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twh-news · 3 years

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To land ‘Loki,’ Kate Herron had to pull out all the stops. How she won over Marvel

As a teenager, Kate Herron was obsessed with the “Lord of the Rings” films.

In particular, she recalls heading to theaters repeatedly with friends who shared her passion to see “The Two Towers” (2002), the second installment in director Peter Jackson’s trilogy based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic fantasy novel. She even wrote “Lord of the Rings” fan fiction.

“It was very silly,” the British filmmaker insists, revealing that one of her stories saw the heroic Fellowship traveling through a magical fountain and getting trapped in New York. “Honestly, I was just writing the stories to make my friends laugh. I guess it was kind of that first foray for me: ‘How do I tell a story?’”

Years later, Herron is again involved in telling a story about a protagonist displaced from the world he knows. But this time, her audience is much bigger.

Herron, 33, is the director of “Loki,” the Marvel Studios series that follows the adventures of the titular god of mischief after he has been plucked out of time by an agency charged with maintaining the sanctity of the timeline. Thus, the six-episode series, which premiered earlier this month on Disney+, features a slightly different version of Loki than the fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe have grown to love since his first appearance in “Thor” (2011) through “Avengers: Endgame” (2019).

“I love villains,” says Herron during a recent video call from Atlanta, where she is putting the final touches on “Loki.” “I think that if a villain’s done right, you don’t necessarily have to like their actions, but you have to understand them. And I think that Tom [Hiddleston], in the last decade, has brought such empathy and wit and pain to a very real character for so many people. I just wanted to be part of whatever [Loki’s] next chapter was going to be.”

The series, on which the self-described Loki fan also serves as an executive producer, is Herron’s highest-profile project to date. Her previous credits include directing on Netflix’s “Sex Education,” as well as “Five by Five,” a series of short films executive produced by Idris Elba.

While growing up in South East London, Herron never considered filmmaking as a career. Her love of movies manifested as the aspiration to become an actor, and she often goaded her peers into putting on plays or making movies using a friend’s father’s camcorder. It wasn’t until some astute and encouraging teachers at Herron’s secondary school pointed out that she seemed more interested in storytelling that she changed course.

By introducing Herron to new texts, these teachers — as well as a film studies class that covered films directed by Stanley Kubrick and Akira Kurosawa — helped expand her perspective.

“I just didn’t know that you could have a voice and an authorship over a film, which probably sounds a bit silly. But I just hadn’t really thought about films in that way,” says Herron. Soon enough, she was on the path to film school at the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham, England, where she graduated with a degree in film production.

Herron laughs as she remembers how she believed she would just go off and find work in film straight out of school. “Obviously that did not happen,” she says.

With no post-graduate roadmap (or job offer) to help her break into the industry, Herron eventually started writing and directing short films with “no money” while juggling a day job as a temp. Both experiences provided Herron with material for “Loki,” which introduces a new bureaucratic agency called the Time Variance Authority to the MCU.

“I’ve worked at a lot of random places, which weirdly has influenced ‘Loki’ in some ways because we have this office culture kind of running through it,” says Herron. “I’ve worked in a lot of offices.”

In order to give the retro-futuristic offices of the TVA “a real lived-[in], breathed-in office” feel, Herron incorporated details that viewers could recognize from the real world — from paper files to the posters on the walls — and gave them a fantastical twist befitting the superhero series.

“One of the most exciting things to me about Kate is she has this amazing attention to detail,” says “Loki” co-executive producer Kevin Wright. “That was something that we saw on her very first pitch [and] it works its way into every frame of the show. Every monitor, every piece of paper in the TVA … she has looked over and approved everything you see.”

In an email, “Loki” star Hiddleston described Herron as “a dream collaborator” who possesses “a unique combination of extraordinary diligence, stamina, energy, respect and kindness.”

“Her affection for and understanding of Loki was so deep, profound and wide-ranging,” Hiddleston wrote. “She built a new world for these characters to play in with incredible precision, but she was also acutely sensitive to their emotional journey.”

Herron’s affinity for outsiders is apparent throughout the course of our conversation. There is of course her love for Loki — the heir to the king of Frost Giants raised as the prince of Asgard who has become one of the MCU’s most beloved villain-turned-antiheroes. Herron’s first introduction to the world of Marvel as a kid was through “X-Men: The Animated Series,” about the superhero team with mutant powers that set them apart from average humans. Herron cites Lisa Simpson — the overachieving, opinionated middle child from the animated sitcom “The Simpsons” — as the reason she is a vegetarian who can play the saxophone.

And although Herron describes herself as shy, it’s no match for the passion she brings to discussing film and television.

She calls Wes Anderson’s 2001 film “The Royal Tenenbaums,” co-written by “Loki” actor Owen Wilson, “a perfect movie.” In addition to being obsessed with “The Simpsons,” Herron gravitated toward genre shows such as “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” the updated “Battlestar Galactica” and “The X-Files” when growing up.

