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The story behind the new JAMES video for the single “Moving On”, created by BAFTA winning animator and director Ainslie Henderson.
Ainslie Henderson, BAFTA winning animator and director:
“My connection with James is a long and evolving one. The first time I heard their music was sitting at a friend’s house, aged 18, stoned and confused. ‘Sometimes’ was playing, I remember feeling something that until then I didn’t know pop music could make you feel. I thought crying was only for when you feel loss or sadness. Pop music, but woven with something sincere and yearning, passionate and beautiful. It was 1997, Britpop was happening and I’d just started my first band, I was falling in love with music and trying to figure out who I was and what I wanted my life to be. I was emboldened by the Gallagher swagger, excited and inspired by Blur and Pulp, but James’s music spoke to me like no other band of that era. James didn’t seem to really belong to that era, they orbited it, danced around it, but they were their own branch, growing off in their own direction. It’s telling for me that as Britpop died away and my love for those bands faded into nostalgia, I remain as curious for the next James record as I ever was.
It is 2003, and I find myself with Saul and Mark, the guitarist and keyboards player from the band. We are recording an album in a makeshift studio in the dusty loft of a French Châteaux. A turn on a music reality show named Fame Academy and subsequent recording contract with the same label the band were signed to lead to an introduction. Fate delivered to me a long, wonderful summer with them, recording pop songs, eating cheese, drinking red wine and flirting with the French girls of the local village. Je suis un poisson, je n’ai pas d’eau..
It is 2014, I’m on the phone to Tim and he is describing how they came to write this song, and what the words mean to him. The story he tells me is deeply moving; one thing that stayed with me is his describing death as a birth. Some days later this conversation echoes around my mind while I’m listening to ‘moving on’ I walk past a typical Scottish woollen knitwear shop. My eyes flit over a ball of wool in the window while the word ‘unwinding’ is sung. Pretty quickly I’m leaving a garbled, over excited message on Tim’s phone about the music video I have in my head.
It’s now the day after I finished the film and I’m exhausted, bleary eyed and looking forward to joining in with the spring that I hear is happening outside. I’m so grateful Michael Hughes, the other animator who I gave all the difficult shots to. Thank you for your skill and patience in tolerating my terrible perfectionism. Most importantly, I feel delighted with what we’ve achieved, I think we’ve made something kind of special. I feel so honoured to have been able to contribute something, in my own small way to this magical thing that is James.
Ainslie Henderson is a writer/director/animator/who in, 2012 was awarded a BAFTA for his co-writing of ‘The making of Longbird’ with director Will Anderson. He and Will are the creative team behind ‘white Robot’. Ainslie’s last film “I Am Tom Moody” Was nominated for the 2014 BAFTA and has currently won over 30 international festival awards, including; Best British short at Encounters, Disney, best student film at Ottawa and the special jury prize at Annecy. Ainslie has a particular love for stop frame animation and is currently freelancing in Edinburgh.
Links: https://vimeo.com/ainslie
www.ainsliehenderson.com
https://twitter.com/ainslie7
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