of those tracks that you put on and that bass in the beginning… you just go “Oh!”. There’s a sort of despair because you think “I’ve got to have this, I’ve got to have this track” and so we sent in our idea and in those days – and I don’t want to harp on about those days – but in those days you would get a response two or three days later and they’d kind of go:

“We’ve sent it to 3 directors and you didn’t get it”.

“Thank you so much for returning the call”. You know, in those days…

But, we hadn’t heard anything so we said:

“So, where are they?”

And they said “Well they’re in Sheffield”.

So we went up to Sheffield and we walked into this rehearsal studio and we opened the door and this cloud of smoke came out! And they were all in there, and they were all rehearsing, and they were just really funny guys and really friendly. And looking at the treatments was something they just forgot to do and they said “Sorry!” and they said “So what’s your idea?” and I said well it’s this and you’re basically being experimented on and they said “Oh cool, that sounds great, let’s do that” and it was like that! And the drummer said “Can I go up on a winch?” and I said “Yeah you can go up on a winch”, so it was sort of that easy!

I don’t really know what the difference is between directing comedy and so called drama, but I enjoy directing comedy.

Excerpts of McFLY – IT’S ALL ABOUT YOU video

We had a bunch of gags, for that McFly video, we had a bunch of gags and it was sort of the craziest day of filming I’d ever done because you’d literally be tapped on the shoulder and you’d turn round and they’d go “This is Davina, we’ve got her for 10 minutes” and you’d go “Right, which gag is the nearest? We’ll give her the trombone gag”, and it would be literally like that turning round, you know “This is Dermot” “Give him the French horn gag”.

Excerpts of 80’s B-LINE MATCHBOX DISASTER – CHICKEN video

Chicken – 80s Matchbox B-Line Disaster: I was sent that track which had a budget of 15 grand at the same time as getting sent a boy band, and I can’t remember the name of the boy band and it was something like a 100 grand budget so I took the 15 grand one and tossed it aside and put on the 100 grand track. And I was pretty skint at the time and I thought “I’m going to like this!”. Some budgets are a good stimulus to liking songs, but half way through, I couldn’t listen to it anymore and then I put the other one on and literally 10 seconds in I was thinking wow, this is absolutely fantastic.

So I wrote this idea and literally wrote half a page and I said they’d been killed by a couple of idiots and these in bred idiots every so often pull them out of storage and play with the reanimated corpses of the band and they said “Yeah, lovely”!  But I also think the two guys playing the idiots who are both friends of mine really do a good job of just going there. They’re not embarrassed they just go for it.

80’s B-LINE MATCHBOX DISASTER – CHICKEN video

In a way, the biggest allure about videos is that you can just try stuff, you can try different stuff, you know? You can have an idea that revolves around a crane and you can say “This idea is all about… we’re gonna spend all our money on a crane” and you have an idea that involves a crane. Or you can have floor boards, “We’re just gonna have floor boards” or “This video’s all about mucking around with lip sync” and it works best when people are being most experimental. And all the kind of great videos they push that idea, they push the idea of the fantastic.

You know those little slide puzzles of squares? You used to get a slide puzzle of a picture with one square missing, so that you had to find it. That’s where it started. And again it was this thing of just sticking with one idea – squares – and seeing how much you could get out of squares and boxes, and just sticking with that, and pushing that.

Excerpts of EL PRESIDENTE – 100MPH video

That really was a video where there was a lot more to shoot. And I always sort of rue the fact that I know it’s 2 in the morning, but you know… I can’t find my inner tyrant! I have to find it!

EL PRESIDENTE – 100MPH video

Someone had made some comment that I always shot things in studios with sets, you know, so I thought “Right, I’m going to do a big location”.

Excerpt from STARSAILOR – BORN AGAIN video

In fact, I remember being as nervous as I’ve ever been on that video and I remember driving… because we had in Essex, we had fantastic locations for this part of the video and that part of the video, but down in Dungeness we had fantastic locations for this other part of the video and his other part of the video and I couldn’t decide. So, in the end I said…I did my thing and I said “I want it all!”, so we had both locations.

It’s funny when you’re writing sometimes you get so obsessed with, so preoccupied with back story… I do I get over-preoccupied with back story and over-preoccupied with psychology. And I really wanted to do a video which some people seem to pull off all the time, where you don’t have any of that, you don’t have to explain, you just, you know, you manage to create gravitas and drama out of something mysterious.

Excerpt of UPPER ROOM – BLACK & WHITE video

We charted her relationship with this guy. I think that’s a good example of what I was saying about structuring a video and talking about the comedy and the drama of the thing. Can you make something serious at that speed? And shoot it at 7 frames a second and I didn’t want to shoot it in normal time and then cut it down so, we took, we took, we just went for it.

Interviewer: “So, Live Earth, that was something you did last year, wasn’t it?”

Yes, so they said: “Come up with an idea for Live Earth”.|

“What does it have to be about?”

“Something about the environment.”

So my first idea was going to be some sort of pretentious nonsense about some child who thinks plastic bags grow on trees because they’re in the trees. And I sort of tentatively pitched that idea and they said:

“We really want people to watch these films and change their habits”.

“Er, OK, OK. Point taken, point taken.”

Excerpts from THINK short film for LIVE EARTH

And I went to the news agents that night and I got some milk, whatever, I was walking home and I was thinking what is it you know, that makes you change your habit? It’s about observing the moment when you’re not thinking.

THINK short film for LIVE EARTH

Excerpts from behind-the-scenes footage for TOM BAXTER – TELL HER TODAY

This started with Tom. He sent me a link on YouTube of this fantastic bit of footage of a school of flamenco dancers. So he said I would like to do something with flamenco dancers. Obviously the stamping is a big part of flamenco thing. So the idea is to basically have the band performing below on the floor below the dancers and there being some sort of connection between the two. We actually put a microphone under the floor of the dancers so we do have some fantastic sound. I wanted to see if we can maybe mix a bit in just to increase the drama.

There were a lot of technical problems but atmospherically and by and large we got most of what we wanted to get and they were very, very easy to work with.

Most bands I’ve worked with have been completely easy. I think he has an extraordinary voice I think, quite sensual. So we wanted something with lots of texture. And also this idea that there’s almost like a bit of horror thing going on at the beginning, a bit of suspense I suppose. And I did ask for a little brown mouse. So I insisted and I put my foot down, not on the mouse but…

Interviewer: So maybe you are still learning to be a bit of a tyrant then?

Maybe I’m learning yeah. Get your mice! Insist on your mice!

TOM BAXTER – TELL HER TODAY video

Ends