As Herron enthusiastically dives into “Loki’s” influences — which include “Alien” (1979), “Blade Runner” (1982), “Brazil” (1985), “Metropolis” (1927) and, yes, even “Teletubbies” — it’s easy to see why Wright knew she was the right person to bring “Loki” to life from their very first meeting.

Upon learning that Marvel was developing a show about Loki, Herron tasked her agents with calling Marvel every day until they would meet with her. And it worked.

“I was just so excited that somebody was chasing the project,” says Wright. “Which sounds crazy, that Marvel would be excited somebody’s chasing us. But it was the early days of us trying to get this Disney+ streaming stuff off the ground, so people were very hesitant … they didn’t know what it was yet.”

Herron’s enthusiasm for the show landed her a video meeting with Wright and executive producer Stephen Broussard. Believing it might be her only shot at the project, Herron came armed with so many stills and clips to illustrate her discussion of the scripts she’d been sent that a simple meet-and-greet turned into a four-hour conversation.

“Over the course of the next week or so,” Wright explains, “it was really figuring out how to set Kate up to succeed when we got her in front of Kevin Feige to pitch this.”

Herron put together a 60-page bible of ideas for the characters, the story, the visual references and more. The rest is Marvel history.

She learned not to wait for permission, she says, after graduating from film school and becoming involved with improv and stand-up to both develop her comedy chops and to meet funny collaborators to be in her short films.

“I think I’d always find excuses, almost, [to not do it],” says Herron. “It was that thing of being like, ‘Oh, well, I’m not ready. So I’ll wait. I’ll wait until I’m perfect at it and then I’ll go do it.’”

Taking inspiration from Robert Rodriguez’s “Rebel Without a Crew” and a SXSW keynote speech by Mark Duplass, Herron realized that she just needed to start making things. She told herself it was OK if the films were messy. If a short was bad, nobody had to see it. If a short was “halfway to good,” she would submit them to festivals.

It’s this tenacious creativity that connects the dots between her early fan fiction, her short films, her pitch presentations — and now “Loki” itself. It’s a trait that has helped her navigate the industry to her current success, even during the periods it’s been most frustrating. As a female director, “I got asked crazy stuff in interviews sometimes,” she says of life on the festival circuit. “I remember being asked, ‘Are you sure you’re ready? Are you sure you’re ready?’ And male colleagues of mine were never asked that in interviews. I think that’s probably why I was so driven to just go out and make stuff.”

#loki #loki series #kate herron #interview #los angeles times #article

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aion-rsa · 5 years

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Stardust Is Still One of the Best Neil Gaiman Adaptations Out There

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Gaiman's work makes crossing mediums look easy, but the 2007 Stardust film remains one of the best adaptations of his work...

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Matthew Vaughn's film adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Stardust is more than a decade old, but it hasn't lost any of its magic. With an all-star cast that included Daredevil's Charlie Cox and Homeland's Claire Danes, a director who would go onto make X-Men: First Class and Kingsman: The Secret Service, and a story from the mind of Neil Gaiman, Stardust is a funny, clever, and heartfelt fairy tale of a movie that happens to be criminally underrated by most mainstream movie audiences.

See related

Why The Princess Bride Is a Perfect Fantasy Movie

The Illusionist Pulls An Epic Love Story From Thin Air

In the wake of the excellent Good Omens adaptation, we're taking the time to talk about the reasons why Stardust remains one of the best Gaiman adaptations out there, even if the box office numbers didn't reflect that or if the story didn't remain faithful to the book...

The history of the book.

Stardust originally began publication life as a comic book — specifically a prestige-format, four-issue miniseries. With the story by Gaiman and the illustrations by Charles Vess, Stardust began life as an inherently visual tale, which is perhaps one of the reasons why it works so well as a film.

read more: How Matthew Vaughn Made Stardust a Modern Fantasy

However, in 1999, Stardust was released as a more traditional novel by Gaiman without the illustrations from Hess. For me, this edition loses much of the story and magic of the original illustrated, comics-based version, which is perhaps why — when comparing the illustrations-less novel version of Stardust to the film version of Stardust — the former is left slightly wanting.

Luckily for all fans of the original Stardust comic-based storybook, Vertigo released a new hardcover edition in 2007 (to roughly coincide with the release of the movie) with 50 new pages of material, including some new artwork. Thus far, the Matthew Vaughn film is the only screen adaptation of Stardust...

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The story of Stardust.

Stardust is a surprisingly complex story for a fairy tale adventure film that was also marketing as a family-friendly movie. The heart of the story comes in the quest of young Tristan Thorn (Charlie Cox), who ventures out of his small town of Wall into the magical kingdom of Stormhold that lies just next door, on the otherside of a wall.

Tristan is on the search for a star that has fallen from the sky, a gift for his lady crush Victoria. Things get complicated, however, when he discovers the star is not a piece of celestial rock, as he assumed, but rather a living, breathing woman in the form of Claire Danes' Yvaine.

read more: Good Omens Ending Explained

Elsewhere in Stormhold, others are searching for the star. Michelle Pheiffer's witch Lamia wants to cut out the star's heart and eat it so she and her sisters can continue to enjoy immortal life. The kingdom's royalty — a gaggle of cutthrout princes — are also on the hunt, as their dying father made a proclamation that whoever retrieved the stone around the star's neck would ascend to the throne.

