Over the past few months we have been regularly posting some of Ourmaninthefield’s most amazing videos and DJ interviews. Eager to find out more about this collective, we recently teamed up with the ourmaninthefield crew to talk past, present, future and much more…
Hey guys, how are you? Really well thanks. 2010 was a great year for us and we are really looking forward to 2011 and getting on with some exciting projects.
Let’s start with an introduction. Who are you and what exactly is ourmaninthefield? ourmaninthefield is an independent film collective specialising purely in the dance music scene. Primarily its the two of us, (Martin Wells & David Southcott) but we involve many different like minded film makers who understand what we are trying to achieve. I guess we’re different because we want to document the industry and represent different artists with our style of film making.
How did the idea for ourmaninthefield originate? We have been good friends for years and have both been into film making and photography individually before ourmaninthefield started. We have a great group of friends that get together on an annual pilgrimage to Glastonbury Festival each year. In 2007 we wanted to produce a film as a keepsake of our group’s adventures at Glastonbury that year. We produced a short film for everyone and on a bit of a whim we entered a censored version into a competition run by Sony and Yahoo, to our surprise, we won the UK category. In the footage we captured one of those moments when Nick Warren dropped Yeke Yeke at the Glade stage. It was one of those "hairs on the back of your neck" moments where the crowd went wild so we posted it on youtube for everyone else to enjoy. We didn’t really think anymore of it, we were just pleased to document one of those moments and looked back at it with fond memories.
A couple of months after we uploaded it we were approached by Nick Warren’s record company asking if they could use it. We were pretty stoked they wanted to use it. At that point, things really started to snowball. Nick asked us to film Way Out West at Glastonbury in 2008, we did some work for the Creamfields Festival later that year and then by 2009 we were filming 4 shows at Glastonbury and at The Isle of Wight and The Glade Festivals. We’d somehow managed to go from filming our friends to filming our dj heroes in the space of about a year and are delighted to present artists in our style of film.
What kind of projects is ourmaninthefield currently involved in? We tend not to have lots on the go at any one time. We are agreed that if we are going to do it, we are going to do it with full focus. We are in talks with a number of different record labels and artists at the moment about some very exciting projects…………but I guess you will just have to sign up to our YouTube channel to be the first to know about them. Unfortunately we do have to keep things closely under our hats regarding new shows artists are releasing because its not really our place to reveal that sort of stuff. Once projects are confirmed we do announce them through our facebook page so please do add us for quick updates.
You did a video on the Sasha show last month (see below). Can you tell us something about that night and how the video was produced? The night was fantastic. We've seen Sasha play many times before and each set can be very different so we tried not to set off with pre conceived ideas. We set all camera braces up in the venue during its transformation from an underground car park to a night club. We discussed the plan with Sasha's Tour Manager whilst we were setting up. He was quite clear in his description of the set, Sasha was going to come out full bore... he was right.
As with every shoot, we planned all angles to get full coverage. I guess we see our job as showing every possible angle from everyones perspective, especially the dj and even more importantly the crowd. Having set all the camera positions we headed back across town and met the team we'd selected for that night, had a couple of brandies and discussed the plan before heading back to the club and getting ready for Sasha to hit the decks.
Sasha was on from 12.30am – 3.15am. His tour manager was right, the set was absolutely thumping. Sasha did a beautiful start, he didn't just start playing, he built the opening with precise visuals and looped a track about “The Warehouse Days of Glory” (see Part 1 of the live film). The visuals team have subsequently sent us the visuals that Sasha used at the start, which timed beautifully with the lyrics. It was a prime example of a dj pushing it more into a show of light and sound as opposed to your standard dj set.
We have tried to produce the films in a very similar way, we want the viewer to be immersed in all aspects of the show from simply watching the films. To do that we have plan the cuts and what we show very carefully. The creative process is very similar to how you put together a music track. Each piece of footage has to represent the track as it progresses and the art is in achieving synergy between the audio and the visual.
What is the main idea behind your video? / What is it you want to bring across when creating a video? The idea behind our films is to grab the viewers attention from the beginning of the film and leave them wanting more at the end. In some ways we try to hypnotise the viewer in the process, using multiple camera angles and strong imagery so viewer feels part of the experience. This includes incorporating the visuals, the atmosphere and the performance to fully cover the live event.
