Can something be a little creepy and unnerving, and at the same time quite beautiful? I think Gareth Roberts‘ music video for Felix Fables may be just that! Well, it not surprising having found the inspiration deep in his subconscious while tucked up in bed. Putting my tendency to get freaked out by the surreal aside, it’s a great video that’s built around a relatively simple idea. But, the best ideas are simple— it would’ve been easy to go over the top with the strange and humorous imagery in this, but it manages to have just enough to get the idea across.
I love the lighting at the beginning, the black and white, and the little giggle it gave me when it started to descend into madness. Gareth definitely achieved something dreamy. He tells us more.
Felix Fables— ‘Wonderful World’.
Directed by Gareth Roberts.
Makeup by Amanda O’Shaughnessy.
“I’m an illustrator and director living in London, I’ve been working as a freelance illustrator since leaving higher education over a year ago and have now started working in moving image and direction over the past few months. I believe that coming from my illustration background (I studied Graphic Design and Illustration at university) it’s helped me find my aesthetic within film, my love for surreal, dark, folktale and folk art-based imagery has slowly bled into my moving image work.”
“Using my drawing skills plays a key role in my planning and making processes. I draw out my ideas a lot to help me decide on the storyboards as well as make up, costume and set designs. Which I also send out to whoever I’m working with or alongside for inspiration or direction.
I love to keep a handmade element to my work and prefer to try to keep that honest element of ‘real’ in the final pieces as best as I can. There is always that last hurdle where you do have to do a bit of post and editing on the macs but sometimes it’s just unavoidable.”
“I’m a great fan of collaboration and believe it’s a very healthy creative process to keep doing alongside your commercial/personal work. It doesn’t have to be big projects, it can be as small as sending each other an image a week or a piece of writing you’ve read in a book. It’s good to share what you see with others around you. I also teach a couple of days here and there at a college just outside of London, which I find very rewarding and I think it’s great to put back into the education system from which I learnt.”
“I really would love to get more music video, fashion film and moving image work right now. I want my ideas, the costumes,my stories (and hopefully the budgets) to get bigger and better!”
Can you tell us more about the video, ‘Wonderful World’ in particular?
“The idea came from a set of drawings that I had based around using the hands as a net for space in which to input information. They slowly evolved into these odd creatures which I then dreamt about in detail, in which my hands duplicated and attacked me, trying to bond with me in a way … it was very surreal.”
“I made notes about the dream and pitched the idea along with drawings to the band, they loved it and the idea went from there. I worked with make up artist Amanda O’Shaughnessy it was a quick simple and shoot actually. very minimal lighting and set but it was a great step in a new direction!”
© Gareth Roberts, 2011.
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