Watch: Cashier No. 9 – Oh Pity

24 October 2011, 16:30 | Written by The Line of Best Fit

(News)

Here’s the new video from Bella Union’s Irish harmonious troupe Cashier No. 9. Normally, we’d write a lovely bit of prose about how splendid the following footage is but, instead, we’ll leave it to the super talented director Gregg Houston aka babysweet.

The idea for the video was simple. Project an image of the band onto them selves. My first thought was to have the band dressed up in bandages. It just seemed like the best idea. It would look distorted, old and not quite right. I have quite a hard time explaining exactly what I see in my head so the band had to show a lot of trust in me. Luckily they did and we ordered two cases of bandages for the shoot!
The shoot was spread over two days. The first day we would film all the footage that needed to be projected and the second day we would “begin” shooting the video. This was quite a risk. We had two days to shoot a video, but in reality we were only shooting the video in one day. The high power projector we required was only available for the 2nd day and so there was always the danger of the projector arriving, the concept not working and being left with 10 hours to film a completely different video!
As a director I have found myself in a position a few times where the band are unable to see the quality of what we are shooting. By that I mean shooting in a way that will work for the edit. It is a tough situation for the band to be in. They have to perform with the swagger and confidence they have on stage but yet they are all in a green room, dressed in bandages. The fact that the single oozes swagger and that the band are really cool and unpretentious enabled us to work well together in this environment. Some of the footage I have of Danny especially is so effortlessly charismatic but as with all edits, not everything can be included.
What I love about the concept is it’s uniqueness and simplicity. I find the images to be incredibly interesting and dirty. It has a lo-fi feel that works really well with the dark tone of the song and lyrics.