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Amateur filmmaker James Ward saw a competition to make the new UNKLE video, knocked up a pitch in one night, sent it off and – hey presto! – won the damn thing. His warped animation for the Josh Homme-featuring ‘Restless’ is now the track’s official vid and James is understandably chuffed.

BAND: UNKLE FEAT. JOSH HOMME
TITLE: RESTLESS
DIRECTOR: JAMES WARD

How did it feel to win the competition?
Slightly surreal. I honestly didn’t think I had a chance – you don’t do you? When [organisers] Filmaka rang me it was 4:30pm on a grey Monday just after New Year, and I was doing my VAT return – so I was pretty speechless. It was a strange mix of slight disbelief and excitement. It wasn’t until later that evening that it suddenly clicked that now I actually had to figure out how to make my idea a reality. That was a scary moment! No, overall it was just very exciting, this was a great opportunity and I was just desperate to get on with the project.

Can you sum up the video in a few sentences?
That’s a hard question! I’d say something along the lines of an unintentionally comic comment on the increasing power of generic globalised values and styles at the cost of the individual. Obviously I do not consider this to be a good thing! It’s a simplistic, sweeping, generalised statement not to be taken too seriously and hopefully enjoyable to watch.

Had you made music videos before you entered the Filmaka competition?
Everyone’s making a music video, right? Not really, not on this scale. I’d done a lot of bits and bobs for local bands and friends, but that was all very low budget stuff. I worked on a few videos for Reuben (Aldershot rock heroes!) which was good fun, but the UNKLE video was the first project that I had done which was entirely my own work.

Did your submission change at all to become the finished video?
I think these things always change to some extent as you develop them. With ‘Restless’, the initial idea didn’t alter much at all, but visually, the way it was told changed in a few subtle ways. I think it was case of my ideas not really communicating the story the way I imagined they would. Certain things worked and certain things didn’t – so you take a different route and then somehow end up at the same place.

Did you work to a brief or was it a product of your own ideas?
The competition was an open brief so I pitched my idea and that was that. When I met with the guys from [UNKLE’s label] Surrender All and Filmaka they were just like. ‘we love your idea, can you make it?’ – I said yes and off I went. It is was completely insane. They were great, great people to work with in that sense.

What was the thought process that led to the finished result?
Desperation! I only saw the competition a coupla days before the deadline, so I basically stayed up one night and wrote the whole thing from scratch. I listened to the track on repeat for a few hours and the idea just kinda came from that process. Just listening for little hooks, or lyrics that triggered ideas and thoughts. Once I had a few ideas I just sketched out a couple of characters and put together a few simple mock-ups. By the end of the night, I had a pretty good idea of what the story was and how I thought it would work and I put it all together in the pitch and sent if off.

Did you try to reference the song in any direct way or did you approach it more abstractly?
There are definite themes that are supposed to be quite literal, like the whole “following the light to the love” bit at the end, and the main character was originally based on the voice of the track, but on the whole, I think its quite an abstract response to the song. The video is supposed to reflect some of the ideas the lyrics suggest – the idea of the clones come out of the line, “I’m in you, you’re on me”, things like that, but I didn’t set out of tell the story of the song, I came up with a story inspired by the song.

The video has chaotic, ‘end of the world’ feel about it. Is that something you were trying to convey?
Yes! The main lyric is about following the light to the love. For me the word ‘light’ has strong religious connotations – the light of the world and all that kinda stuff. So I was really coming from a position of exploring the idea that we are all in some way looking for a saviour, we are all trying to find somewhere to belong – but with the whole ‘blind-leading-the-blind’ angle on it. As far as you can go within the context of a music video I guess. For me the end of the video is about what happens if you take that kind of dedication to a single cause to it’s logical conclusion, regardless of whether that cause is a good one or a bad one. Have you ever read Revelation? It’s not happy times!

Does the video have any specific influences that you could pinpoint?
Ha – halfway through the post-work I made the mistake of watching Shynola’s amazing video to ‘Eye for an Eye’, and there was this horrible moment when I thought, ‘shit, I’ve just completely ripped off their idea, only, really badly!’ That influence was a seriously subconscious one, and no-ones mentioned it (until now!) – apart from that, stylistically, I was perhaps influenced by people like David Shrigley in terms of trying to create the look of the video. To be honest it feels faintly ridiculous to be talking about influences because you end of mentioning a load of very talented, famous people and suddenly you are drawing comparisons and all that kind of thing, which I don’t want to do.

What techniques were used in the creation of the video?
Basically everything was hand-drawn using good old pen and paper, apart from a few bits of video like the tower blocks and the cranes, and then scanned into the computer. Each various bit was then manipulated in Photoshop to get it looking as I wanted and then the whole thing was animated in After Effects. It was quite a slow process as there weren’t really any computer generated objects to work with. I created each scene, animated the set-pieces and then rendered out various different camera angles. Then it was just a case of trying to cut that all together into a coherent story.

How long did it take to make?
The whole thing was done in three weeks. Which seems impossible now I think about it. It did nearly kill me at the end – just trying to get everything I’d created and make it cut together to tell the story. There were a few sleepless nights at the end to get it all done.

What feedback have you had from from James Lavelle?
James was great, he rang me up after it was all done and thanked me for all my hard work and said he loved the finished piece. Which was a big relief as he was in Australia touring with the band whilst the video was made, so it was difficult for him to give much feedback. Obviously I was working closely with the guys from Surrender All, but still, there was always that nagging worry in the back of my mind of ‘what if James doesn’t like it?’ But he did, and he took the time out to give me a call and let me know, so I appreciated that. I’m a fan first, so it was pretty nice to get to speak to James Lavelle, and have a quick chat. He also sorted me and few friends out tickets to see them play here in Bristol – so he’s a proper gent in my book!

James’s website is www.scubaboy.co.uk

Posted on: April 16, 2008