Robber’s Dog Director Riley Blakeway, Champions Female Solidarity

LA rock trio Cherry Glazerr release their latest promo ‘I Told You I’d Be With the Guys’ alongside the announcement they have signed to record label, Secretly Canadian. Robber’s Dog’s Australian-born, LA director, Riley Blakeway, partnered with the band to draw up a concept and shoot the mesmerising new music video.

As the band lounge around a modest LA condo, their space gradually becomes incrementally invaded by geeky men in matching red golf shirts and khakis.  Their passive presence creating a bizarrely uncomfortable yet unthreatening suffocation of the band as they continue to perform the song.

“Using physical men to fill up the space was a simple and distilled way of achieving this feeling of suffocation without being too heavy-handed.” Explains Riley “I wanted to create a passive battle of entitlement that ended with the men overpowering the scenes solely with pure physicality. They’re not being malicious; they’re just taking up too much space.”

The narrative was inspired by lead singer and guitarist, Clementine Creevy. Musing on social norms, the lyrics of the song reflect a need to consciously strive for solidarity with other women in order to combat the sexism ingrained in our culture and, in extension, herself.

Riley adds: “Sasami and Clem [Sasami Ashworth and Clementine Creevy] have opened my eyes to a lot of gender-equality issues that I feel like I was previously blind to as a result of the society I grew up in. This attitude needs to change and the idea behind this song and video is to help start a dialogue. Clem had an idea of what she wanted the video to say, so I collaborated with her and the band to translate this into a concept for the film.” 

Using a white / grey palette to contrast the warm tones in the shirts of the band’s unwanted guests, the whole promo has an overwhelming feeling of a void that is being filled. Blakeway combines this with a slow, hypnotic edit to give the whole promo a dream-like effect.

“I wanted to repeat the shots in the chorus scenes to make the addition of the guys more pronounced.” Explains Riley. “The way we shot the film was heavily dictated by this, as well as the decision to use a dolly to achieve the repetition. This is what really gave it my visual aesthetic and I’m pleased with how it turned out; I like the patience of the edit.”

The Australian-born director, who now lives in LA, has directed commercials for brands including Skullcandy, Samsung, Nike, and Corona through Australasian production company, Robber’s Dog.