Moby: After

When you win a big prize at Cannes, perhaps the greatest thrill is walking up on stage to the sound of your peers’ applause and collecting your trophy. Alberto Gomez didn’t get to do that when he won the Hello, Future Music Video Challenge organised by Saatchi & Saatchi, Vimeo and BUG Music Videos in collaboration with Moby, but luckily for him, the biggest prize is yet to come.

After graduating from Vancouver Film School in 2009 Gomez moved back to his native Monterrey, Mexico and established his own brand as an independent filmmaker, the paradoxically named GroovyChaos. After a stint shooting for local artists and bands, he became involved in the fashion label Yumm&Trash, set up by his girlfriend, Victoria Velarde. The two work as a team on all kinds of projects, says Gomez, “me as a director, cinematographer and editor, and Victoria as an art director, creative, wardrobe, styling and writing”.

It was actually Velarde who came up with the concept for the promo that won the Saatchi/Vimeo/BUG competition (in which new directors were challenged to make a promo in the Hello, Future theme using one of three tracks from Moby’s album, Destroyed) for Gomez.

“It’s the story of a young princess who becomes an orphan and is charged with the responsibility and duty of being queen,” says the director. “At first she’s scared, sad, and destroyed by her own thoughts, but in the end she blossoms into a beautiful and powerful queen.”

Made with a shoestring budget that mostly went on hiring lights and buying flowers for props, the video was inspired by films such as The Secret Garden, and videos such as Mark Romanek’s for The Perfect Drug by Nine Inch Nails, Sophie Muller’s for Cool by Gwen Stefani, and Keith Schofield’s for Heaven Can Wait by Beck and Charlotte Gainsbourg.

Was Gomez surprised to win? “We were shocked,” he says. “I was thrilled to even be a finalist, but we worked very hard and I’m proud of everyone involved.”

Unfortunately he couldn’t make it to the final screening, but the real prize comes later when he will work on a client project for one of Saatchi & Saatchi’s key network offices. He doesn’t know what that project will be yet but he’s raring to go. “I am really nervous because it means a lot to me to be part of a professional shoot, working with professionals, but I can’t wait.”

Gomez’s dream is to make features but he’s keen to do promos and ads too. Several production companies have been in touch since June but as yet he’s still unsigned.

Perhaps next year he will make it to Cannes, and end up standing on the stage in the Palais with a Lion in his hands. We’ll be happy to supply the applause.