The live feel is the most important aspect. There is no doubt that we want to capture a set as seen from all perspectives. The DJ, The VJ, The Sound & Lighting Engineers………but most important of all, from the crowd. To do that we have put cameramen in the crowd because all too often with live films they look disconnected and don't cover it as someone in the crowd experiences it. Afterall the viewer wants to know what it was like to be there!
The series of films for Sasha do actually form an overview of the set in some ways and the follow in chronological order. After the intro in Part 1, Part 2 is a really progressive Track, Kovacs. Part 3 is where the set really lands. Loops Of Fury – which is a pounding track from start to finish. The film is rounded off nicely with Part 4 which is the Sasha Club Remix of Digitalism’s – Blitz. We have tried to demonstrate the set with the vibe of the films.
Parts 2, 3 and 4 are almost complete. They are with Sasha waiting for approval and should be with you all soon…………
Can you tell us something about the gear you guys use for making the videos? Of course. We have collected a lot of kit through our years of film making and we seem to buy a new piece of equipment for each job to try a different angle. The cameras we use include: • Sony A1E • Panasonic GH1 • A number of Canon 550D’s • Cannon 5d • Sony Z5
We also use a really compact secret weapon we mount in the DJ both that we can place in very tight spaces. For this film it sat above the mixer and caught some great footage of Sasha at work close up. Unfortunately we cannot reveal what this piece of kit is :-)
We involve other cameramen who use their own cameras (they have to be suitable to match the quality of footage we capture). Each camera has a specific job so we have built our tool kit specifically for this type of filming.
How about your team? How many people are involved and what's the division of tasks? The 2 of us head everything up. Shoot, edit and produce the films. We then involve cameramen with the same passion for dance music. They have to understand what we are trying to capture. We have a long list of shots we want every cameraman in the team to look out for, from shots that give accurate documentary of the show to abstract shots that give the atmosphere and the "clubbers vibe". We rely heavily on teamwork, each "man in the field" has a specific job or specific shots to capture, this shows as each mans footage is different which gives real depth to the overall production.
We then work with the djs team to maximize the visuals and sound. Sasha's team have been red hot in this production.
How do you decide which footage is used and what goes on to the cutting room floor? Good question, there isn't really a hard science to this aspect of the production. Without trying to sound too cryptic we try to shape a big picture out of all the footage. We have to use the delivery of the performance running primarily to give the film structure but we then have to mould the atmosphere around that. We try to use the right balance of shots to give the film depth. Most importantly we have to maintain a level of consistency so the final cut doesn't look like a jumbled collection of randomness (unless thats the idea). We get a better sense for what what we are looking for on each project we work on.
What can we expect from you guys in the near future? Any scoops perhaps? Maybe 1 or 2…………we would like to work with a couple of our favorite BIG electro bands, but I wouldn’t want to say any more about that just yet. We have found ourselves in a very fortunate position and we are very passionate about what we do. I guess in the long term we would like our films to form a reference point to the industry as it has developed. After each production we look for what's next, bigger venues & artists who are attracting attention in genres of dance music we love. We try to keep this to our own taste because you have to be passionate about what you are trying to create and we try to focus on covering artists who are pushing things in their own unique direction. Let’s just say that ourmaninthefield is on the verge of some Very Exciting Times!
Is there anything else you'd like to share that we haven't covered yet? If anything we should touch on the editing process because I guess we are quite unique in how we edit. We try to set up a studio or a place to get back to straight after a set. We upload all footage immediately and then ideally spend a couple of days locked in the studio absorbing all angles of footage. It's the kind of editing you have to immerse yourself in because there's no pre written story board you have to keep to, so you have to shape it as you go. For that reason you cant pick it up and put it down.
We edit as a team and experiment with images and cuts, we are consumed by it for days on end. The end result is a combination of our styles and ideas which we try to fine tune each subsequent project we work on. Thanks for watching, please subscribe for more and enjoy!
We would like to thank Ourmaninthefield for their time and their amazing videos. Check out the video shot during Sasha's gig at the Warehouse Project right below and watch out for the other episodes here on BeatsandBeyond!
