JOHN FOXX official website METAMATIC : Connections : Ian Emes : Interview

In an exclusive interview, Ian Emes talks to Metamatic about his career to date, and some of the
many film projects such as his work with Pink Floyd and Duran Duran

Also discussed are the films Flightpath Tegel and A Secret Life which he created with John Foxx...

Metamatic : Who contacted who?

Ian : I had seen John's Tiny Color Movies event advertised at the Apple Store, and I contacted him through the Metamatic site. And so we arranged to meet at the Groucho Club in Soho.

Metamatic : Were you already aware of his work at this point?

Ian : Completely. I've always been a huge fan of John's music, from Ultravox through to his solo career. Underpass is a seminal piece for me. The fact that he is a musician and a practicing artist is special to me. He's a universal man, he sees the connections. There are many parallels in our work, not the least the relationships between the moving image and music.

Metamatic : When did it become apparent that a collaboration would be possible?

Ian : As soon as we met. John's preoccupation with the urban environment as a kind of alienating, emotional experience is exactly where I come from. We were ships in the night, or rather cars in the night, and we understood each other immediately.

Metamatic : Regarding Flightpath Tegel, what came first - the imagery or the music?

Ian : Ever seen the motorway sequence in Tarkovsky's Solaris? That was shot in Tokyo in the 70's I think. For me it's that sense of belonging to the great rivers of traffic, flowing into them, the arteries of a city. It's incredibly elegant and civilized, and all about sensations of space. I think it's the nearest an ordinary man gets to flying.

John and I started throwing these ideas around. Eventually I mentioned a thought that I'd had, about somehow abstracting the motorway experience into a film. I think it came out of talking about Underpass. We're both lovers of JG Ballard, and in particular his novel Concrete Island. John suggested the track, and I loved it the minute I heard it. It was perfect.

Metamatic : What's the significance of the title Flightpath Tegel?

Ian : You need to ask John for the correct answer to that question, but I'm guessing it's about the airport in Berlin - Berlin Tegel - and the uniquely strange place it is. It's a small airport right in the middle of Berlin, a kind of concrete beehive serviced by feeder highways. So I think it's about the feeling of movement and space as you approach the place.

Metamatic : The transitions in this film are very striking - so was the footage shot with those cuts 'in mind', or did they 'present themselves' during the editing process.

Ian : I spend so much time in drama and commercials making films that are minutely planned. Sure it's a budget consideration too, where every frame counts, but with my installation films I like to feel my way in, and to shoot unplanned films, to set out just with an idea and find the shape through the process. There is the thought that inside a block of stone, the sculpture is already there, and the sculptor uses his carving tools to find it. Likewise, film to me can be sculpture, and I use my tools, the camera, space, light and movement, to find the world within.

I shot Flightpath Tegel over eight weekends, at dawn, on motorways around London, and Spaghetti Junction in Birmingham, I filmed a lot around Westway, where I also shot The Chauffeur for Duran Duran. By the way - I read that JG Ballard used to commute along the Westway at the time he was writing Concrete Island, and I'm guessing that the Shepherds Bush flyover and roundabout, with the traveller camp beneath it, is the location of his Concrete Island.

For the record, as an adolescent I lived in a house that was virtually beneath Spagehtti Junction, so those great majestic columns supporting Britain's biggest motorway intersection, must have permeated my subconscious.

Metamatic : What sort of equipment was employed - both in terms of photographic and editing software?

Ian : I rigged a Mini-DV camera to my Toyota. As simple as that. Sometimes I shot to the front, or sideways or at angles or pointing upwards. I did it alone. My rule was not to see any other traffic. The film was edited on Final Cut Pro. It was trial and error, playing around with the flow and seeing how things worked. It was very instinctive.

Metamatic : Do you have any plans to work with John again?

Ian : We have talked over some ideas, so it's a question of when the opportunity arises. We would both like to do something environmental, on a big scale. I have this idea for surround screen projection for The Quiet Man, of shadowy figures moving in and out of buildings, very Film Noir and mysterious. Also, another of John's collaborators, Macoto Tezka, and I have talked about making a film together, which would certainly involve John's music. I think that will be really interesting. But my images are very specific to the music, so it will be a question of making the films, or films, and raising the bar in terms of the audience experience. I'm thinking of something on a par with my Floyd projections, when the sheer scale of things was awe-inspiring.

Metamatic : I noticed that your film International Airport Plastic uses a piece of music taken from the Foxx / D'Agostino / Jansen album A Secret Life. Was this film created for a specific event / installation?

Ian : It's a work in progress. I travel a lot, directing in various countries, so I decided to use some of the time I spend in airport lounges, making a film. Again, on a whim it turned out to be an interesting idea.

Metamatic : You say that this film was made in the editing with help from the 'subconscious mind'. How much do you think the 'subconscious mind' also contributed to the initial filming?

In this instance I'm thinking of your being drawn to a particular way of framing a scene which appeals to you - a point of view that would be unique to your 'style'. Or perhaps being able to anticipate a sequence of events (people moving through a frame) which would give you a desired result - short of choreographing the whole scene.

Ian : As I filmed, I realized the whole world of airport lounges was a really interesting one, in that they are places without a country, where time is in limbo, and people are in transit. It's spooky, yet very revealing about human behavior. And with John's music from A Secret Life, it took on a pathos, a sadness like feeling homesick. The other interesting thing was that once I had cut the film, after repeated viewings, I began to notice people I hadn't seen in the first viewings, and there was this strange sense that everything was rehearsed. When shooting it I attached the camera to a luggage trolley and glided through the lounges, people drifting to and fro. So here is another example of an unplanned approach to film making, which is 'finding' the film as I make it. It's instinctive and as a result very revealing. Even when you freefall, all the disciplines kick in, and the result is you and your viewpoint. Fascinating.

