How does your creative process differ from creating a narrative such as for Infinity Ink and a performance piece for Tinie Tempah?

The creative approach was very different but both equally fast-track creative blasts. The turn around for prep on Tinie was ridiculously fast, it was a crazy prep for something big with lots of elements.

Infinity Ink was quite a personal idea that seemed to fit that song. Creatively this idea was totally inspired by the song. So creatively I was thinking in a different way and working with the performers differently of course.  This video is more about a look and feel, style palate and energy, whereas Infinity Ink was about emotion and telling a story albeit a fragmented one. But when it comes to the nuts and bolts the process is sometimes similar. Both have weird food, both have dancing, both were young male leads.  Both had hectic edits.There’s more in common than first meets the eye!

I got excited about this because of the combination of the production, of the track and Tinie’s lyrics. These were the things that really inspired everything in the video for Trampoline, especially the randomness with which Tinie connects stream-of-consciousness ideas and rhymes.  This song is pretty Dadaist. The track is really spacey and minimal and slick but also a bit bonkers.  So the video is kind of slick and polished but also very tongue-in-cheek.

I haven’t ever done a still life “cutaway” video before.  I thought this was the song to do it with.  My twisted kitschy homage to Sam Brown!!  It’s also such a full-on dance, rave tune, a party tune, so to me it seemed like a perfect opportunity to have choreography. Everything in the video is connected to the lyrics and music somehow, down to things like Shaun Niles dance moves being inspired by Vogueing, because it’s in the song, and the bunny being a disco one. Haha!  You don’t have to get it, it’s pretty irreverent and to be honest quite childish. To me that all feels very natural for this song, it’s a song that’s just for fun and why not? “Because I can”.  I love that.  It reminds me of the silliness of raving and the sexiness of dancing.

Did you work the timings and action out in detail before hand or did you shoot and pace it in the edit?

I am normally quite structured about the way I shoot, but in this case I shot with no real structure in mind.  I just knew I wanted lots of material and to keep introducing new images throughout. This was liberating but also gave us a real mountain to climb in the edit.  Thomas Grove Carter at Trim did a great job making sense of it all and giving it the intensity that I wanted.

Did the whole production run smoothly? What was the most challenging aspect of it?

Haha! At one point the horse did a huge dump all over a shiny black floor that we had been trying to keep in a pristine condition. That was challenging for the runner who had to clear it up.

It was generally very difficult because the short prep time made things really tough for production… For instance – in terms of how it effects the shoot – we had ideas for hair for the dancers that didn’t work on the day, ponytails that wouldn’t stay put because the girls’ dancing was so vigorous. Sounds trivial but kept ruining whole takes. And because we didn’t have time to prep them at all.

Also the video was actually written with a white studio in mind but when it came to it none were available in town, so we had to rethink the aesthetic days before we shot and shoot on a black space. Doing things fast can be a buzz creatively but a killer for production. You can make so much more with the money if you have more prep time. It’s frustrating but in cases like this, when the project is an exciting one, you have to just go for it and look for the beauty in the chaos. Shooting music videos and especially great performers like Tinie is a treat.