Talk about a rush of blood to the head. Today’s new director, Richard Hunter, suspended band Good Shoes upside down for a promo with a gravity defying twist. After catching the promo on the awesome Radar Music Videos site, we decided to investigate further and came across a reel that includes offbeat documentaries and interviews with bands like Justice as well as some imaginative music videos. Richard’s unsigned-  but not for long we reckon!

How did you get into directing

I’m still trying to work my way up, I’ve always been a creative person and I’ve always had a passion for film and music videos. Every chance I’d get I use to make skateboard videos and dumb skits with my friends from school – we would film them on the weekends and ‘edit’ them with music using the VCR and possibly the biggest camcorder you’ve ever seen – we’d have little screenings at break time, and I remember them always getting confiscated by the teachers, they must have a treasure chest of our VCRs somewhere.

So when college rolled around and I found out you could take a course in media, that you could learn about films and make them in exchange for grades, I naturally gravitated towards that.

Then I went to University in Newport South Wales, took Film and Video – I can’t say I enjoyed the course it’s self but the people were great– I was all hyped up and ready to go, I even signed up for early moring classes with the excitement, only to confronted with an hour of ‘how to put a battery in a DV Camera, Panasonic model 6d1 blah blah, no.

Things didn’t get much better, mainly because the course was 100 plus, and felt impersonal – so after a year I switched to documentary, a 25 people course, taught by Chirs Morris (Documentary Chris Morris not Four Lions Chris Morris) and Peter Watkins Hughes (A Piece of Tom Jones). I was being taught by people with real passion and on top of that I had access to final cut suites 24/7 – it was a dream, in those two years I cut my teeth on making no budget documentaries, including A Disease Of More (a story of a sex addict) and Bingo Mad. The latter was the story of a Welsh Bingo Caller winning the Bingo Calling Regional’s, and then going on to the Nationals to compete in the London finals against the best in business of- Bingo Calling.

These films gave me a real love for DIY film making, just going out with an idea and a camera, I loved that you didn’t need to rely on anyone, you weren’t restricted by time, or other people – it was like, I’ve got an idea, I want to do this now, let’s grab a sandwich and go!

After university I moved to London, I had already contacted various people in regards to work, including Dummy Magazine, I started making videos for them on top of my regular job and this is how I started making contacts. It was great way to meet musicians and learn a few things, keep my mind busy with ideas and editing, from this I naturally progressed and managed to get the opportunities to start edging my way into music promos.

So the Good Shoes promo – that looks like it must have been err challenging! How did the band cope with the upside down thing?

It was. Leading up to the shoot was pretty stressful; I turned the whole thing around in just over a week. From idea to edit. I think I got my first four grey hairs as a result, but the shoot itself was a lot of fun.

Because the realisation of  the idea was thrown together in about a week (and I work full time) I never got to do any tests, location recki’s or meet with the whole band before shoot day. As for the budget, it wouldn’t have got you much more than a day trip to Blackpool Pleasure Beach and back, so everything was done down to the bone. I always knew I would use the gravity boots to hang the band upside down, as for the frame – my first idea was a swing frame, and I completely forgot about a safety mat. Luckily my friend at work lives in a small house with an abundance of creative people, stretching from ice sculptors to professional dancers – so once my original idea of hanging them from a swing set proved implausible, I turned to her for help. This is how I met Darren Jackson; he was as solid as a rock on the day and leading up to it. Without him I couldn’t have done it. He had the attitude of – anything is possible, tell me what you need me to build and I’ll build it – he constructed a scaffold rig to hang the guys from, I hadn’t seen it yet, and it was already constructed by the time we arrived. This is when it was first tested, on the day, and this is probably also when the first grey hair decided to show up.

Good Shoes were yet to arrive, and I had to test it, at least now we had a safety mat, and a three strong crew (including myself) – I strapped on the boots, and with the help of Darren I lifted myself up, hooked myself on and slowly let go – It was horrible – the first time I did it, I thought shit! This is horrible – they’re not going to want to do this! They’re going to die! They’re going to fall on their heads and die! I’m actually going to kill one of Good Shoes tonight!

