DISCO IN MY HEAD

This is the second video I have done for Ups & Downs, following my video remix for True Love Waste. Darren – Ups & Downs drummer, alongside bandmate with me and Catherine in Faux Faux Amis – had heard about our Cell Block 69 Dance Off exploits. He thought the whole thing sounded like a great music video concept for Ups & Downs song Disco In My Head, right down to the 80s costumes and the venue (the Polish Club). The Ups & Downs would begin as judges, then be judged themselves performing the song on stage, and finally everyone would be up and dancing at the end.

With all that already in place, as director I had to have it make visual and narrative sense (well, narrative for a music video).

I added a meta-textual element to mirror the lyrics and provide a structure to the role reversal. I like the idea of the lyric ‘when you go there’s no disco in my head‘ being about how other people can affect our mind and mood, and wanted to play with how the mind can scramble our thoughts and memories. To do so, I introduced another character – an actor in Tudor garb (he’s holding a skull so we infer he’s delivering the Yorick monologue). The dancers and the band thus represent parts of the lead singer’s mind in conflict with each other, but by the end of the song they are working in harmony. The Tudor actor represents Freud’s concept of ego, trying to restore balance. I sent a breakdown to the Ups & Downs, who loved the concept.

 

Schedules meant Catherine wasn’t able to get all of the original Cell Block 69 dancers together for the shoot, but herself, Gem, Cris, and Hayley knocked it out of the park. All of them brought surplus energy and a ‘try anything’ attitude which made the shoot a breeze. The Polish Club was a perfect venue to film in, and already came with the lighting rig and smoke machine (we made liberal use of the smoke machine).

The Ups & Downs were really good sports as well and indulged all of my directorial whims and requests. Cameron Thomas was the true star of the day, turning up in his full Elizabethan garb, and even bringing two of his own skulls for me to select from! He brought a much needed pathos to balance out some of the ham and goofiness of the rest of the set-ups. He’s a tremendous talent and I wish he was already starring in a Netflix series. 

The band and I went back and forth on the edit a few times, and a lot of my story work (as in the above breakdown) got cut or truncated. That’s part of the nature of being a director-for-hire, but they were some of my favourite bits, so I was disappointed. Looking at it now (the video was released in February), I’m a lot less worried – it holds together and the energy is retained.