Playlist: Oliver Davies

What’s the best music video you’ve seen recently and why?

The 2023 UKMVAs have just happened so it’s a good time to see where the industry’s at and I was super pleased to see Camille Summers-Valli’s video for Mette - Mama’s Eyes win video of the year. It shows me that however much budgets and technologies change, people will always enjoy watching great choreography, especially if it’s an amazing artist busting the moves to their own track. I’ve done some work in the past with the video’s editor Vid Price at Trim, who also deserves much praise, what an edit. But seriously when the chorus kicks in, those shots by DoP Maximilian Pittner of Mette dancing under the shifting studio lights … it’s unbeatable.

I also really enjoyed Francois Rousselet’s recent one Angry for The Rolling Stones. I got proper IWITOT (I wish I’d Thought of That) vibes when I saw it, what a cool idea. Those billboards on Sunset are so iconic, it’s still a thrill to drive past them (even if you happen to be driving at a very sensible speed in a Volvo rental with the radio off because your kid’s having their nap in the backseat.)

What’s the first music video you remember being impressed by?

I grew up in a very rural, incredibly flat part of England, surrounded by fields and trees in every direction. Our house was at the edge of a tiny medieval village with one street, a single 400 year old pub and, rather oddly thinking about it now, a massive, very sci-fi looking water tower that loomed over us all. My family is all scientific. Mum was an NHS nurse and Dad a space physicist. 

There wasn’t loads of art or visual culture in the house but they both love music so what we did have was a really great collection of 70s and early 80s vinyl (think: Fleetwood Mac, Queen, Black Sabbath, Genesis) and a super nice (very 80s) Technics Hi-Fi system. We also had a chunky little four channel TV with a remote control aptly nicknamed The Brick. We didn't have MTV or anything, but every Thursday night we’d watch Top of The Pops and between acts they would sometimes show new music videos. 

I’ve got a fun memory of watching my older brothers playing James Pond (Underwater Agent) on the Sega Megadrive and my mum shouting up to say the new Michael Jackson video was going to be on TOTP. It’s a long time ago now so my memory has somehow fused together two very different but equally impressive and memorable Michael Jackson videos for Black or White and Leave Me Alone. Both of which felt like a world away from sleepy old Suffolk.

Zoom forwards a decade or few and I guess it wouldn’t be that hard to trace a line from just those two videos to my work as a director where I often mix live action performance with VFX, animation and design.

And what’s your all-time favourite music video?

Depeche Mode - Enjoy The Silence. It may not be the greatest video of all time, but it’s one of the greatest songs by probably my all time favourite band. (And if I’m going to be watching this on repeat on a desert island I’m gonna want to love the song.) And there’s still a lot to love about the video, Dave Gahan dressed as a lonely king wandering around the Alps with a deckchair, sure! Grainy B&W shots of the band in their 1990s heyday with flash frames of single red roses, yes please!

I came relatively late to the ‘Mode. In the early 2000’s I was really into trance music and in particular loved this one thumping track on an Eric Prydz mix I had. It was just too good a melody to be a random techno track and sure enough, after some digging I found out it was a remix of DM’s Behind The Wheel. I started delving into their back catalogue and I've been a fan ever since. It took until I saw the artist Jeremy Deller’s brilliant documentary Our Hobby Is Depeche Mode to realise just how big and well loved around the world they are.

A large part of my appreciation of them stems of course from the iconic visual world they occupy, which was almost single-handedly created by their long-time collaborator, the Dutch photographer and filmmaker Anton Corbijn. When I was living in New York I finally got to see them play at MSG and that concert, complete with visuals by Corbijn, is still my favourite gig. Probably.

What are you listening to at the moment?

I love soundtracks and no one puts music to moving images better than Paul Thomas Anderson. I like to project films at home and just this weekend had a family screening of Licorice Pizza which I hadn’t seen before. That soundtrack by Johnny Greenwood of Radiohead is typically awesome. The scene in the movie where Gary and Alana are lying on the water bed and the Paul McCartney/Wings track Let me Roll It starts playing is just so good.

Other than that I love what’s happening in the UK Jazz scene right now. Ezra Collective, Emma-Jean Thackray, Kokoroko. I’m also wearing out the new Huw Marc Bennet album, he’s from South Wales, where my Davies family ancestors hail from, and I’m loving his lo-fi blend of jazz, electronica and afrobeat. His latest album Days Like Now soundtracked my summer.

What’s your favourite bit of tech, whether for professional or personal use?

In purely cost-per-use terms it has to be my iPhone, but in enjoyment-per-use terms it’s certainly my little Olympus Stylus Epic point-and-shoot camera. It has a really nice 2.8 aperture fixed 35mm lens that takes these beautiful semi wide angled shots, and being so sleek (and peak 90s in it’s design), it slides right into your pocket so I can take it everywhere, which I do.

That coupled with my current film of choice, the B&W JCH Streetpan 400, which is pretty similar to Kodak Tri-X – makes for a super contrasty look, quite reminiscent of our old friend Anton Corbijn’s grainy rock n roll portraits in fact, which of course I love. When I’m in a city I like to take quite simple, graphic shots, often of those spaces between spaces that nobody really planned for, and layer them with more natural elements and create these quite complex, graphic collages. Being a country lad who loves the city I think I’ll always be drawn to the twin concepts of the open countryside and the hustle of urban life.

What artist(s) would you most like to work with and why?

Huw Marc Bennet – his music conjures up all kinds of interesting visual ideas and colours in my head. Also, it might give me an excuse to head back to the motherland.

The Smile – I loved the video Mark Jenkin, who directed the fantastic film Bait directed for their track Skrting On The Surface. I’m increasingly interested in Britain’s folklore and ancient rituals. I currently live quite close to Stonehenge for instance and often go walking there.

Depeche Mode – Obvs.

Lana Del Ray – I enjoy the visual world she’s created for herself and her music to live in.

Thundercat – I just love his music really and again, it feels super visual. His latest collaboration with Tame Impala was great and the very simple video for it reminded me of the very first club visual I saw, and loved, when I was at art college in Brighton. My mate and I were hanging around this club Concorde 2 taking photos on the day it opened and got asked to help set it up, like physically set it up, lifting speakers, etc. Anyway I helped mount a particularly tricky screen to a wall that later that night had just one visual on it… a run cycle of a cheetah. Simple stuff but great with music.

How do you feel the promo industry has changed since you started in it?

Looking back to when I started out making films it was as part of a very Nathan Barley existence, living in London Fields in East London, going out to clubs, DJing at friends’ warehouse parties and VJing at live music shows and fashion events. I love to dance and to make people dance so in many ways the visual stuff I was creating then was very much in service to that.

Typically, what that meant was there were often lots of people moving or just scenes that made you feel good whilst you were dancing. Imagery was simple and iconic and more often than not on a black background so as not to blind any ravers with too much white light. Anything that grooved went into the mixer so found footage and TV clips were used as well as original content. In recent years I’ve pivoted towards commercials and brand films, which require a more succinct beginning, middle and end kind of storytelling, but I’m still drawn to strong imagery and movement in all its forms.

Budgets aside, there’s a lot that has stayed the same in the quest to make amazing visuals for music. It still pays to have a great track, a great idea and great artistry in the making of it.