Music Videos: A Crucial Rung on the Creative Ladder

There are few cultural artefacts that resonate as deeply as the short, sharp sensation of the promotional music video. At their best, and sometimes even at their worst, music videos act unrivalled as cultural markers; as they bring together the fashion trends, cinematic sensibilities and musical zeitgeists like no other corner of culture can. The cumulative effect can land a music video like ‘Despacito’ with 6.5 billion YouTube views - that’s a lot of repeat watches.

 

From a craft perspective, music videos are often fertile ground for experimentation, as well as a proving ground for emerging talent behind the camera, in the edit suite and almost everywhere else along the production chain. Many successful filmmakers working in the advertising and film industries learn their craft shooting music videos; the same goes for editors. Music videos create spaces where up-and-coming editors can pair up with emerging filmmakers - creating lasting creative relationships and leading to ground-breaking work, inside and outside the world of promos. 

 

Recognising this, Cut+Run has partnered with the UK Music Video Awards for the past three years, sponsoring the Best Editing category. As part of this collaboration, Deep Cuts was born; an event where editors and directors working in the world of promos discuss its creative importance and offer valuable insights on the editing process for an audience of industry members, newcomers and film students.

 

The event took place at Cut+Run’s Wardour Street offices on Wednesday night. With all proceeds going to War Child, Deep Cuts sold out for a third year running, with a panel that featured Cut+Run’s Matt Prickett, Work’s Anne Perri, tenthree’s Liam Bachler, and director Frank Lebon - fresh from winning the award for Best Urban Video International at this year’s UKMVAs.

 

Liam Bachler kicked off the conversation with some insight into the editing process behind the two-screen stylistic feature of his video for Ghetts’ ‘Black Rose’, directed by Netti Hurley. Hailing from New Zealand, where Liam says “we don't have grime,” the editor spoke about the challenges and satisfaction of encountering a new platform of creativity, the importance of insight from the artist and an editor’s responsibility to facilitate a creative atmosphere in the suite.

 

Before breaking down the editorial process behind his video for ‘To Feel Good’ by Swim Deep, directed by Georgina Cammalleri, Cut+Run’s own Matt Prickett spoke about his background in commercial editing, beginning across the Atlantic at CP+B in Miami. Matt discussed the job of an editor when working with a first-time director and his conviction in the power of multiple perspectives in the suite - not just his own.

 

 

Temporarily shifting the focus away from music videos, Anne Perri treated the audience to a sneak preview of her feature documentary, ‘The Quiet One’. Directed by Oliver Murray, the film documents the life of former Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman, opening up his massive archive of home movies of the band - Anne discussed the responsibilities of an editor when dealing with footage so rich in history and how one deals with the giant task of cutting a feature length project for the first time.

 

Finally, director Frank Lebon talked about how he developed the seemingly complex but thematically clear mini-epic for ‘Can’t Believe the Way we Flow’ by James Blake, which features approximately thirty interweaving stories, a large cast, ultra-high-speed montages and an abundance of pigeon-poo. Having directed and edited the video, Frank explained how he turned what seems like a painstaking procedure into a (relatively) straightforward edit, and broke down his process for developing an idea in response to a track.

 

 

Bringing these creative minds together inspired plenty of questions from the audience, with many newcomers and students sticking around to chat with the experts - hammering home the importance of music videos in the trajectories of aspiring filmmakers.