READING: Dawn Shadforth on Hurts’ Lights: “Haven’t we all been there?”

It was revelatory to see Dawn Shadforth’s music videography. I never knew she had done so many music videos including Kylie Minogue’s ‘Can’t get you out of my head.’ Her videos were so vastly different that I felt that we had moved on to another video director.

What struck me about in this week’s reading was that the Rosie Kellet who plays the antagonist is not only an actor and playwright but she also wrote the dialogue. I think her writing helps ground the video, gives it weight, a purpose, and a direction. The preamble in the foyer with the protagonist, Lucy Martin,  who bites back at them in Spanish helps link Martin’s attraction to the matador character.
The singer, Theo Callum, also plays the matador and Shadforth speaks of him being a natural actor. This is true. I thought he was a real actor he was so good. Not only does Callum’s contribution add another sense of authorship and fuse with Kellet’s written characterisations, he ‘thinks like a filmmaker’ says Shadforth which must’ve made it much easier to film. It’s something they fleshed out after she’d written the treatment.
Shadforth brought in an experienced costume designer, Alex Noble,  who does custome made pieces. You can see this in the clip  with the variety of animals and exotically dressed characters that look like they could’ve been in the Star Wars bar scene (there flashy niqab-wearing dancer and a bejewelled lady in the bathroom that Kellet tries to touch). It’s not only visually dazzling but also adds another layer of character
Lastly, she loves working with Robbie Ryan, director of photography, because he not only loves flashy dancing (a necessity for this kind of shoot) but he is also, as Shadforth describes, like a dancer himself.
Thus with all these collaborative elements of actors, costume designers, writers, choreographers and photographers ‘mucking in’ gives the shoot a fluidity and grittiness that might not have been achieved in a more detached crew and cast. So in short, good collaboration is bound by the passion for the project.