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Stardust juggles these multiple, interweaving storylines beautifully through imaginative, kinetic editing (one of Vaughn's hallmarks as a director). And, though many people point to the changing of the story's ending in the film, I find the movie's ending much better-paced and complementary to the other subtle (and not so subtle) changes the film makes to the book's worldscape.

read more: Hot Fuzz is the Best of the Cornetto Trilogy

Stardust's specialty lies in upending tropes in unexpected ways, while also celebrating them. It reminds me a lot of Hot Fuzz in that way. It is a great example of the Have Its Cake and Eat It Too mode of self-aware storytelling. In a rather cynical age, it manages to give us a satisfying fairy tale by subverting enough of its tropes to lure us hypnotically into embracing other ones. It doesn't always succeed — there a few too many damsel-in-distress moments for my liking — but, for the most part, its few flaws are overshadowed by its innumberable charms.

A great cast, led by Claire Danes & Charlie Cox.

Many of Stardust's aforementioned charms come in the quality of its expansive cast. Seriously, everyone is in this movie and they are giving it their all, making the script come to life with complexity, humor, and heart. In the central love story, we have Charlie Cox and Claire Danes as Tristan and Yvaine. Past that, highlights include Michelle Pheiffer's Lamia, Robert De Niro as Captain Shakespeare, and Mark Strong's Prince Septimus. (Strong would also go on to star in Vaughn's Kingsman as Merlin.)

Past that, we get some fun, memorable performances from Rupert Evertt as Prince Secundus, Peter O'Toole as the King of Stormhold, Henry Cavill as the prissy Humphrey, Ricky Gervais as the comedic Ferdy the Fence, and Sienna Miller as the haughty Victoria. And have I mentioned that it is all narrated by Ian McKellen? Yeah, the extras are basically all played by Oscar-winners in this movie.

read more: Will There Be a Good Omens Season 2?

For me, one of the chief strengths of the film over the book lies with the realness and development of the characters. That is in no small part to the impressiveness of this cast, but it also has something to do with the screenplay. While Gaiman tends to be more interested in archeypes, themes and prose, the film — perhaps by necessity, as a product of Hollywood — has much more interest in making these characters three-dimensional and relatable.

Which emphasis you prefer all depends on what kind of story-consumer you are, but, for me, Gaiman's archetypal characters tend to be the least interesting part of his imaginative works.

The changes from the book.

Anyone who has read both the book and seen the movie will know that the Stardust film, co-written by Vaughn and frequent collaborator Jane Goldman, changes quite a bit from its source material. As is common with adaptations, a lot is simplified — on both sides of the wall.

Tristan's home community is much less vast and complex. Likewise, the world of Stormhold is less strange and magical. In the book, there are all manner of magical creatures. For the sake of narrative simplicity or perhaps for budgetary concerns, that same scope of magical-kind is much more limited in the film.

read more: Terry Pratchett's Influence on the Good Omens TV Show

The film also adds in an entire sequence around De Niro's Captain Shakespeare that is barely present in the book. For me, this is actually an important decision. Brushing past the potentially reductive depiction of Shakespeare's marginalized identity, for me, this is where the film makes one of its smartest decisions: the montage. I am a big proponent of the montage in Hollywood blockbusters that have any interest in building a believable, meaningful relationship for two characters who have just met.

A montage gives us the illusion that an indefinable amount of time has passed and (more importantly) that, in that time, a whole manner of significant interaction could have and probably has occurred. In a two-hour film, the montage can cover all manner of underdeveloped character and character dynamic sins, and more Hollywood blockbusters should take advantage of it.

In Stardust, there's no way the Captain Shakespeare montage could have lasted more than a few days at most, given that only a week passes over the course of Tristan's journey in Stormhold. However, this is where Tristan and Yvaine fall in love, this is where Tristan makes his transition from gawky shopboy to more confident man, this is where Stardust makes us believe in the true love it must to pull off its fairy tale ending.

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The ending.

There is also the matter of the book vs. film's endings. In the book ending, Lamia finds Yvaine in the market town near the wall, but — when she tries to take Yvaine's heart — Yvaine explains that she can't because she has already given it to Tristan. This is different from the film's more action-geared ending, which includes a fight between the reanimated corpse of Septimus and Tristan, as well as some rather extensive glass-smashing.

Ultimately, it is Yvaine who saves the day by using her love for Tristan to let out a burst of starshine, killing Lamia. Perhaps the larger change to the book's story is found in the epilogue. In the book, Tristan and Yvaine leave Stormhold for a time, leaving Una (Tristan's mother in charge). They eventually return, Tristan lives out his life as ruler, and then dies, leaving a heartbroken Yvaine to return to the sky alone.

read more: The Distinctive Direction of The Good Omens TV Series

In the film, the two live into their old age together as rulers of Stormhold, then — when they are very old — ascend to the sky to live as stars together. It is a thoroughly happy ending, one that doesn't make Tristan give up his ties to his family and friends in Wall, and one some Gaiman fans have problems with. For me, it is a minor point that has less to do with the story than the ending that occurs in the more immediate sense, completing Tristan's quest and Tristan and Yvaine's love story. And that ending is much better-paced and climactic than the one we get in the book.