However, the more you did it the more ‘natural’ it felt. The guys were amazing! They didn’t complain, they just ate their weight in hobknobs and got on with it. Rhys (lead singer) said it was the most fun he’d had on a shoot – I think it was made more enjoyable by the fact that they could inflict whatever discomfort was inflicted onto them, back 10 fold to whoever was being hung upside down at the time.

And how did the anti gravity/confetti idea come about?

The idea came from wanting to use it in a photo shoot. Another video I made was for The Greenland Choir, before I did that for them they wanted me to do some new portraits for their second ep, I was coming up with ideas and this was just one of them – except it was set in a park hanging upside from a tree.

So when I asked Good Shoes if they were interested in a video and they turned round and said can you do one in 8 days, I luckily had that idea which is very simple and can be done quickly on a low budget.

As for the confetti, that was just one of many things we had to throw or drop – I had all these different bits and bobs – disco balls, desk lamps, fairy lights, water – but in the end we chose just to stick with confetti, there is the occasional balloon but I wanted the video to just be a performance piece, I wanted it to be a performance video which looked odd with the bold looks of a portrait.
Shooting the behind-the-scenes videos of the likes of Justice looks like lots of fun. Can you tell me a little about the Dummy films you made?

I just started making these videos for Dummy once I had moved down to London. I’d been a fan of Dummy since it started and for a long long time I’ve been obsessed with music videos so I contacted Dummy (which at the time was a print publication), I had a meeting with Paul from Dummy and showed him my documentaries. From there I got work with them and kept making the videos for their new online publication.

It’s always a hectic affair doing the videos, always last minute, always long treks across London with bags of equipment – but I sort of like it that way (not always), but working under pressure with a small time frame, you’re forced to be more creative, or at least more so than if you were given four months to plan something.

That idea just wouldn’t stop developing, I think we probably got carried away with it consider again we had 0 money – my original idea was to have the band perform in a dilapidated house and have it slowly fill with balloons until it’s bursting with them. Then the guys decided they didn’t want to feature in the video, and it just kept going from there.

We got hooked on the idea of a lonely bear in a house, then as the song references Neptune we had the idea he wants to go to space, and I still wanted to fill the house with balloons – this was something which didn’t work, it would have but we had one day to film it all – probably 8 hours, including set up and clear down, in winter, in a house with no lights – so once the sun goes down and we’ve cleared the kit –  we’re packing up in the dark. We needed two days if we were to get the house or one room bursting with balloons, so unfortunately it doesn’t look how I imagined but I suppose no one else would think twice.

What’s your biggest inspiration?

I get inspired by a lot of things, and different things inspire different types of inspiration – for ideas it would be anything from music to friends to travelling to photography. A big inspiration for me is seeing other people progress, it makes me want to do better, to push my self harder – ultimately I want to have fun with my videos, I really enjoy working and I want my work to look fun – so I’m not necessarily talking about getting inspired by competition, but there is something in seeing other peoples work, good work, those ideas you see and think shit! Why didn’t I think of that! This feeling really inspires me.

It’s a big inspiration to see people do well, because you think I can do that too and I want to do that, I just need to get up and go! I read a lot of interviews, people that I look up to or am interested in, I see how they did it, and it’s always going to be different, the path they took, how they got there – they could be a complete screw up and then this thing whatever it is, saved them, without it they wouldn’t know who they are. Maybe a different person lived and breathed it their whole life, or maybe they just discovered it in their 40’s and now that’s all they know– either way they’re all inspiring stories and it makes you think if they can, I can, because someone has to – all I need to do is do the one thing they have in common, not give and work hard.

That’s a really cheesy way to end that question.

Outside of filmmaking what gets you excited?

Just the standard answers I think –Music and photography are big interest for me, I’ve signed up to this facebook group and they tell you about odd little gigs in and around London, in funny quaint places you wouldn’t think twice about other wise – I’m trying to discover every little gem in London – if I ever do leave I want to have been to all the best places, and the best ones are usually the ones no one knows about.

Any time I get to go on road trips or treks with my friends – I’m a big fan of this summer weather, Hampstead Heath is amazing! Best park in London, its huge and all over grown with hills and marshes, you don’t feel like you’re in London – so that’s a pretty fun place to hang out. Maybe I’ll build a Robin Hood type treetop village there. For retirement purposes.

To find out more about Richard, check out his website www.richardpeterhunter.co.uk