BUY AND SELL By RICK SHAFFER

“Buy And Sell” is the second track on Rick Shaffer’s solo album, Hidden Charms, released in February 2011 by Tarock Music. Shaffer continues, expands, and nicely follows up on the feel of his first solo album, Necessary Illusion, released in March of 2010. The concept is for Hidden Charms to have a sound both new and old simultaneously, allowing it to find its place in a radio mix from 1965 and beyond. The album’s vibe inspired British director, Peter McAdam, to recruit 2011 youth right off the street, and place them on the set of a 1960’s dance hall he created at High Bridge Studios, Newcastle, UK, and let “Buy and Sell” play… loud. The result is a video that also combines new and old, continuing the Hidden Charms concept by having today’s youth easily blend into the 1960s and not look or feel out of place. © 2011 Tarock Music

We Will Rise By Martin Stephenson
from the album THOMASINA.

Martin wanted a very simple, minimalistic feel to the video. His daughter, Esme, volunteered to be the actress. I only had a Sunday afternoon to get as much footage as possible. As chance would have it, I had accidentally ‘pocket filmed’ something from the previous day on my iPhone, and when I saw the footage, it looked bleached and abstract, and I knew then that was going to be the style of the video.

MEME
Commissioned by the Illuminate Festival.

A video road movie exploring the cultural ideas of Artists, Writers and Musicians I met whilst exploring the five cities of Yorkshire: Bradford, Hull, Leeds, Sheffield, York.
Music by Badsha Lallaman.

Saturday Night With The London Set
By Helen McCookerybook

Helen wanted a ‘scrapbook feel’ to the video. I fed Helen’s old photo collection, tickets, and ephemera into iCoda and played parts of the track; the software mashed up the images in response to the sound. I used QuickTime to record the moving images, logged them, then moved on to another section. I then compiled these onto the timeline, and the chaos just came together.

Luna Wave by El Cid
Barbaraville Records

A week before I got the commission, I visited Saltburn, a fantastic seaside place with a pier stretching out into the sea. When I heard the track,k I thought it had a ‘surfers’ vibe so I used some of the footage from Saltburn. I also filmed them soundchecking at Gateshead’s Glasshouse and shot some great angles. Again, I used iCoda, mashing up a photo session. I hope I captured the youthful drive and energy of the track.

SO TIRED By RICK SHAFFER

When Rick Shaffer wanted a fast come-at-you video for “So Tired” he immediately enlisted the expertise of British artist/director, Peter McAdam. The “So Tired” visuals encapsulate the feeling of being overloaded by a modern world that continually bombards us with text, sound and images. McAdam used his extraordinary software creation called iCoda — a sound interactive image blender — to express the chaos of the inner mind. McAdam’s unique application works by loading in numerous images that are then activated by the amplitude and duration of the music to create a random animated mash-up. For the “So Tired” video, McAdam resurrected his alternate being, Johnny Satan, to choreograph and dance to the music. Satan becomes a symbol for going with the flow by dancing and embracing chaos, and/or allowing anger to release our inner demon and the secret inside scream heard only by the screamer.

HELTER SKELTER
Commissioned by Threshold Studios.

Inspired by the TV shows of the ’70s and ’80s, Helter Skelter is a fictional Children’s programme. The central characters are King Spider, Peggy the Ghost and Sebastian Quail, a ventriloquist doll. Time has passed, and the characters now haunt the TV show they were once a part of, neglected and in limbo. We take a helter-skelter journey into their psychological states of mind, memory merging with the dream. Cut up psychological states emphasise their psychic disorder as they plunge into madness.

HOLE
Commissioned by Piggyback Arts

A short film enacting certain events from my childhood memory, including a supernatural experience, occult influences, entertainment shows, a nightmare including a giant Silkworm, asthmatic experiences and hallucinations brought about by the illness. A noir-style cabaret hosted by my Shadow Johnny Satan, paying homage to David Lynch, the San Francisco cult band The Residents and the Horror genre. Our own imagination becomes a peepshow, a very private cinema where we mull over events, even playing with the POV. My idea is to re-enact these private incidents from my memory in a constructed scene for another private cinema. The private becoming public. The rabbit hole is a metaphor for burrowing into the subconscious, into a strange domestic environment: black and white tiled floor, a picture of a black rabbit, a chair, and performers enacting the scenes from the theatre of my subconscious.