"I made Rizzle Kicks's first music video in 2010 and continue to work with them as I'm a big fan."
Toby Lockerbie is the director behind Rizzle Kicks distinctive music videos. What i love about Rizzle Kicks' videos is how creative they are, i find they really stand out among other music videos. Toby uses many techniques and engages with the lyrics and rhythm of the music. I was keen to learn more about Toby's inspirations and visions, so i emailed him to find out more!
When you get a song to work with, what inspires you?
"I think the words and tone first and then anything. I don't really watch many music videos by other people, as I think many music video directors are influenced heavily by each other, I would rather someone sent me a link to a great video they'd seen whether it has music in or not. I prefer to get inspiration from life in general, film and photography, I also find Vimeo really interesting as it shows off amateur creativity from all around the world, you're likely to see new ideas and techniques there, at least in their infancy, before you see them done professionally. A flip side of this is that T-Mobile is pretty guilty in my opinion of taking popular amateur videos and copying them, something I'm not a fan of, inspiration yes but not copying"
What is the creative process behind making a brilliant music video?
"I'm not sure really, I usually have a small bank of crazy ideas in my head that I'd like to explore in a video and when the right song comes along it makes me want to work that idea out more in my head to see if I can do it. I'm not sure my videos are brilliant but I do hope that people find them creative and interesting, obviously I would like everyone to think it was brilliant too but I'd rather have a creative interesting video that a handful of people love than a generic video that lots of people like"
What techniques do you use? eg the camera angles used in 'Traveller's Chant'
"I'm interested in the way people see the world, our eyes and brains work unusually and film is an imperfect interpretation of that. I think sometimes directors and cinematographers get stuck in a rut sometimes, they see a scene in their head and their angle, lighting, focal length, aperture and camera movement are there straight away and they're probably generic. There's nothing wrong with slowing down the frame rate, or speeding it up, or using an ultra wide angle lens or a body mounted one. I just want to show the world in new ways and hopefully in ways that people think look cool"
What aspects would you say are vital for a music video?
Creativity and technical knowledge, the former being much more important. It's also important to work with the people who wrote the song, you don't want to make a dark video when they expected it light hearted.
What is your favourite music video and why?
"Probably "The Drop" by Spike Jonz for Pharcyde or anything by Michel Gondry, they're the kind of videos that would go viral nowadays. I'm rarely impressed with big budget videos, they seem to be fashion shoots and nonsensical, I understand why they are like they are, why they're chosen but I think they're vacuous and I really don't think they connect to people well. I think a good judge of a video is whether someone who isn't a fan of the artist likes it and shares it with their friends, i.e. it goes viral, there's no short-cut to that, it has to be interesting or funny or sad or uplifting etc etc, something that really engages people, eye candy fashion shoot videos look great but they don't move people"
When you get a song to work with, what inspires you?
"I think the words and tone first and then anything. I don't really watch many music videos by other people, as I think many music video directors are influenced heavily by each other, I would rather someone sent me a link to a great video they'd seen whether it has music in or not. I prefer to get inspiration from life in general, film and photography, I also find Vimeo really interesting as it shows off amateur creativity from all around the world, you're likely to see new ideas and techniques there, at least in their infancy, before you see them done professionally. A flip side of this is that T-Mobile is pretty guilty in my opinion of taking popular amateur videos and copying them, something I'm not a fan of, inspiration yes but not copying"
What is the creative process behind making a brilliant music video?
"I'm not sure really, I usually have a small bank of crazy ideas in my head that I'd like to explore in a video and when the right song comes along it makes me want to work that idea out more in my head to see if I can do it. I'm not sure my videos are brilliant but I do hope that people find them creative and interesting, obviously I would like everyone to think it was brilliant too but I'd rather have a creative interesting video that a handful of people love than a generic video that lots of people like"
What techniques do you use? eg the camera angles used in 'Traveller's Chant'
"I'm interested in the way people see the world, our eyes and brains work unusually and film is an imperfect interpretation of that. I think sometimes directors and cinematographers get stuck in a rut sometimes, they see a scene in their head and their angle, lighting, focal length, aperture and camera movement are there straight away and they're probably generic. There's nothing wrong with slowing down the frame rate, or speeding it up, or using an ultra wide angle lens or a body mounted one. I just want to show the world in new ways and hopefully in ways that people think look cool"
What aspects would you say are vital for a music video?
Creativity and technical knowledge, the former being much more important. It's also important to work with the people who wrote the song, you don't want to make a dark video when they expected it light hearted.
What is your favourite music video and why?
"Probably "The Drop" by Spike Jonz for Pharcyde or anything by Michel Gondry, they're the kind of videos that would go viral nowadays. I'm rarely impressed with big budget videos, they seem to be fashion shoots and nonsensical, I understand why they are like they are, why they're chosen but I think they're vacuous and I really don't think they connect to people well. I think a good judge of a video is whether someone who isn't a fan of the artist likes it and shares it with their friends, i.e. it goes viral, there's no short-cut to that, it has to be interesting or funny or sad or uplifting etc etc, something that really engages people, eye candy fashion shoot videos look great but they don't move people"
Big thanks to Toby for answering my questions!
Hope you enjoyed learning more about Rizzle Kicks' videos :)
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