Looking at the versatile career of Stamp Films new signing Petro Papahadjopoulos it’s no surprise to see that his recent music videos range over a broad spectrum of styles. Ali Macalister Skyped him over in LA to learn more about his work, his strange dreams, and his lack of girlfriends in the past…

Let’s start at the beginning. When did you first pick up a camera?
I used to make Super 8 films when I was in grade school but I didn’t pick up a camera again until much later. I wanted to make movies when I was a kid and I gave up on that for a long time…

How did you get into graphic design, special FX and then directing?
I moved in next to these guys, this was in San Francisco during the end of the century.com and these guys were graphic designers. I was so excited that they had a career from doing that that I started to do it myself. It wasn’t specifically about graphic design but about the computer letting you gain access to all variety of media; my mind went to film. Previous to the computer you’d have to work in something where you’d get the experience. I was a complete outsider but through the medium of software like After Effects and Final Cut I was able to get that experience totally separate from the community of film making which I think is a great new thing.

What was the first directing job you were commissioned to do?
Little known fact: I did a video for Warren Zevon. He did a compilation record and I’d done an animated video of him. I went to the Nevada desert, shot all these stills and told this story by animating them into a cartoon. But then I didn’t do any film again until much later and my first video was really for Rufus Wainwright in England.

You’ve had a lot of big names. With the more commercial names such as Girls Aloud, do you find they can restrict your creativity?
Being appropriate to the artist is the most important element to it. I get excited when I turn on a camera so I don’t turn down any project and that’s why I have such an odd reel, it doesn’t stick to a certain genre. If it’s Girls Aloud then that’s a lot about pop and beauty and I’ll get in to that…

I loved the costumes in that video! And as for TV on the Radio that was quite different from the Girls Aloud video. I think that might more reflect your style? It was quite abstract…
That was definitely unfiltered because, again, it has to do with the band. I woke one morning with a dream and that was the dream. It was a dream after I’d listened to their album. I couldn’t remember the specific songs but it was the sense of the music. I wrote it down and sent it to them almost cringing, thinking, “They’ll never like this… They’ll never go for a New Age concept,” but then they wrote back like, “We love this!” It was just an amazing circumstance.

That’s a good way to work, listening to music and drawing ideas from the proceeding dreams… What’s a favourite piece you’ve done?
There’s a Puddle of Mudd video [Spaceship] that I like for an odd reason, they take a tour bus into outer space. I was trying to bring back the ‘80s video because there’s a lot of seriousness around rock after the whole grunge scene. I felt like there was something missing since those days of the ‘80s heavy metal bands. I wanted to see that ridiculous over-the-topness but bring it to a modern styling and I felt like I effectively did that.
The scenes in that video are very elaborate yet finely cut and lots of ‘80s style special FX! Do you have any band horror stories?
There’s a horror story almost every time. From the start [with] Rufus Wainwright, we were shooting at this old boys’ school outside London. We had this big camera and we couldn’t fit it into the room where we were shooting and we had to wait hours for them to drive back to London and bring a different camera out. It was just ridiculous. And Girls Aloud, Cheryl Cole that evening before had just broke up with her husband.

So you were right in the middle of the drama…
So that was just insanity. And then [with] The Saturdays we were shooting by the beach, the tide came in and we couldn’t shoot there anymore. We had to relocate…

That sounds like a nightmare…
It’s all these logistical things that are troublesome and you have to adapt. I envy those directors who have really keenly planned out and actually executed every moment of it. There always seem to be some major event that happens [so] that I end up winging it for a big part of the video shoot.

Do you plan much beforehand or is it more spontaneous during the shoot?
I plan out really thoroughly. I draw all my boards myself and get very detailed into it, but then I often have to toss pages out the window as we’re going. I sometimes I think I should shoot spontaneously because it would be easier. It depends on the band; I’m going to try to do that some more.

What’s your favourite part of the process?
I think the best part is probably the storyboarding. I’ve learned that the best way to pitch an idea is almost off the cuff, it can’t feel belaboured with a lot of heavy thinking, and it just turns people off. That initial pitch has to be down to one concept that’s a sentence, that sentence has to be effortless feeling, like it’s been in the conversation for years with you and these strangers. I pitch so many ideas in a year but once I actually get it, I don’t go much deeper than the pitch. It’s its own art form. Then when they accept the pitch I have to storyboard it, so that detail is when my creativity comes up most, when I visualise. It’s where I develop the unique ideas because on set you’re so busy doing things that it’s hard to spontaneously come up with really innovative situations.

And do you have any advice to young and aspiring directors out there?
It’s in understanding how to bring your idea down to a single sentence, that’s very important as far as the sell. A lot of ideas I have sold have been over the phone to a commissioner. At first you rack your brain because you may wake up with some brilliant ideas and never find the appropriate band to put them to, so you want to have the facility to come up with something interesting and appropriate at that moment. It takes a bit of experience; that can only come from just trying ideas. It all starts with the idea.

So the idea has to be short, snappy and make an impact on who ever you’re selling it to…
And you have to have fun with it. I won’t stay up all night trying to figure out hard problems, I go outside and I play with the kids because the brilliant ideas [happen] when your mind relaxes. When you want to stay up all night and work really hard I call it ‘doing a road-trip’. You can drive for hours in front of this computer screen but coming up with interesting ideas you need to have a fresh mind.

And last but not least, what do you wish you’d known when you were 18?
I think I was very shy and introverted; it would have been nice to have learned how to communicate with people. It would have been great to have a girlfriend!

I’m sure you’re being modest! Also, and this might sound like a stupid question, how do I pronounce your surname?
Papa-haja-pou-los. It’s a Greek name. The ending tells you what region it’s from, my family’s from the Peloponnese. which is ‘poulos’. The beginning, ‘Papa,’ is a priest, and the middle is ‘hadjo’ which is a pilgrimage. So it’s a priest that went on a pilgrimage from the Peloponnese.

Contact: www.stampfilms.com