The Magic Numbers “You Don’t know me”

Artist: The Magic Numbers

Track: “You Don’t’ know me”

Universal Music

Director: Cagoule (Lewis gourlay & Abby Warrilow)

Producer: Clare Kerr

Director of Photography: Pete Warrilow

2^nd Camera: Alan Stockdale

Choreographer: Abby Warrilow

Fight Choreographer: Malcolm Shields

Editor: Lewis Gourlay

Make-up: Sarah Cairncross

Cast: Ross Cooper, Malcolm Shields, locals of “The Strathie”

Commissioner

Directors Rep: Debs Ramsey @ YI London

The brief for the video was to create a character with a twist, the title of the track being “you don’t know me” so the band wanted us to play on the idea that you don’t truly know anyone. A great credit is due to the principal performer Ross Cooper who fulfilled this role impeccably.

The location was the unlikely venue of an old man’s pub in Cagoule’s home neighbourhood of Leith. “The Strathie”, as you’d expect, is unaccustomed to the world of music video. The residents however warmly embraced the film crew and London based pop rockers The Magic Numbers, even agreeing to play cameo roles in the video.

Having shot our last music video on a frozen Scottish moor, we wanted to shoot a bit closer to home. In fact The Strathie is the closest pub to our office. We were thrilled to bring The Magic Numbers to our own backyard and they couldn’t have been more enthused, even playing an impromptu gig in the pub at the end of the shoot, to the delight of the locals.

Some notes from Universal

On Caetano Veloso's 70^th Birthday we are releasing a tribute album similar to those done for Neil Young, Dylan, Lennon etc.

15 artists including Magic Numbers, Beck, Chrissie Hynde, Mutantes, Devendra Banhart etc. choose and recorded a track written by Caetano to be included on the CD.

The Magic Numbers track is from Caetano’s most acclaimed album –Transa, recorded in London 45 years ago. Caetano at the time felt alienated by his exile and  alienated by living in London and some of the albums lyrics reflect this:

The clip will be the only clip for the album, so will represent the album worldwide.

Featured artist this month on Central Station

The Magic Numbers - You don't know me

coming soon - our latest promo for The Magic Numbers

Zulu Winter - making of

There were a few times when we questioned "who the F****'s idea was this?." Stood on an exposed highland moor with gail force wind driving shrapnel like hail stones into your face, you tend to doubt the motivation to chose such extreme locations. However we're not called "Cagoule" for nothing and an ability to work in all weathers is what we're proud of. It took true grit and determination from the cast and crew to spend two days on Rannoch moor, in the Scottish highlands, filming the latest Zulu Winter promo. The results however made the effort worth while. Short of traveling to the arctic tundra, you won't find a more dramatic backdrop to film two of the country's leading dancers, skilfully choreographed by Abby Warrilow. The band couldn't comment on the conditions having apparently been frozen under a sheet of solid ice! Front man Will Daunt however escaped the same fate to deliver a bold and enigmatic performance.

New Promo for Zulu Winter a Vevo Exclusive

coming soon - Zulu Winter promo

Cagoule recently braved the worst weather the Scottish highlands could throw at us to film the latest promo for emerging artists Zulu Winter. The single entitled "We Should Be Swimming" is a beautiful and energetic track. Cagoule put together a great team to produce this challenging video and utilising the budget to great effect. Currently we're finishing the grade so watch this space as we'll post it as soon as it's released.

We gave an interview for this months issue of AU Magazine about the making of "Shells of Silver" video for The Japanese Popstars. The full interview is below..

AU magazine: What brief were you given to begin with?

It was really open. There wasn’t anything prescriptive; it was along the lines of “we want a cool video.” It’s a mixed blessing because you think great we can do what we like, but also you have no clue if your idea will strike a chord with the band and the label. Luckily in this case it did.

AU magazine:. How did you decide on the final treatment?

We listened to the track a lot and just tuned into the feelings it creates, It’s quite solemn in a lot of ways. We liked the idea of a city scenes with not a soul in them and an eery, early morning vide when seagulls rule the streets. There are a few themes and images that have come through in other pieces of work that we wanted to bring to this project, like the shots of tower blocks. We wrote in the choreographed scenes to play to our strengths (Abby being a choreographer and director), we thought it was a good way of bringing in dance without it being overtly “dancey,” We wanted the movement to be quite subtle, well placed and counterpoint the harshness of the cityscapes.

AU magazine:. Was it inspired by any other pieces of film?

No we didn’t really have any movies in mind as reference. Of course there are always influences that maybe subconscious. Some people have said it reminds them of this and that but for us it was more a reaction to the music. We had gathered a lot of photography of tower blocks over the years and Lewis played with them in cgi, this technique found its way into the video, a technique that so far no one has picked out as being cgi (which was always the intension)

AU magazine: Where was the video filmed? Why did you choose that location?

We were keen for it not to be recognisable as any particular city. We wanted an Eastern European feel and were interested in socialist housing blocks. We filmed for 3 days in Krakow to gather imagery of those sorts of buildings and urban landscapes. We filmed the dance scenarios in our hometown of Edinburgh, which although is a beautiful city in the centre, has its fair share of grim housing estates. A lot of people have recognised Poland, nobody has yet pointed out Edinburgh.

AU magazine: There's a very bleak feel to the visuals. Why did you decide on that?

Actually we weren’t setting out to make a bleak film, we wanted to find subtle beauty and movement in the photography, so although the subject matter is bleak, such as burnt out buildings, we were thinking “wow look at the texture and patterns on the wall”, or “look how is the light bouncing off that surface”. We had two DOPs working on the photography, part of which was self-motivated, where we gave them a brief and let them go off and find their shots. We shot a lot ourselves as shooting directors, this went on for 7 days, making a really challenging edit.

AU magazine: Can you explain what happens to all the people in the video?

It’s open to interpretation, if you’re looking for a narrative in there you won’t find one or if you do then tell us what you think. Abby’s choreography was carefully planned gestures of movement, like the girl at the bus stop, which might not be seen as dance. Other scenes abby directed the dancers movement on the spot, giving us lots of options in the edit. We then chose sequences that fitted with the overall feeling of the piece.

Lewis & Abby AKA Cagoule