Sat 25th April: Profile Weekender - James Copeman

When your duvet is all downy & soft and your pillow's all nestly & healing ........there is not much incentive to abandon your dream ship and face the reality of the day ahead (potentially eased with a drinkalby hot cup of tea delivered by your flatmate - HINT HINT). The only thing that gets me jump started and animated is turning on E4 Music to see the latest videos. There are 2 divides and both equally entertaining. Half are excellent and worthy of full attention and appreciation. The remaining half are so diabolical and tasteless its the perfect opportunity to vent frustrations on slagging off each detail of appalling fragment and finish.
So HOORAY to the folks that have wit and charm, currently producing the best calibre of the genre by confidently sticking their 2 fingers up at the homogeneous same old, same old format. Here is one such compatriot - James Copeman. Its been exactly one year since he signed to RSA/Black Dog and scooped the award for "Best New Director" at the very first MVA's in October. Copeman was competitively head hunted by Black Dog after his first flurry in directing on promos for Noah & The Whale and Laura Marling. Coming from a background in Motion-Graphics, the clips combine his own imagery drawn ontop of the film and splices of stop-frame animation. Although budgets were initially humble, the constraints were harnessed resulting in Lo-fi trails that look genuinely vintage and cutely charismatic. Its evident that time and consideration went into the art department for a strong stamp of personality in the realisation but complimenting the different musician/s. It is this trademark that alerted me to his work and I have asked him some questions to find out more..............and of course requested imagery from his own archive with the obligatory snap of workspace which I always like...........this is a great one to give insight into his retro-tinted-quasi-Hispanic-comical sensibility..........