Of course, the book is interested in much different things than the movie, and the less climactic, quieter ending reflects that. While the Stardust book is much more interested in engaging with and challenging pre-Tolkien English fantasy at a novelistic and prose level, the film doesn't even try to do the same. It would be a foolish attempt, after all, to try to mimick and subvert a style that lives so entirely in the pre-cinematic world. Instead, the Stardust film sets its sights on subverting and celebrating the three-act Hollywood blockbuster.

Gaiman's role in the movie.

Montages and ending specifics aside, all of the changes from the book to the film were made with the blessing of Gaiman, who also acted as a producer on the film and had some say in creative decisions. Speaking on the changes made for the Stardust film to MTV, Gaiman said:

What I did with Matthew was this thing you must never do. Don't do this; it is very, very wrong: I gave him the option for nothing. I phoned him up and said, 'OK, Stardust is yours; I really trusted him, and you don't run into that very often. He offered me the script, but I said, 'No, I wrote the novel, but this is your film, your vision. But I will help you.'

The first thing I did was find him a writer, Jane Goldman, who hadn't written a script before but I loved her novels, I loved her journalism, and she got the book. I was involved with the casting and set locations too.

For me, Stardust is one of the few examples of a film adaptation that aren't afraid to make changes that work much better for the format. Personally, I like the Stardust film more than the Stardust novel — though both contain their own, separate joys. In an era of remakes and adaptations, more filmmakers and writers of adapted screenplays could learn from Matthew Vaughn's and Jane Goldman's example.

What would a Stardust sequel have looked like?

Den of Geek chatted with Matthew Vaughn in 2015 about what a Stardust sequel would have looked like. The director already had a rough idea in place, if the movie had made enough money to warrant moving forward on another one — which, sadly, it did not.

Here's what Vaughn said:

I had a really crazy fun idea for a Stardust 2. The opening scene was Charlie Cox's character, being the king and throwing out the necklace. This time the necklace goes over the wall and bounces off Big Ben, and you're suddenly in London in the early 1960s, with these mad kings and princes and princesses running around London. All on the quest for the stone.

What sets Stardust apart.

Despite its status as both an adaptation of existing material and an interest in commenting on so many of the genre tropes that have come before, Stardust still feels like a wholly original work. It also manages to do the fairy tale genre with a commitment to whimsical sincerity that is rarely seen in today's media climate — especially for adults.

One needs look no further than Game of Thrones to see what kind of fantasy drama is valued in today's pop culture climate. It's downright refreshing to revisit a fantasy that doesn't let its use of irony ever endanger its commitment to comforting fairy tale values that are all-to-often dismissed as unimportant or childish.

No, Stardust manages to capture some of the silly self-awareness and unabashed sentimentalism of Princess Bride in a contemporary movie-making era where only one of those things is truly valued. For that — and for so much else — Stardust remains one of the best Neil Gaiman adaptations out there, even (and perhaps especially) when it's not particularly Gaiman-like at all.

Read and download the Den of Geek SDCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!

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Books

Kayti Burt

Aug 8, 2019

Stardust

Neil Gaiman

Matthew Vaughn

charlie cox

claire danes

from Books https://ift.tt/2GSLlmn

#aion-rsa #Books

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filmsthirteen · 5 years

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Finding Myself through Cameron Crowe Films

*Minor Spoilers*

There are a handful of directors, writers, artists, and singers who have influenced my life. Yet there is only a handful of them who consistently released art that contributed to the person I have moulded into, (despite only being 19 and thinking this is the final version of myself). But one filmmaker in particular, resonates as having created films that were pressed play constantly as a teenager. That filmmaker is the man, the myth, the legend, Cameron Crowe. If it were up to me, he’d be Sir Cameron Crowe. An artist who had managed to shape multiple generations and accurately reflect on generations that once existed. From the early eighties, Crowe has contributed to the films that teens flocked to the theatre to see when they were released, and many years later, those teens would show their kids those films. Thus, I was thankfully brought up by brilliant films such as Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Say Anything, Singles, and Almost Famous. All those films manage to capture adolescence and young adulthood, through numerous characters, eras, and most importantly, through the use of music. Now that I’m in my final year of being a teenager, and entering the next phase of my life, I thought it was time to thank Cameron Crowe for guiding me through these seemingly treacherous years.

