Production Diary - Sky Larkin

Sky Larkin - Molten
By Matt Maude








Katie has been a friend of mine for ages, in fact we go way back to when she was in a teeny band called Saving Lenny. I only call it a teeny band because all the members were teenagers. They were in fact brilliant. I still miss them.

However, new days bring new bands, and Katie's Sky Larkin had been part and party of my Mp3 since I've had one (last month).

When Katie rang me and told me that their London based film crew had dropped out and that their next single now needed a video, I jumped at the chance. Head long into the low ceiling of my box like room. Recovering from a short spell of unconsciousness, I was told, however there was no money. Not a penny.

Apparently friendship is priceless, and I therefore went about creating a video that was priceless. Or another way of putting it, free

I've never done animation before, and using Sky Larkin's track I had the chance to go creative crazy using techniques I'd never done before. I shot the whole thing in Hyde Park to match the LS6 living that the band had all grown up within, and used locations within a moment's walk of their respective bedrooms. In some scenes, their actual bedrooms.

The video involved a lot of walking around my house (or others) with my Z1, looking at the lyrics and thinking what would work for different sections. As the video goes on, I tried to match the lyrics with the visuals as much as possible, hoping that persistent viewers would spot something different every time they viewed it.

The song to me always sounded like the good times you had with you friends, the kind of fun that is seamless and without effort, and I hope the video followed suit.

It was a creative blast to work on this video, and as was there no pressure of a big crew it meant it was a lot of fun too. Working with Katie in particular was awesome, and she had brilliant ideas, endless enthusiasm and made great hot dinners. Her gran (June) provided much of the characters within the video, possessing as she does, an entire house of porcelain. It was an all around Harkin help that put the video together.

The video can be seen here. While I was shooting it there very few photographs I took, but I did take some band promo ones, interspersed with the Polaroids that actually featured in the video.


Sky Larkin - Molten from Matt Maude on Vimeo.

Production Diary - Mother Vulpine

Mother Vulpine - Keep Your Wits
by Matt Maude

Matt Bigland has been my best friend since we were small. Think ten years old small. We're the best friends who share each other's names and have, over time, began to look a little too similar to one another.

If I had another brother, it would be Matt

Back in early 2007 Matt approached me and told me about his idea for the video for his band's first single. At the time, Matt was the leader man of a band called Mother Vulpine, a band who within their short shelf life, prospered to the extent that they played to a sell out shows on the stages of the Astoria, Apollo and others like it on a support tour with the Eagles of Death Metal.

His idea featured a rather large butcher being pursued through an ageless haunted forest by a hungry and heartless angry wolf. The band, wolfish in name and wolfish in nature would be in hot pursuit too, suggesting that the band and the wolf were one at the same.

Suffice to say, the idea itself was ambitious and the budget was ridiculous. With no money and no source of funding from any sort of record label, we sat long and hard looking at our respective bank accounts. Signing a grand out each from our accounts wasn't exactly digestible or advisable, but it got us there with fifty quid to spare. From there, we started planning it out, step by step, shot by shot until finally we were sat on the wooded crop of the Otley Chevin, ready to shoot one very wet and early Saturday morning.

The two day shoot was absolutely manic. From the off we were running behind after a very tricky first shot and looking at the watch, we split the crew into two halves to pick up the pace. On the Saturday we had to shoot all of the wolf sequences, all of the slow motion stuff and all of the quad bike tracking shots as we could afford them all for one day. Suffice to say we wrapped just before darkness fell, and not a moment before.

I won't go into too much detail as it borders on unprofessional but you know the expression: Never work with animals or children.
They mean never work with trainers or parents.

Our 'wolf trainer' / dog handler was an absolute twat.


Back as a whole crew on Sunday we charged over the Chevin shooting all the band sequences, cut aways, and the more complicated verse set ups. At one point, about 3PM Sunday afternoon both Matt and I were falling over through to lack of food. Thankfully a chocolate bar and double decker sandwich appeared from the nowhere (or actually from Louise Pracey Smith's good thinking) and we recovered the feeling in our limbs.


In March 2007, after the two day shoot and a two week edit, the video was finished and ready to shine on MTV's 120 Minutes and the Riot. Stedicam work, a high speed slow motion camera, a quadbike tracking rig set up, a wolf, no lights, a crew of fifteen including two DOP's all culminated into a video we are all truly proud of.



Mother Vulpine - Keep Your Wits from

Production Diary - Royal Vendetta

Royal Vendetta - Soothsayer
by Matt Maude

It was my first proper video where I was going to get paid for a budget. A BUDGET! BIG TIME! ACTUAL LIGHTS!?! A CAMERA BETTER THAN MY DICK IN MY HAND AND A MOBILE PHONE IN THE OTHER?

I got three hundred smackers...

My lights therefore came from IKEA (I took them back) my tracking shot came from hanging a camera out of the car, and I shot it, edited it, and directed it. The only help I had was my flatmate who drove my car, and my friend who took the dubious title of first AD when he came down for half an hour and ate a sandwich.

The premise of the video was that of a dodgy looking geezer (played by actual lovely geezer Rob Silva - his dad knows Desmond Tutu don't you know?) out on the robbing. After sneaking into a secluded car park and breaking into a car his actions catapult him into a dark world filled with revengeful repercussions, hooded spirits and no escape. The band play out, narrators of this ghostly world, taunting and tormenting our anti-hero as he spirals further and further down the disturbing rabbit hole.
As the video end, our hero looks on unrepentant and undefined, disturbed, crazed, gazing on to a darkening fading world


Despite no budget, no crew, and lights provided by IKEA, the band were great, the parkour kids fantastic (even the one who nearly got hit by the car) and considering what little light we had, that children as young as 13 were back flipping through the air and that a car was going round and round in a circle at 20mph in an enclosed space I was glad no one died.

I think that was the biggest learning experience of the whole thing. It's all good if no one dies.