Playlist: Andy Orrick

Andy Orrick, chief of stuff at Rattling Stick, heads up the company’s original and branded content output (including music video). Beginning his working life in music videos - as a runner at Propaganda Films in 1994 - after a brief stint in video production, he joined the Virgin Records' Video Department.

At Virgin he worked closely with legendary head of video, Carole Burton-Fairbrother, on all Virgin acts of the time from Spice Girls to Bowie, Massive Attack to The Verve. Below Orrick extols the virtues of music videos as a platform for "smart, challenging [and] mesmerising work" and asks whether sometimes boundaries can bring out the best creative thinking.

Rattling Stick's head of stuff, Andy Orrick 

What’s the best promo you’ve seen recently and why?

Jay-Z Moonlight, by Alan Yang. “We stuck in La La Land/ Even when we win, we gon’ lose.” 

Alan Yang’s video for Jay-Z is as close to perfect as you’ll get. It’s funny, moving and politically astute, making whip-smart observations about ‘representation in the media and artistic ownership’, to quote The Washington Post.

It’s the kind of idea that, in the wrong hands, could go so wrong, but here it’s crafted flawlessly. Music video has that rare ability, when approached with intelligence, to use the currency of the artist - as well as the entertaining nature of the medium - as a Trojan horse to raise important questions in front of a huge audience. This does it with ingenuity and grace.

Jay-Z Moonlight,  directed by Alan Yang 

What’s the first promo you remember being impressed by?

It was probably Thriller. I remember its premiere sending shockwaves through my 9-year-old self as we crowded round the telly at our house in Derby. It was a global cultural event - ‘the movies’ in miniature - and showed the levels of soft power artists of that stature had at the time. We all tried to do the shuffling zombie dance in the playground the next day with mixed results.

 Michael Jackson's Thriller video

And what’s your all-time favourite music video?

It’s hard to pick one. I can tell you the type of music video I love; it’s the ones with an incredibly singular, one-line idea, which never date.

I started in music videos as a runner at Propaganda Films in 1994. I remember having to make endless Umatic edits of Spike Jonze’s reel and being blown away by his video for Wax, Southern California’; Despondent young girl looks out of car window as man on fire runs to catch bus. 'It tells you everything you need to know about the decision to move to Southern California. It’s the girl’s performance at the end that frames the whole piece.

Spike Jonze's video for Wax's Southern California

What other directors/artists do you look to for inspirational?

I was on the jury at the UKMVA’s recently, judging the Best International Urban category, and that’s where it’s at right now. Huge, mainly hip-hop stars making smart, challenging, mesmerising work. It might be partially to do with budgets, but I think it’s more to do with their intellect and courage.

Same was true looking at a lot of the Best UK Urban category. Grime is shaking things up amazingly. Although it’s been around for a decade, it’s finally having its moment and most importantly on its own terms.

I love that. It shows that the UK can still produce underground, grassroots scenes that combine the cultural and political with punk ethics and energy. I worried that possibility had been killed by the ‘everything now’ culture of the internet, but the reverse is true – Grime has high-jacked the internet for its own ends and is doing so for the long term.

Hillary Clinton at the signing of her book, What Happened? 

What are you listening to at the moment?

I’m ten hours into the audio book of What Happened? by Hilary Clinton. It’s a bit of a slog but it’s also a fascinating, albeit one-sided, insight into the 2016 presidential campaign.

I listen to a lot of audio books and podcasts (I helped start one with some mates – saintsofsomewhere.com – shameless plug) but I’m trying to decompress a bit. It’s so easy to fill every waking hour with information and believe we are learning something, without ever taking the time to actually interrogate the stuff we’re consuming. It’s about exercising the thinking muscles as well as the consuming muscles.

When we’re only consuming we’re not free, we’re pacified and controlled. When we take time to decouple and think, we’re beginning to exercise our freedom. I wish for all of us to exercise our freedoms more. We will feel less overwhelmed and numbed by the various forces acting upon us, and our planet, and will find the resolve to act.

"It takes blood, sweat and tears to write a song, make a movie, etc., so why should it be free online and why should only a small minority of people benefit from the ad revenue that distribution of that ‘free’ information generates."

What’s your favourite bit of tech, whether for professional or personal use?

Magnesium and calcium supplements. I wasn’t sleeping well, and when I would wake in the night my brain would race at a million miles an hour. These mineral supplements sorted me right out. It’s incredible. I’m sleeping like a teenager and feel more chilled, focused and productive than I have in years. It’s brilliant tech for personal use, which helps in professional life too. I highly recommend it - this message has been brought to you by Solgar.

Supplements are a go-to 'tech'

What artist(s) would you most like to work with and why?

I’d love to work with some of the big US artists like Jay-Z, Kendrick, Beyonce, GaGa, Rihanna, etc.  When I was at Virgin Records we worked with a few global megastars of their stature and it was equal parts inspiring, exciting and terrifying.

In terms of other artists, I’ve always adored people like P.J. Harvey and Nick Cave, so either of those would be brilliant. Basically any freaks on the fringes, who choose to explore our emotional lives, gender politics, etc. in an intelligent way – the outsiders and outliers.

And there’s a tonne of newer people on labels like XL, Young Turks and Because who are great too. I’ve been lucky enough to work with Massive Attack, on and off, for 20 years and that’s been a dream come true.

Beyonce; one of the artists Orrick would love to work with

How do you feel the promo industry has changed since you started in it?

It’s brilliant to see more incredible female directors now – there were very few when I started – and also directors from more diverse backgrounds making their mark. The worry is that it’s impossible to make a career out of it today so you tend to meet lots of hyper-confident young, rich kids who have supportive parents giving them the security to pursue a risky career.

The irony is that music as an art form (not the music industry) is probably the most egalitarian and diverse the world has ever seen. All you need is your words, your voice, and you’re off. It’s a shame those making the videos aren’t from that same varied pool - yet.

As an industry we need to work hard to encourage and support diverse talents, not only is it a moral imperative, it also means the work will just get better and better. Also, and this is a question really, did the strict limitations and rules of the MTV and Chart Show era push directors to create impact in much cleverer more ingenious ways? Sometimes the open, anything goes nature of the internet, leads to really sloppy shock tactics. There’s nothing more exciting creatively than tight parameters and someone saying ‘you can’t’.

 MTV's boundaries may have helped push creativity

Where do you see the music video industry being in five years’ time?

What’s super exciting to me is the ground swell of people starting to properly understand the value of the data they’re creating online. That might be personal data on social media, or it might be content they’ve created, whether they’re famous and successful or not.

Although we’ve all benefitted from it, the undervaluing of our data, our creations online, has lead to the near collapse of many great artistic industries. It takes blood, sweat and tears to write a song, make a movie, etc., so why should it be free online and why should only a small minority of people benefit from the ad revenue that distribution of that ‘free’ information generates.

Web 3.0 is about us taking back control of our data. If we do that, then things like music videos could have a brighter future than they’ve ever had because their intrinsic value would be recognised, monetised and shared between the artists who made it – musicians and directors alike. It might be an idealistic pipedream, but we’ve all got to dream right?

Tell us one thing about yourself that most people won’t know…

I buy lots of old second hand stuff and alter it. My mum taught me to use a sewing machine when I was about 6 or 7. One day, when I have some time, I’d love to learn to pattern-cut and make things properly.  It’s very therapeutic.