I was raised on eighties films. I always had the blessing of having parents who were really into films, and so I was constantly shown film after film. Many of them were teen films of the eighties. So, of course, there were many late nights of watching Pretty in Pink, Heathers, and Risky Business. Though Crowe's films obviously ended up in the mix, the first time I remember sitting down to watch one of his films ended up being around thirteen. My Dad got me one of those three pack special DVDs from Walmart, with Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club. Both of them I was absolutely obsessed with and made me long to be a teenager. Despite John Hughes being the legend he is, the third film, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, was the one that stuck with me through all four years of high school. I watched the film on my own the night before my first day of high school. I was starting that year off fresh; all my friends were going to the public school, while my parents shipped me off to the Catholic school the next town over, where I’d have to wear khaki cardboard material like pants, and polyester shirts in either green, white or blue. I worried my entire summer about the first day of high school; walking down halls I didn’t know, sitting beside people I never had the pleasure of knowing since kindergarten. On Stacy's (Jennifer Jason Leigh) first day of high school, American Girl by Tom Petty plays. Immediately I grabbed my iPod touch, added it to my iTunes, and played it on repeat on my hour and a half long bus ride, and into the doors of the school. Minus doing it with an older dude, getting pregnant, and brushing up my blowjob skills with a carrot in front of the cafeteria, I wished I was like Stacy. Having a cool job in the mall, somehow being gorgeous all the time (even during exam season?) and having a really sweet guy like Mark take you on a date to a really fancy German restaurant, seemed like an experience I deserved. But Cameron wrote about things in this film so painfully realistic to the high school experience, even thirty years later. I knew girls who went out with weird guys way too old for them, having plans for the future destroyed, and of course, having a teacher who thinks that everyone is on dope (which they're totally right about). It doesn't exaggerate the experience of a teenager, making the film so close to the truth as a film can get. Perhaps its due to Crowe actually spending the year as an undercover student, and honestly, all teen films should've been fact-checked like this one.

Less than seven years later, Crowe came out with Say Anything. Though my Mom loves this movie, and used to watch it whenever it would come on TV, it was the 2010 film Easy A that actually got me to watch the movie. I made it a point to go back and watch all those films that Emma Stone’s character lists off when discussing if chivalry is dead. Thus I ended up watching Can’t Buy Me Love, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and of course, Say Anything. I wanted my life to be like an 80s movie directed by John Hughes, but I got it so much better, I got a life unintentionally directed by Cameron Crowe. And because of that, I fell in love with wanting to be that smart girl like Diane Court. I look back now on how much studying I did in high school, and how it paid off to where I am now. It’s important for filmmakers to add these characters, ones were they say that girls can be pretty and smart, not settling for the cliched pick and choose scenario. So I worked hard, writing endless essays, studying late at night for a math test, and juggled clubs and activities. But still, I wished to also have that and be wanted by someone. Like Lloyd Dobler, who wants Diane so much, its all he thinks about. But listen, for once I can say the character of Lloyd isn't some creepy dude, who has an obsession and is purely motivated by this girls essence. Again, there are way too many films with the lead guy being solely provoked by a woman's body. But when he gets her, he holds on, noting that her feelings are reciprocated. She could go off to Oxford, and he’d be right there. Perhaps love at this age is rare, but when you know, well you know. And that's a huge difference that my generation can see. Though many of us have grown up with divorced parents, constant cheating, and unreciprocated feelings, at such a young age, we shouldn't keep that from the actual emotions that we are meant to feel for another human. Maybe we are supposed to give it all, and as I watch this film, I’m not wondering what if Lloyd didn't go about the relationship as he did, I wonder how Lloyd and Diane are. Because like I said, he wants her so bad that he stands outside of her house after a fight, holding that boombox up high, blasting the best love song of all time, In Your Eyes by Peter Gabriel. I can’t even tell you the amount of times I’ve had that song on an endless repeat, but I can promise that I most likely broke the record the summer of ‘18. I longed to be sought after like Diane (cause who honestly doesn't want to be so enormously desired by someone you love?). By the end of the August heat, I laid awake at night, waiting for that song to be played outside of my window (actually would've freaked me out but still, the thoughts nice). But that song ended up being played during the fall, plenty of times in the cold winter days, and in the early spring, all the while so content with listening to it at this very moment. Sometimes boys and girls, it's good to just say anything (add wink emoji here).

Despite still being totally obsessed with all things of 80s culture, it's time to bring up that phase that wasn't ever a phase, but the depths of my soul. The tenth grade brought about my “grunge phase.” I got my nose pierced, splurged on Doc Martens, stocked my closet with various coloured flannel shirts and band tees. I wanted people to know that I listened to Nirvana, Guns n Roses, and Pearl Jam, despite it being on my shirt that I’d wear under my uniform sweater. My eyeliner was thick black, and my tweets were usually lyrics from some band part of the Seattle Sound. My Dad was in his teens when the Seattle sound came about, and thus as a kid, I spent many car rides hearing Alice in Chains ‘Dirt’ album, Pearl Jam’s the ‘Ten’ album, and Nirvana’s ‘Unplugged’ album on the radio. For me, I was the real shit when it came to this era of my life. And that became the perfect opportunity for my dad to introduce me to Crowe’s ‘92 film Singles. A group of young adults who all live in (a now extremely famous) the same apartment complex, during the height of the Seattle sound. Surprise surprise, they reside in Seattle. Honestly, there could've been no better film for my dad to turn on. With cameos from my bae Eddie Vedder and the late Chris Cornell, the film brings so much to the group of young adults who chose to immerse themselves in real boy bands, compared to whatever the other ones who sang with earpieces paired with synchronized dances did. No offence. Dealing with the idea of relationships, whether we are to settle or have fun in our 20s, Singles is supposed to be about Gen Xer’s, yet, I can see how many millennials still have this issue. There are plenty of girls I know who have used their ex’s t-shirts to clean their toilets, and though we aren't making dating VHS’s, they are perfecting their tinder profiles, hoping that actual human connection exists on the other end. The biggest point in the film that got me, (despite being sixteen trying to imagine myself in four years time), was the whole fear of what if you commit and what if you don’t? There are many ways you can mess up potential, and still, it lies within not calling after a date, or in our case, texting after hanging out. Sometimes we just need people to say and do the right things without having to tell them what is the right thing to do or say. And if it all works out, we’ll end up like Steve and Linda who move out the single bedroom apartment, and into never having to be labelled again as a single.

