Last week I appeared on the ‘What Makes a Great Music Video‘ panel at Sensoria Pro, with Martyn Ware of Heaven 17.
Sensoria is an annual film and music festival that takes place in Sheffield a (northern English) city boasting a rich musical heritage that includes Cabaret Voltaire, The Human League, Heaven 17, ABC, Pulp, The Arctic Monkeys, Def Leppard, Moloko, The Longpigs and Reverend & The Makers. Sensoria Pro is the two day music industry festival within a festival.
Amongst the videos screened on our panel were Martyn’s favourite Heaven 17 promo ‘Let Me Go’ and my double Webby Award nominated Thomas Dolby video ‘The Toadlickers’.
Let Me Go was shot on 16mm film, in 1982, at a cost of ￡300,000. The Toadlickers was shot on Canon 5Ds, in 2010, for substantially less. As such they provided good examples of how technology, budgets and the industry have changed over the last 30 odd years. This was the subject of some discussion, as were virals, interactive and the future of music videos.
During the session, Martyn told an amusing story about how, when Heaven 17 shot ‘Let Me Go’, streets in the City of London were closed off, huge technocranes were brought in and the negs were rushed back to the lab…only to discover that all the footage was ruined, so everything had to be shot again. Amusing now, though I’m guessing probably not at the time…
Highlights of Sensoria Pro included former Radio One and shortly to be XFM DJ Mary Anne Hobbs in conversation with Lu LeVey; Sensoria composer in residence, Bill Drummond inducting myself (and the rest of his audience) into The17; In The Nursery‘s 30th anniversary concert; and former Undertones lead singer and current CEO of UK Music, Feargal Sharkey in conversation with Dave Simpson of The Guardian.
However, as Feargal Sharkey and Martyn Ware were there on different days, I was unable to find out the truth behind the rumour that when Feargal cousin’s mother bought him a synthesizer, she got The Human League into advise her.
My festival concluded sometime in the early hours of Saturday morning at local late night hot spot ‘The Washington’, having spent several hours hanging out with Danny O’Conner, the director of ‘Upside Down, The Creation Records Story‘ (which screened at Sensoria) and Mark Gardener (ex-Ride) who scored the film.
All in all I had a great time and would certainly recommend next year’s festival, as Sensoria Pro offers a stellar lineup and is one of the friendliest, most unpretentious festivals there is.
© 2011, Paul D. All rights reserved.
