| Jesse Spears Interviews Global Filmmaker Wendy Morgan |
Jesse Spears (pictured on the top right, smelling a buttercup) is one of my favorite artists. In addition to the blog she uses to document her endless creative output (Long Live Cartoon!) she also keeps a personal blog called Carnage Knockout, filled with sublime ephemera: snapshots of plants and pets, 911 calls, bubble wrap, and lists: like, “Things I Don’t Understand,” and “People I Want To Meet.” It was on Carnage Knockout that I first came across Wendy Morgan’s godly music video for the Gnarls Barkley song “Going On.” Wendy Morgan is a Canadian commercial and music video director who’s made some great ad spots for Ikea, Girls Inc., and MTV Canada that are often bizarre or bemusing and occasionally even tackle the ungraspable nuances of Canadian national identity. Truthfully, Wendy’s MTV commercials are too good for MTV… though, who knows, maybe in topsy-turvy Canada, that sad vestige of a former pop culture powder-keg has managed to retain some semblance of watchability. Regardless of MTV’s contemporary significance, its legacy lives on in cyberspace as the music video medium continues to thrive on a newly global scale– thanks in no small part to directors like Morgan. She’s crafted unaffected, imaginative videos for bands like The Unicorns and Dragonette– bands which don’t get any significant air time on the highly corporatized cable networks, but are now finding a home on the information superhighway. I thought it would be fun to interview Wendy Morgan, but even more fun to let Jesse Spears do most of the work, since she loves the “Going On” video so much. Jesse came up with a bunch of questions, and I threw in a couple of my own, and we e-mailed them off to the jet-setting filmmaker, whose blog is replete with images from Jamaica, Barcelona, Italy and France. I’m enormously grateful to Wendy for humoring us by responding to this interview, and to Jesse for conducting it. I’ll pass things over to Ms. Spears for a proper introduction:
1. What was the crew like for the filming of the “Going On” video? Like, how big was the crew, and how long did it take and stuff.? We shot for two days, prepped for probably five days, the crew was around 20 or so people I think, it felt pretty small in reality. The producer was Jannie McInnes of Revolver Films, the cinematographer was Max Goldman, who makes a ton of great videos, and I think he’s amazing. 2. How did you come up with the story of dancing Jamaican kids finding a portal to an alternate dimension? Well, the original story that was written was: we do a musical-style approach with singing and dancing that takes place in Africa. But it made more sense to go to Jamaica, and I love dancehall style dancing, but you’ll notice there are no obvious Jamaican references or locations. I wanted it to be a nether world. The song sounded like dancing and celebration to me and lyrically, it talks about going on. I imagined the farthest you can possibly go is another dimension, so we’ll go there.
3. What were you calling on for inspiration? Did you have any specific points of reference? My points of reference were: Igbo tribal dances I dunno… these things morph as you go, but I think this is a decent list. 4. How did you hear about Sashi Empire, and where did you find the other dancers? I’m kind of confused about what Sashi Empire is? Is it a dance crew? Yes, Sashi Empire is a dance crew, and they are all in the music video. We also had two members of another crew called Shady Squad and four other solo dancers including the three girls. We auditioned in Kingston for hours and hours, and the Sashi Empire guys had this magical thing about them.
They where truly a pleasure to work with, and I think the best dancers I’ve ever seen in my life. I think the video has really blown up in Jamaica, we keep in touch with them and they keep telling us they really getting their shine over there which is amazing. At the time I don’t think anyone really understood wtf I was trying to do– I’m glad it worked out. 5. When did you start filming and taking photos? I started directing about six years ago, and I bought a half-decent camera about a year and a half ago. I’m kinda lazy with photography. Half the time, I don’t really feel like I know what I’m doing, but I like it and I think it’s a good process for me, because I think my strengths are more conceptual than visual so its good to try to flex other muscles.
The thing with directing, too, is that you’re always taken to these bizarre places when you’re location scouting– the types of places you would never go normally, so that’s when I tend to take the most pictures. 6. Are there any childhood memories that stand out as having a big impact on your art now? It’s not a specific moment, but I remember watching TV as a kid and when a show like Little House on the Prairie or something like that got really good, or really emotional, or really scary, I would have this weird physical reaction to it, like I would start kinda freaking out. I think I spend a lot of time chasing that feeling now. It’s like when something is so good, you can’t take it and it makes you feel uncomfortable. It’s hard to explain, but it’s a good feeling. 7. Would you like to venture into feature filmmaking? What would a Wendy Morgan film be like? Yes, I would like to a lot. I’m hoping that type of thing will be coming in the near future. I’m working on a script right now. I don’t wanna give too much away, but its about magic, jealousy, families and twins. What will it be like… it’s hard to say. Hopefully good!
8. What’s your favorite music right now??? I’ve been listening to this guy from the UK, Lewis Taylor. I also really like this kid who’s connected to MIA, Afrikan Boy, who led me to King Sunny Adé, and this Nigerian amazing artist called Lagbaja (one song especially, called “Gra Gra“), it’s like T-Pain but way better. I’m into finding out more about African music in general. I feel like with YouTube and MySpace and all that, I can finally access it all– I can hear some kid who’s making music in Kenya, and that’s really exciting to me. In general I’m also listening to, the new Lil’ Wayne, Tego Calderón, Band of Horses, Mavado, Kanye West, Roison Murphy, Snoop, lots of reggae, lots of everything. I love music. 9. Are you a dancer, too??? I’m not “a dancer,” but I love dancing and I can do it for hours on end. 10. Since you travel a lot, you must get to eat some yummy food. I was wondering what your favorites are. Favorites, hmm… truthfully, I love everything I’m not a picky eater at all, but I love…. Artichokes, everything with lemon on it, Japanese food, Italian coffee, Chilean deserts… some of the best soup I’ve ever had was in Colombia, and I love soup. In Spain we eat a lot of delicious cheese, and ham and Pan con Tomate which is no big deal, but it’s pretty delicious.
11. Your videos rule and your photos rule… but that’s not a question, I just want to tell you in case for some reason you forget. Thank you so much for that, that’s really sweet. |
AMAZING! i remember that video WELL!!!
This is super rad…You guys are all so Rad!!!!!!!!
Great video. I’d like to thank Wendy for letting me know about Pan con Tomate and giving me a vivid dream of making one with a big juicy tomato last night.