Eight years came about the semi autobiographical story of Crowe himself, Almost Famous. The film with the best soundtrack of all time, due to it having a budget of 3.5 million, compared to most films with budgets of about 1.5 million. Honestly, that's the best use of money in all of human history. And thanks to Zooey Deschanel’s duffel bag, we get to hear Simon and Garfunkel, Led Zeppelin, The Beach Boys, and everyone's favourite, Elton John. You cannot tell me you did not get goosebumps hearing Tiny Dancer being sung in unison by Kate Hudson, Billy Crudup, Patrick Fugit, Jason Leigh, and well I could go on forever about the well-casted film. Before watching the film, I remember that Fool in the Rain was my favourite Zeppelin song. But after watching it for the first time, I had probably had listened to Led Zeppelin’s song Tangerine a hundred times. If a film has such tangible (see what I did there) scenes, and a song contains such a powerful presence, then that is mastering filmmaking in my opinion. Thus, this film was watched during all sorts of moments in my adolescence. The time I wanted to work as a journalist for Rolling Stone, when I was in need of a change, and when I was absolutely alone and only a Cameron Crowe film understood me. And each time I was damn near tempted to be a roadie for a somewhat known band, who hopefully was opening for Black Sabbath. Actually, it was very much this film that got me more obsessed with concerts than I was before. I’d buy tickets as soon as they’d go on sale, mostly to smaller bands, that way I’d have a chance of being up close, and even meeting the band. Like William, I’d wait by the stage doors for the band. Dragging my friends to the concert at least twelve hours before the show would start, just so I could meet bands like Peach Pit, Pale Waves, Colouring, and well other indie bands that I’m sure slim to no adults know. Believe me, I’d wait a week for Black Sabbath if I could. But beyond that, I think that every young person deserves the life, encapsulated in this film; of just going out there and being absolutely free. You know, before life kicks in. And that's really what this film, amongst nearly all of Crowe's films, demonstrate. Get out there kid, put on those headphones, blast some Lynyrd Skynyrd, and just live before you die. Being obsessed with listening to classic rock, I devoured the only season of Paul Feig’s Freaks and Geeks, and had Almost Famous’s soundtrack on repeat. I owned a long green army jacket, and also a faux sheepskin sherpa coat. I was both Lindsey Weir and Penny Lane. I was walking down the two hallways of my high school, and the one street of my small towns downtown, earbuds in, Fleetwood Mac blasting. And through the many characters of these films, they reminded me that I’m here for the art. For the music from the Bookends album, the score of a Tim Burton film, and the tracks of a Tarantino picture. Like Kathy and Paul who went off to see America, Lindsey who goes off to a Grateful Dead concert with her best friend, and Penny Lane who is off to her dream destination of Morocco, I myself am off to see and hear the world.

It's odd to look back on these films that meant so much to who I was and who I’ve become. I’m in my last year of being a teenager, and I’m almost done university’ yet I still feel so attached to these characters I feel that I someway embodied. But that's not because I based my life off these characters Crowe created, it's really because Crowe based these characters off of people that exist in life. In those years of watching any teen film out there, Crowes (and of course Hughes) inspired me to look around constantly, taking notes on the friends I had spent lunches on Thursdays, discussing films with, just in case I’d make a film reminiscent about them. In my seemingly ordinary life, Crowe told me to go out and grab those who write seemingly precognition notes in your yearbook. Most importantly, Crowe told me to just let the music guide me through life. And for that, I got my life to be directed by Cameron Crowe.

INT. Credits being to roll, as ELTON JOHN’S TINY DANCER plays.

FADE OUT

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onestowatch · 3 years

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Get to Know Groove-Pop Duo Balu Brigada [Live Performance + Q&A]

Inspired by musical heavyweights like Frank Ocean and Gorillaz, Balu Brigada is all about experimentation. Their discography provides the perfect backdrop to any setting—from coastal road trips, summer BBQs, flirty dancefloor moments, and everywhere in between. The band is no stranger to performing, having toured around New Zealand numerous times, including treating an exclusive audience to an electric performance at Live Nation and Vodafone’s recent Ones to Watch showcase.