Metamatic : The version of your film A Secret Life (which appears on the D.N.A. DVD) utilises material you had shot in Bucharest. As with Flightpath Tegel, which came first - the footage or the music?

Ian : In this case the film came first, which I then edited and adapted to suit the music. It's a reciprocal process, and I don't always work in the same way.

Metamatic : I assume that this piece was worked on over a protracted period, as the extract which appears on YouTube (from April 2009) comprises entirely of 'animated sequences', while the extract on your website (from 2010) is the footage shot in Bucharest. The 'final' (D.N.A. DVD) version features both film styles. Do many of your projects have such a long gestation period?

Ian : Again I'm experimenting. Actually I combined footage from the 70's, with new footage, and melded them together in After Effects, thus making a new film. I think this is an interesting idea, to re-edit and re-invent early works, and to combine them with new material.

Metamatic : What processes were involved in the creation of the animations? It looks as though certain sequences were based around 'live action' pieces.

Ian : I used a technique called rotoscope, which begins with a live-action film that is projected and traced onto cells, and painted - think of the Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds sequence in Yellow Submarine. What I did with the cells then was to literally attack them with paint, charcoal, sandpaper, bleach whatever, to destroy the images until they were barely recognizable. And so you have this effect of being uncertain as to what the images are, and yet they come through. It's enigmatic and dream-like, and I'm intending to do more work in this style.

Metamatic : The music for the sequence which appears on your website is slightly different to the 'finished' piece. When did you start work on this film?

Ian : 1979!

Metamatic : You mentioned that a gypsy woman came and stared into the camera at one point - how important are 'unscripted moments' like this to your films?

Ian : What happened here is that I was in a restaurant in Bucharest, with the camera lying on the table. The gypsy woman came up to me and I turned over. I then took the footage and reversed it, and jump cut it. The effect is spooky, but strangely emotional. One of my heroes - David Lynch - frequently uses reverse footage technique to create a sense of unease. I love it.

Metamatic : I understand that you have recently completed a project with Steve D'Agostino - the holographic film Echoes. How did that film come about?

What was behind the decision to shoot this film in (what I imagine is) a fairly unique format?

Ian : I was asked by Musion Academy to make the piece, and they specialize in making 'holographic' film. In fact, it turned out that the technique we were using is not new, it originates from the Victorian illusion known as 'Peppers Ghost', which is achieved by projecting an image onto a two way, angled mirror. So the film was very specific, figures against black, within a rectangular border out of which nothing could overlap. This time I really did make it up as I went along, and came up with the theme of man's fear of women - known as Gynophobia, which is what the piece is now called. It was interesting, and part of my journey towards a more immersive experience, but ultimately the technique is too limited for me. Instead, my intention is to use large multi-screens, and to use imagery that is in itself deeply spacious. I have to say, for me the whole 3D explosion is more about the Hollywood studios avoiding piracy and post production fortunes than offering something with a long term aesthetic prospect. It's a step in the right direction but at present the medium is very random. So let's say it's in transition, we're not quite there yet. Don't get me wrong, I want to be inside that film, but 3D as it stands only offers a single view, albeit with an occasional sensation of depth, a great part of the film still being a 2D experience. And then there is the question of why are we using the using the space dramatically. It's like dance, space must be used to serve an idea, not just for the occasional kick. I did see 3D used with great sensitivity and restraint in the film Pina by Wim Wenders, which was inspiring, and I'm developing a movie that I will shoot in 3D. But I'm impatient for the true holographic technology to arrive, when you really do step inside the film. Then a whole new criterion will come into play, and I'll be there.

Metamatic : Rather obviously, I'd also be very intrigued to hear about your involvement with The Pink Floyd and Duran Duran, and the iconic films you created for Time and The Chauffeur respectively.

Ian : I made an animated film called French Windows in 1972, which was a visual interpretation of the Floyd track One Of These Days on the Meddle album. As an extension of my painting and sculpture, I was a self-taught animator, and the film was a combination of drawing from live-action, 2D animation and motion cycles, with extreme perspectives and strong illusions of space. It took me six months to make, and I had no idea what it would look like, because in those days you canned the film and sent it off to be processed. No playback. What came back blew me away, and changed my life. The film was shown on the Old Grey Whistle Test and Pink Floyd saw it, and called me. They commissioned me first to make the Time sequence, because they liked the flying clocks in French Windows, and then to animate extended sequences for Speak To Me and On The Run. After that I set up my own studio in London.

The Chauffeur came ten years later, when I had moved over to live action. The band asked me to make an erotic film for the Girls On Film video collection, and then they promptly disappeared to Rio to shoot it. So I was left to my own resources, and concocted the story of two women communicating telepathically with each other across London, and meeting. I decided to make it in the style of Helmut Newton and Night Porter, and hired the esteemed DOP Gilly Taylor, who had shot Roman Polanski's black and white British movies. I edited it myself, in a very intuitive way. I don't think the band quite knew what to do with it when they saw it, it was so different to the other films, but they did recognize its qualities. It's one of my most timeless films, I think because of the beautiful classic black and white cinematography. I have developed an extended storyline based on the short, which would be a gorgeous black and white feature film.

A series of Ian's photographs will be available as limited edition prints in March of 2012 when he will be the subject of a one man show entitled One Of These Days at the unit24 Gallery, Southbank, London.

For more information on Ian Emes - check out his website...