How Bill Bleakley Captured Authentic Australian Lives for The Teskey Brothers’s Music Video Trilogy
It’s not often that a brief for making a music video comes with only one task: make three videos with interwoven narrative arcs that can also work as individual pieces. That’s exactly what Bill Bleakley, a director with the Australia-based production company MOFA, was challenged to make happen for the blues rock band, The Teskey Brothers.
Inspired by The Teskey Brothers’ sensitive and soulful songs - Oceans of Emotions, Take My Heart, London Bridge - Bill worked in a documentary style to capture authentic stories of different Australians, like a relationship between the rodeo legend Lance Andersen and his mentee, Noah. Shooting on 35mm film was a stylistic and pragmatic choice with film lending that intimate and ethereal quality Bill was after, sans a large crew or post-production budget. Taking loose inspiration from Chloe Zhao’s The Rider, the films feel like documentaries, with a lyrical heart.
Today, LBB spoke to Bill about the challenge of splitting narrative arcs over three videos while working towards a singular vision, the kindness that strangers showed the crew to help capture the perfect shot, and how they made the shoot happen with a “tiny crew and no location permits.”
LBB> Music videos are typically one and done. You’ve just completed a trilogy of videos for The Teskey Brothers. How did you approach the videos knowing you’d be shooting three?
Bill> It was a nice challenge to make a three-part narrative clip. I’m not used to spitting narrative arcs over a few episodes. Each of the videos had to work as a standalone clip, but also had to add weight to the series. It was a totally open brief. The only requirement was that they wanted three videos that interlinked with each other.
LBB> What was your initial response to the brief? Did you have a strong vision straightaway?
Bill> I had heaps of ideas but struggled to extend them over three clips. I could feel the tone we needed but without casting, it was hard to imagine situations.
I presented ideas of characters and rough story beats, along with an approach we’d take to filming. Management and the band were happy to sign off on that, knowing that the creative would develop organically as we found cast and locations.
LBB> How did your creative relationship with The Teskey Brothers evolve over the course of the shoots?
Bill> The Teskey Brothers and their management gave me full creative freedom. They were an absolute pleasure to work with. They had a lot of trust which meant we could continuously adapt.
We approached all three clips as an eight-day block, shooting one storyline per day. We filmed all The Teskey Brothers performances in one day and chose locations that were all close to each other so we could fit in four performance locations and some driving. The idea for the performance moments was to mimic The Teskey Brothers early career of playing at unexpected and varied venues like they used to when they were starting out.
LBB> Tell us a little bit about the casting process and how that inspired the final videos.
Bill> We used a documentary methodology on this shoot – the aim was to find real people rather than actors and tell their stories. We had an idea of the type of people we wanted to find and the story beats they needed to hit, but everything completely changed once we found our cast.
For example, we knew we wanted to find an ex-rodeo champ going into this but when a friend suggested Lance (a 1978 world bull riding champion) I instantly knew he’d be perfect. We really lucked out. We crafted the story around Lance, and that’s how we found Noah (the young cowboy) – Lance is Noah’s rodeo mentor and teacher. We filmed at Lance’s house and his wife Julie and daughter Shelby are in the video too.
LBB> Why did you choose to go with real people over actors? What are some of the challenges involved in filming non-actors?
Bill> On a practical level, we didn’t have the budget to recreate characters’ lives and find locations, dress the sets, find and pay actors, get a wardrobe for them etc. So documentary was the only way we could make a story this ambitious work on our music video budget.
Creatively, the music is raw and authentic so the documentary aesthetic was a perfect fit. Most of these stories focussed on relationships and the little moments in their lives. Casting real couples was the obvious choice for capturing this on-screen connection. The non-actors were all really impressive and invested in what we were trying to achieve. The directions I gave were action based and simple which is usually how I work with trained actors anyway.
LBB> Did you use any filmic inspirations or references for the videos?
Bill> The biggest reference was The Rider by Chloe Zhao – the look and hybrid-documentary approach were spot on for what we were trying to achieve.
LBB> You shot on 35mm film - why did you choose film over digital?
Bill> The songs all have a nostalgic, deeply emotive quality. Film felt like the natural choice.
Also, we knew we wouldn’t have a lot of control over locations with a four-person crew and no art department, so we needed something that would give the videos an inherent beauty and quality. The film did a lot of heavy lifting in some quite plain locations. It meant I could focus on what the actors are doing rather than having to worry if it looks good.
LBB> In ‘Take My Heart’, the band is on ice and surrounded by ice hockey players - what was it like filming those scenes?
Bill> Filming on ice was a lot of fun. The hockey rink was really supportive and organised two teams of hockey players for us to have a mock game at 11pm at night.
I wasn’t really sure how we’d get dynamic footage on the ice, but Adric (our DOP) used to play inline hockey so he was a very talented ice skater. He was able to follow hockey players at speed with a very heavy 35mm camera on his shoulder.
LBB> The three videos capture a myriad of intimate, authentic moments. Do you have any favourite scenes or shots from the videos?
Bill> Each scene is loaded with so many memories! Maybe the scene of The Teskey Brothers driving a Ford Thunderbird across Bolte Bridge in Melbourne. You might notice that there are no other cars on the bridge. When we were filming out the side of our van (without permits) a few random cars decided to help us out by putting on their hazard lights and blocking off the whole road. Doesn’t sound like much but it’s one of Melbourne’s busiest roads so it felt pretty cool while we were filming. The light was also amazing when we were shooting.
LBB> Did you run into challenges while filming? How did you find the solution?
Bill> With a tiny crew and no location permits, the whole shoot was one big fun challenge!
The hardest day of shooting was at the rodeo – it was over 40 degrees, dusty and we were filming with two cameras and were surrounded by bulls and cowboys. It was also our first shoot day so it was a sink or swim moment.
The rodeo people were lovely, but because it was early on in the process, we hadn’t built up much rapport and trust. When the head of the rodeo essentially told us we couldn’t film behind the gates, Lance (our main cast member) stuck his neck out for us and persuaded the rodeo to let us film wherever. Lance is such a well-respected figure in the rodeo world that the head of the rodeo listened to him and gave us full access to film.
LBB> What was your favourite part of working on these videos?
Bill> The best part of making these videos was meeting everyone we worked with. Lots of them hadn’t been in front of a camera before so it was awesome to see them trusting themselves and nailing it!
Each day was a different adventure and it felt like we were entering a new world. We were pulling some very long hours on this shoot, but after every day of shooting, we all went and had late-night dinner at one of the filming locations –Supper Inn (the best XO pippies in Melbourne fyi).
