Oliver Hadlee Pearch Gets Jungle Fever

Oliver Hadlee Pearch, a director with Colonel Blimp, has been working with UK band Jungle over the course of five stunning dance-themed promos and has just released the fifth, for Julia, shown above. 

Below we talk to Pearch about his route into the business as he explains how the collaboration with the band came about and how the five videos have evolved at each step and what he was aiming to achieve with the ambitious project. 

Tell us a bit about your background; how did you get into directing?

I've always trying to make films growing up and I loved going to cinema. I would just get a ticket and stay all day having worked out the time schedule of each film.

I was making my own films on a little handy-cam but I always had an issue with how rubbish my footage looked compared to what I saw in the cinema. That's why I ended up taking pictures and getting into stills first. I found I could capture light and achieve a cinematic feeling on a still a lot easier than in film.

I kept on making a few films and personal stuff though and eventually started filming all the photography projects I was doing. But at the back of my mind I knew I really wanted to work with a lovely film camera.

To have an idea that I could elevate into something more cinematic. Through my photography I really learnt about character and how important a character is to hold your audiences attention. Like a great Richard Avedon picture; he took images that last, filled with such character and soul. I feel that getting this element into my photography inspired me more to get into film and the kind of films I wanted to make.

How did the collaboration between you and Jungle come about?

The first video, Platoon [above] for Jungle was sort of the coming together and the start of everything. Josh [Lloyd-Watson] from Jungle was my best friend. We worked in a pizza restaurant and this local called Charlie became our close friend. He worked at a production company and helped us get hold of an Alexa and a DP and a team.

He supported us when we were just kids without anything; no reel, nothing. Just desire and knowing what we wanted. Without Josh’s music I would not of been able to have the space to create. So he was super important.

I suppose I started to make work that I didn’t hate when we started doing Jungle. I still have a long way to go but I think it was a start. It felt right and real to us. 

Was there an agreement from the beginning that your videos would span five songs/one album, or did you direct one and it grew from there?

Not at all. They were not signed on the first video. I worked closely with Josh and the band and also shot all the band's imagery. I don’t even think they had another song finished at the time.

Suddenly people loved it. Justin Timberlake posted it. It sort of gave them lift off. They had to then write music to supply the demand. It was sort of just friends happy to be making stuff together, we never thought it would do so well.

The band got into the groove of writing quite quickly and we ended up making the second video again ourselves [The Heat, below]. By the third, it was their first release on a record label and we've ended up getting to make two more because of demand. It has been really fun.

Was the dancing theme something you brought to the project yourself or something the band suggested?

The music is about dance. It makes you want to move. I think it just had to be so. There was no ifs or buts, we just knew the best way to express the song was through movement, a different dance for each track.

Do you have a background in dance/choreography at all?

No. I mean I wanted to do ballet because I thought that would help my football skills. I never trained in the end but I watched a lot of dance and I loved Michael Jackson and Pina Bausch.

Though very different, what I learnt through both was actually dance is all about feeling. Movement transports you to somewhere else. When I dance or if I go out and party I lose myself in the moment of dancing. Dancing is about confidence for me. It's raw and just expresses something maybe you can’t show any other time.

With Jungle I wanted to express the way the music made me feel. Through dance you can feel the groove of the track. I often say it's not dance I actually like very much, it's more emotion and feeling and using dance as a tool to express this emotion and feeling.

How did you decide what type of dance/dancers to use for each video?

Charlie, our friend, showed us B-Girl for the first one. She was on YouTube. We just tracked her down (we didn't need to go that far as the person looking after her worked in same building as Charlie. Best coincidence ever!).

So for the second we again stuck with YouTube. I was obsessed with skating and had this idea of skating in NYC so looked up skaters and spent weeks looking until I came across High Rollerz.

With the other three everything began to evolve a little more. I started to grow in confidence and started writing characters and what they would be like and then held auditions and found the members of each film.

The videos seem to get progressively more complex; is that correct and something you aimed to do?

That goes back to this word confidence. I think with Platoon there is a feeling in that which I don’t know I will ever get again. It was so naive and raw. It was like a first sexual experience. I think you can see that.

With each one I wanted to build in structured shots. Start giving the project more of a story arc. You know, as great as Platoon was you can’t sit thinking you’ve got a blueprint to making a good video. You need to push on and grow. I try and suck in everything from everywhere. Constantly learning and growing. Pushing . But always remembering that simplicity is the key. Have an idea but pare it back.

You can see that with Jungle. That's what's great about music videos, because of very limited budgets you have to pare it back and go to the core of the idea. The core is the character. At the start we relied on dance to show the character and as they have progressed I've tried to show more and more character.

What was the hardest/most complex video to shoot?

Probably working with no money on the second video [The Heat]. Having to run around cleaning the floor for the skaters before the performance. It was all-hands-on-deck. In the middle of winter. I spent the day mastering the first shot and the movement in and out of frame.  Julia was the most storyboarded.

I ended up black-boarding my room and chalking across it for a month in preparation. I think it's the most polished and together out of the videos, so it was well worth all the black paint.

What was the most difficult part of the whole five-video process?

Keeping a tone but taking it somewhere else… five times.

Will you work with Jungle again and what are you working on next?

Would love to. They like my brothers. So as long as they write the music I will probably be there. I'm just writing on a commercial at the moment as well as a new music video. Im really excited about both so lets see...