In addition to delivering a standout show at our recent showcase, the duo has just released their latest single, “How It Would End,” the first song off their upcoming EP. The single is their debut release as a two-piece, with its bouncy synth hooks and groove-worthy melodies sure to get you up on your feet.

On the eve of their first release as a two-piece, Henry and Pierre Beasley Zoom in from their parents’ rumpus room—the scene of many family jam sessions, which spawned their self-described “groove-pop” band Balu Brigada—to discuss archival footage, guilty pleasures, and which brother is the better mover.

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Pierre: We’re actually at our parents house right now, because our houses are both equally too small to do anything in, but actually right behind us is a grand piano that used to be our grandfather’s. He was an orchestral conductor, so it’s a bit of a family heirloom.

If that piano could talk, what do you think it would’ve said to you during your piano lessons back in the day?

P: Try harder [laughs].

Henry: It would probably say, “Slow down!” as well, ‘cause I remember just getting frustrated. You know, you play something 100 times, badly, and you just wanna get it done so you play it faster but then that sounds even worse!

P: It was a classic case of your parents make you do piano lessons and you miserably endure them, and then I think we picked up our own instruments, that we did actually enjoy playing, from there.

When would have been your first-ever public performance? Did you put on shows for Mum and Dad when you were little?

P: Probably some church Christmas event or something, to be honest. We were brought up in the church, so I think my earliest memory of performing was being a little Elvis in a Christmas production, which, yeah, I wouldn’t like to see that footage back...

Could there potentially be footage out there somewhere?

P: Yeah [laughs] Some granny with VHS footage of me with my hair in some big, slicked-back mop or something.

H: Pierre and I have got a bit of an acting background as well, so there’s some horrendous clips that you can pull up of us on shows that I won’t name [laughs]. But you can’t take yourself too seriously; you’ve just got to be able to laugh at it.

Performing is in your blood though, isn’t it?

P: Yeah, Dad was a ballet dancer in his prime and he actually met our mother, who was an actress, in a musical. They spent the majority of their twenties performing and then Mum pursued a TV career until she started having us boys so, yeah! Performance is very much in the construct of our family, which has been really cool because we’ve got that support from our parents who also understand the life of a performer and understand the passion.

H: We just actually saw some archival footage of Dad in his Royal New Zealand Ballet days—it was quite a trip! That’s literally some of the first footage we’ve seen of him as a ballet dancer, which is wild because it was such a big part of his life. Obviously no one had a bloody iPhone back then to just record clips, but it’s a shame. I would love to see more footage of him dancing, because it was such an integral part of fostering our creativity as well.

Did you boys take ballet lessons when you were kids?

PIERRE: I did it for a few years and Dad’s always said, “Ooh, you would make a good dancer!” And still to this day he’s like, “You know, it’s not too late to become a professional dancer...” You didn’t though, hey?

H: Nah, I didn’t. Pierre’s definitely more the mover, which you’ll see in a few videos of ours. I’m kind of skulking in the background doing something minimal and then Pierre’s managing to find a dance move out of thin air, which I can’t quite fathom myself.

You both studied music at Auckland University [Pierre majored in jazz, Henry, pop]. Did you ever take ideas that you were working on for Balu Brigada into uni?

H: It’s kind of like the informal way we started the band. I was playing guitar randomly for other bands and didn’t really have a project of my own, but I was writing all these songs during uni, so I was like, “Okay, why don’t we try a song where I’m leading?” Previously, I’d just written for another project that someone [else] would front, so that’s when I enlisted Pierre and my other brother at the time…

P: Brother at the time [laughs].

H: [Laughs] He’s still my brother—he’s just not in the [Balu Brigada] project at this point—but that’s how we all got together and took our background of jamming in our parents’ rumpus room to playing my original songs, and then making it more collaborative along the way.

Did Balu Brigada originate as a four-piece?

H: Yes, there were a few versions. Sometimes we’d go with a three-piece because Pierre was underage, and couldn’t play the show, or sometimes we’d get someone to replace him for the shows that he couldn’t make. It was a four-piece for probably four years or so and then that transition [to two-piece plus live drummer] was in maybe 2019. That was a lot to do with the fact that the other two band members—they were invested in it, but also had lots of other plates to juggle, and Pierre and I have always been the core and the nucleus of the band, and so it was like, “Okay, this is our whole world, so let’s kinda scale this back. You guys can invest more into your lives outside of the band and we can just really home in on this thing.”

So it’s kind of like you two are Kevin Parker from Tame Impala, with extra band members brought in for touring purposes.

H: We’d love to draw that comparison! [laughs]

P: [Laughs] Absolutely! Yeah, the role that our drummer fills is less an actual band member and more a session musician, I suppose.

How would you describe your music to people who are yet to hear it?

H: I think our favourite description, or at least mine, is groove-pop at this current point in time. Would that be your choice of description?

P: I just go with the easy one: alt-pop. Groove-pop is also cool, but I dunno if you just made that up, or…

H: I definitely made that up.

P: [Laughs]

What was the last Balu Brigada single release and what’s your next scheduled single release?

P: So the last one we released was in October last year, it was called “Moon Man”, and our next single is called “How It Would End”. This is the first time that we are choosing to release a single when we already have [a new, as-yet-untitled EP] ready, so we can actually get some momentum with the project rolling out, as opposed to how we’ve done it in the past where we released a song and then we were like, “Oh cool, that went well, now we need to finish the next one,” which is a silly way to go about it if you want to get that momentum. So this time we’ve got a few things in the bank.

H: This is the first instance where we’ve been able to play songs live before they’ve been released, which has been quite exciting for us.

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Which songs off this upcoming EP have you performed live so far?

P: We’ve been playing “Number 1” and another song called “Favourite Clothes” in our most recent shows, and they’ve been going down well. Because we don’t have too many of those up-tempo, four-on-the-floor, driving songs, “Number 1” is a good one to just slot in there to hype-up the energy a bit.

The entire EP is killer, but I reckon “Number 1” is my favourite song on there at the moment. It reminds me of N.E.R.D!

H: For sure! N.E.R.D is a massive influence and when I started that one off I was definitely conscious of, “Oh, is this too Neptunes or too Pharrell?” And then I was just like, “Nah.” We love that you’ve drawn that connection, that’s great.

Also, something about the overall vibe and the sparkling melodies throughout “I Should Be Home,” another standout track from the EP, called to mind The Strokes...

P: Yeah, I’ve been listening to a lot of The Strokes—especially their latest album—so that would make sense. I just think all of the melodies that Julian [Casablancas] hits are real nice.

H: I think because Pierre was listening to The Strokes so much that always bleeds into my listening habits, because we spend so much time together. I think that would have definitely been a subconscious influence, because it was definitely in line with what we were taking in at that moment.

Your previous way of working, drip-feeding one song at a time, reminds me of the Gorillaz’s Song Machine project, where songs were recorded and released separately before they were collated and released as a collection.

H: Yeah, for sure. I really liked that roll-out. It was cool, and obviously the featured artists on it are world-class, interesting, eccentric creatives in their own right. Gorillaz’ second [Song Machine release], “Désolé” [featuring Fatoumata Diawara] is my strongest memory of when I was living in Melbourne. I lived there for a few months and that song came out around that time, and I was like, “Woah!” I listened to it this morning, actually; it just rocks my world. Gorillaz are a massive inspiration in terms of how we like to think about music, eclecticism, and genre-mashing.

Given that part of your band name pays homage to the character Baloo (but with different spelling), talk me through your love for The Jungle Book.

H: That movie is a very nostalgic kick for us brothers…

P: Not the movie that was out a couple of years ago, the Disney one…

H: I couldn’t believe it when I found out it was from the ‘60s, hey! When you’re a kid and you’re watching that shit, there’s no differentiation that you can make between The Jungle Book and, say, Aladdin [released in 1995]. You’re just like, “The Jungle Book, man, it’s such a jam!”

Have any Balu Brigada songs been synced to a TV series or film?

H: Only in one very informal instance. I was actually on a show about six years ago called 800 Words and I think we had just released our third release and then I had a shoot day. The actor I was working with, Milena Vidler, was like, “Oh, I’ve gotta be listening to music in this scene, what shall I play?” And I told her, “We just released a song today!” And she said, “Well why don’t I play that!?” So that is literally the only sync we’ve got so far, but it was quite a serendipitous moment. To see myself on screen and then hear our band play as well was quite meta, a little in-joke or Easter egg.

Do you each remember what made you fall in love with music in the first place?

P: Abbey Road on vinyl. It was Mum’s. I would’ve been, like, 11. It blew my mind. It was the first time I got to know an album in full, and didn’t just know a single that was on the radio or whatever, and I just loved the way that album flowed and the musicality of it, and how it’s pop music but they were also experimenting. There’s just something about that album, which probably—when I think about it—is my favourite album of all time and made me want to do music.

H: Mum will definitely want the credit for that one; Dad’s got the Bowie records, Mum’s got The Beatles ones. This one is way less cool, but my answer is probably “I Miss You” by blink-182. Combined with “Ocean Avenue” by Yellowcard—that was my favourite song. I was like, “Yep, I’m a rock guy now. I’m a band guy. Take me as I am.”

P: [Laughs]

H: I couldn’t say that it’s my favourite song now, but I remember that distinction pretty clearly, being like, “Yeah, this is me now”.

Did you have any Yellowcard posters on your walls?

H: [Rotates webcam] I’ve got some nice Gorillaz ones over there, but no Yellowcard ones.

If you could choose any band to go out on tour with, who would it be?

P: I’d probably say Tame Impala, just ‘cause I’m a diehard KP [Kevin Parker] fan. But I don’t know if we’d be the right fit, though…

I can totally see you guys opening for Tame Impala – Balu Brigada would be the perfect fit!

H: I mean, my pinnacle artist is Frank Ocean and I love the idea of getting to tour with him, but, no [laughs]. I don’t think. So that makes Kevin Parker feel a little bit more attainable. I don’t think it would be too far-fetched, hey? I reckon we should link it up.

#balu brigada #interview #indie pop #groove pop #alternative pop

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