Pablo Casacuberta, the man behind the bonus ‘ Eye Of The Storm’ documentary DVD in the new John Digweed release package, reveals all about his thoughts of working with our man Diggers.
Week one of a two part series…
“I started to work with musicians about twenty years ago. I was raised in a family where everyone else was a musician except me, so somehow I got used to create images following the same approach that I would use to compose music. I try to concentrate in the emotions, in the atmosphere, and to convey a sense of inner journey.
Generally, when I’m asked to direct a documentary or an interview in which the subject is a well-known musician or performer, I think that the audience already knows how the artist looks on stage, or has a certain awareness of their “public persona”. Probably because of that, it always felt more interesting to me to show a glimpse of their inner life, their thinking processes and their imagination. These are aspects of their artistic work that are not necessarily evident when they are on stage, and that can only be accessed by capturing them out of the contexts in which we are used to see them.
For that reason, when I have the chance to follow an artist for a while, I try to visualize which are those aspects of his or her personality are harder to grasp in a first glimpse, and I try then to find visual metaphors that could illustrate them in a graphic way. I want the images to tell us something we didn’t know before, so I try to convey the idea that those images we present in the documentary are like snapshots of the artist’s mental life. To do so, I have to work out those images by having conversations about how they feel, what was their history and their background. And then I try to dismantle all preconceived ideas related to their work. I somehow try to present them to the audience as if we hadn’t seen them ever before.
Working with John Digweed was a very rare opportunity, because he is an artist that doesn’t fit the general preconceptions that apply to some DJs. He doesn’t play any gimmick on stage. He is not distant, but he doesn’t pretend that he is in a state of exhilaration either. His performance is entirely about the music. It looks like choosing the right track for the right moment and for a particular crowd is for him an utter act of kindness. He is generous but patient. Popular but somehow mysterious. Both light and dark. He is central to what is happening but at the same time he is mostly away from the limelight. He likes to think of himself as somebody that can keep calm and quiet right in the eye of the storm, but also is capable to react quickly and unpredictably. For all those reasons, there was a huge space to explore his character in visual terms. I wanted to relate his interviews to images that were both very graphic and very abstract, so we could make it feel like they represent exactly what goes on in his mind. Trying to portray that sense of departure, we choose as a backdrop for the whole documentary one of his numerous tours to South America. It seemed to me that showing him walking around Rìo de Janeiro or jamming with local drummers in the streets of Montevideo would show the kind of experiences that show very vividly how far his journey has taken him. But also I wanted to depict his celebrated patience, his sense of timing and his observational abilities. And the only way to do so was through sequences that were mostly poetic. So, instead of just following him around, we also placed him in strange, almost imaginary settings, in which his adaptive and curious nature could flourish.
I’m very pleased with the results. My favourite outcome, when I shoot a series of interviews like the ones included in “Eye Of The Storm”, is when not only the audience sees the artist under a new light, but when the artist himself discovers angles and images that he finds unexpectedly accurate as a depiction of his state of mind. John was extremely collaborative, enthusiastic and humble, and went though the whole experience with a joyful sense of discovery. I hope that the final cut, however experimental, may allow his fans to feel that they have had a personal chat with him, and that by doing so they know him better.
Pablo Casacuberta
www.pablocasacuberta.com
‘Structures’ is released 19th July 2010 on Bedrock Records. www.bedrock.org.uk
+ BONUS DVD
‘Eye Of The Storm’ – Documentary by Pablo Casacuberta www.pablocasacuberta.com
+ ‘John Digweed – Live at the Vagabond’. Recorded at the Bedrock/Creations Party at Vagabond Miami 27th March 2010
www.thevagabondmiami.com
+ Slideshow + Documentary Slideshow + Vagabond slideshow + Bedrock Artwork Slideshow
