MIlo Blake
We sat down with director and founder of Figaro Inc, Milo Blake. He spoke about his come up, work catalogue, creative techniques, film influences and ambitions for the future. Milo’s Vision on re-shaping the notion of London and it’s culture is paramount for the future and critically informs the way in which he thinks about his videos.
Yes Milo, How’s things going? Kind of a crazy time in the world. Could you tell me a bit about yourself? where you grew up and your background?
Not bad, man keeping my head down amongst all the craziness. Director from North London, Angel, Islington to be more specific, 23 years of age. Pretty typical background, very much a home town boy, London has shaped a lot of my outlook on stuff and how I carry myself.
On The Dots you describe yourself as a ‘music video, short form and branded content director’. How did you get into direction? What were your first experiences behind a camera?
I guess I got into direction from wanting to be in a position to tell my own stories. Film and visual forms being the best and biggest canvas with which I could work with. My dad and mum put me onto loads interesting films from a young age, it was a bit of a home education on cinema. Once I got the bug, I tried to exercise the action of making films whenever I could, whether that be in community led programmes, through school or fucking about with a camera on my ones and in sixth form. Finally, as time went by I started to advertise myself at uni while also getting involved with artists in my local area and then that branched out and led me onto bigger opportunities.
The first time I saw your work was last summer, when you did the video for the song “Culture for 17”. What caught my eye instantly was the styling, mise-en-scene and photographic stills. As well as this, the second part of the video which is stylistically very different to the first due the change of scenery, use of animations and Hype Williams References. What was the creative approach for the video and did the double music video immediately come to mind when you heard the song?
Thank you, actually that was something that was a co-direction between myself, Louis Culture the artist and another director called Greedy Goons whose a VFX wizard. The track has two flavors to it with an instrumental switch up in the middle. I think Louis really wanted to emphasize that duality in the song. It was a bit of a unique dynamic and a big risk because it can come off disjointed but I think that it paid off because both directors were able to execute it well and Louis was close to it in every detail, so there was glue between the two joints so to speak.
Since that Music video you have done another with Louis Culture called "Being Me". What intrigued me was your clean cut editing and filming process that incorporated techniques like Close up reflections, Stop motion and Shaky Cut Scenes. How did you come up with these ideas and was this done to Illustrate the fast paced Nature of living in london?
Yeah man “Being Me” was a lot of work but a lot fun. The track for me had this evolving quality to it that chartered a journey into different genres whether that be House, Rave, Techno, Dub, Hip-Hop. I wanted the video to have a similar adaptable living organism quality to it hence why there was so much experimentation and use of different techniques/moving parts. We had to draw up plans before going into it and build a swing rig in order to attain certain qualities to the movement of the camera, which allowed Louis to basically throw the camera like a ball on a piece of string.
It was basically everything you shouldn't do with a camera in normal circumstances. The allusions to archive and rave/soundsystem culture was because the body of work Louis was about to release was designed like a DJ set, and I thought it could be an interesting set of parallel's to highlight in that sequence how the music of the country was changing but so to was the physical and architectural looks of the UK at that time along with the instrumental at this point in the song taking on a whole new feel too.
Is it imperative for you to be in control of the creative process? Do you see a clear picture or vision before embarking on a project? Or do you go with the flow….Your video ‘Get Mine’ I thought had amazing Colour Grading which worked seamlessly alongside the dance routine. It kind of reminded me of the movie ‘Moonlight’. How did the idea of a choreographed dance routine come about? What were some of the difficulties you faced when directing this video?
Not to mention the video was shown at an array of festivals like SXSW, New Orleans Film Festival, Rhode Island, Lift-Off London…..That must have been a crazy feeling?
Yeah to this day the fact that Get Mine was shown on big platforms in America like SXSW is still crazy to me, we was this small bedroom project and on the same bill as Hiro Murai's, This is America. Get Mine was a project full of risks, at the time I had never worked with choreography before, it was the artist, Tahir's first ever video, we were putting contemporary Pina Bausch style movement to alternative hip-hop. It could have backfired. But I think because me and my co-director and choreographer, Magda, backed our belief that this could reap interesting results it achieved what it did.
I think as a director you do have to strike that balance between having a strong vision and knowing what you want to express, but due to the nature of the work, you have to adapt to circumstances at times. I think a little redirection is natural but you still have to fit into the shape of where you wanted to go if that makes sense. Moonlight was defo one of the references! I kinda wanted it to have a heightened reality to it, so the lighting and colors used in Moonlight played into that idea for me as well as the work of Wong Ka Wai and Christopher Doyle.
I think your video for ‘UK Shit’ has been the most relatable and visually exciting piece of work you’ve done. what was so enticing was the fact that you captured fundamental London environments and placed them alongside someones hustle and graft. What is it about london that you're so drawn to? and did you intentionally place yourself in the video through First Person POV?
Yeah UK Shit was a cool thing to work on. It makes me really pleased that people are connecting with the London spirit that was conveyed both by Apex in the song and through the visuals. I wanted it to have a kind of GTA video game feel to it hence why we chose the 1st person perspective as what you witnessed the world through. Black and white is a format I really like and it's also just complimented the character of the song. As many other directors my age and beyond, La Haine is a massive influence on me and Jay Z's 99 problems by Mark Romanek, for me it’s probably the perfect 3 minutes of synthesis that incorporates image to sound.
So I always take those on my shoulder into a lot of work I do. For me, London is about its people. Whilst the look of the city becomes similar, the feeling of its inhabitants and its history will always bring about a lot of fascination and pride for me. London’s diversity is only matched by a handful of places in the world, and with that comes really inspiring things. Theres a story and a nuance to it. I think one of my big goals is to make a film that i think hits the nuance of what it's like to live here, because a lot of previous representations of the city haven't felt like the right dynamic to me.
I can't help but notice that you're a student of film. Your video for Rachel Chinouriri’s ‘Beautiful Disaster’ is heavily influenced by Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, I also feel like ‘UK Shit’ and ‘Different’ could be influenced by La Haine. What are some of your favorite films? And Which directors inspire you the most?
To be honest, there are so many directors who inspire me. There are some scarily talented individuals out there. Right now, I think there is a great crop of directors in promo's similar age to me like Ethan and Tom, Jay Green, Aliyah Otchere, Yout-Work, Machine Operated, Nwaka, Curtis Essel plus many more. Other crazy music video directors who inspire me are people like Matilda Finn, Jared Hogan and Jonathan Glazer. Glazer is someone whose career I'd love to emulate as he has crossed paths from promos to film. In terms of just strictly film, the list is even longer, but Paul Thomas Anderson, