Family
is a bunch of wally's
from here and there who
have a knack for creating
woozily nostalgic silver
screen bliss in synch
with some of the best
music you've ever heard.
We worked for them for
the first time on the
video for Van She's Kelly
after seeing and loving
their clip All He Needs,
a homage to the Mike
Mills clip for Air's
All I Need. It's absolutely
classic stuff, and so
are the gents behind
Family.
What
is
Family?
A
Directing
collective
and
creative
agency
formed
by
Scotty,
Olly& Nicky hailing from Sydney & London.
We like to think we are a bit like a creative version of The
Waltons.
When/why
did Family start?
Family
started
when
we
found ourselves building a crazy fake forest in a studio in Sydney. Sitting around the artificial shrubs, we just
decided
that
it
had
to
be
used
for
a
videoclip
before
it
was pulled down.
We
asked
a
few
friends
to
see
who
had
a
track
that
was
dying
for
a
videoclip.
Murray
(Rekindle
-
Rallye
Records
Japan)
had
just
the
track.
We stayed up all night writing a rough treatment for the clip, relighting and dressing the forest, then started shooting at 7am the next day. We found the pressures of directing alone could be spread across many people, and that the mix of creativity that is formed by grabbing people with diverse backgrounds (Oliver's a cinematographer- come-producer, Nicolas has been
an
interior
designer and an ad agency art director, Scott a broadcast designer and animator) comes up with more lateral creative solutions than just one individual.
That
and
we
thought
it
was
a
good
idea,
fustrated
by
the
abundance
of
creative
mediocracy
at
the
time.
It
was
an
excuse
to
do
good work, forcing ourselves to do the things that we so often talked about.
Can
you give us a background on
the kind of things Family does?
Video
clips,
TV
commercials,
exhibitions, films, eat, drink, but we don't smoke.
You
seem to pick up a bit of work
overseas which is great for a
primarily Australian team, how does this come about?
One
third
of
us
is
from
London
where
we
have
strong
ties,
but
mainly
we
aspire
for
our
work
to
be
of
creative
interest
on
an
international level. We have been lucky enough to be contacted by various people who have seen our reel or our work online.
Who
are your heroes?
Jean-Luc
Godard,
Stanley
Kubrick,
Andrei
Tarkovsky,
Wes
Anderson,
Martin
Parr,
David
La
Chapelle.
Where
do you see Family in 10 years?
New
York,
London,
Berlin,
Milan,
Tokyo,
Melbourne,
Tamworth.
We
basically
want
to
work
anywhere
we
can
entertain
others
with
our
creative
take on filmmaking in all its many forms whilst still having fun.
Where
did your ideas for the Kelly
clip come from?
The
original
'Kissing'
concept
was
written
for
a
treatment
for
Cut
Copy's
'Going
Nowhere',
however
destiny
brought
Kelly
to
our
door,
which
ended
up helping us develop the simple kissing concept into something stronger, where
we were able to hunt down real teenage 'Kellys' living and kissing in Australia.
When
writing
the
original
idea,
we
were
inspired
by
the
thought
that
at
any
moment
in
time,
pimply
teenagers
are
at
home
kissing
awkwardly
while
their parents are out on the town kissing awkwardly.
How
did you find working with the
Van She boys?
They're
a
bunch
of
poseurs, who appear to be blessed with beautiful women forever falling at their feet.
Given
the chance, who would you most
like to do a clip for?
The
Presets,
Cut
Copy,
The Knife, Bloc Party, Madonna, Lady Sovereign, Annie, Chromeo + Anyone whose music we love. |