THE MAKING OF 'DON'T DOUBT'


In 2017, I directed a music video on location in Tokyo for one of the best blokes around- Henry Feki ( @fekibeats ) for Warner Music. It was a wild ass epic ride, shooting in the back alleys of Tokyo, being chased by gangs, almost getting arrested + having the time of our bloody life.

This video means more to me than anything, because of the love that went into it. It was made for dreamers, by dreamers, in a place very far from home.

It tells the story of a model trying to make it in Tokyo. Frustrated by relentless castings that focus on fitting in, our girl decides to focus on standing out. She decided to take a stack of her own very unique comp cards out into the city + show Tokyo what she can do.

This song is about not giving up on yourself + your dreams. Any creative will tell you that's pretty damn hard to do.

Our crew flew over on favours + love to make this happen. Running around the back alleys with this crew was one of the highlights of my life. The energy was electric. We felt alive.

The trip started with a location recce around Harajuku, Shibuya and Shinjuku at dusk. We then glammed up Nya with some beautiful blue crystals + headed out over three nights to make magic.'

I really wanted our clip to have a point of difference from other indie music vids shot in the electric city, so I decided to limit the colour palette to Blue and Yellow tones. I've been to Tokyo about 7 times or so in the last decade, so I had a few of my fav neon-centric places in mind for filming. We smashed out Harajuku on the first night, pinning Nya's flyers to a back alley wall lined with (you guessed it) yellow. Yellow tiles + traffic cones + pretty lemon-toned neons lit our gal up beautifully.

The trickiest shots to do were the time-sensitive (and oh-so crucial) sunset shots at Shibuya crossing on the second day. This crossing is an iconic music video location that a stack of famous muso's have shot at (everyone from Muse to Madonna). I was personally super inspired by The Killers clip 'Read My Mind' + wanted to capture some hectic wides here.

With a tiny team + limited time, we knew we'd only have a few takes to get the hero shot right.
Half our team hid in Starbucks, while Ben, Nya and myself walked the crossing, and Penny and Carla handled the clean up. The plan was that the Starbucks crew would give us a signal, then Nya would hustle across the road, tossing her flyers in the middle of a thousand people as they crossed the street. The weather had been shockingly miserable all day, but at the very last second, the sky opened up at dusk + we got one of the most memorable purple-pink-orange blazes of all time. You can see how beautifully these frames came up below.

On our third night in Japan's red light district, we encountered a small gang + nearly got ourselves arrested. We exploded a bag of yellow holi powder (perfectly safe, completely dissolvable in water) over a back alley street for a final dance sequence. Some of the powder landed on a gang member's bike. We tried to tell them it would just 'wash off with water' but they didn't really understand us/dig that + started demanding money.

Next thing, a dozen cops pulled up + threatened to pop us all away in jail for the night unless we paid the gang members $500 for damages on the spot.

Henry went to get cash out. Some of the cops started yelling at us. I got pushed over. Then a little old lady in a building behind us called out to me from her window.

She handed me a hose + winked.

I started spraying the street, and as the yellow holi powder began to dissolve, a few of the cops started laughing. We paid up (cuz hey, $500 is better than jail right?), cleaned up and rolled out. I had a small break-down round the corner, but hey, least we lived to tell the tale.

And what a tale it is.

Please watch + enjoy + appreciate the madness it took to make it.


xX

CREDITS

Director: Charli Burrowes
Cinematographer/DOP: Benjamin Andrew
Starring: Nya Leith of Kult Models
Producer + Stills: Carla Grant
MUA: Penny Antuar
First Assistant: Michael Antuar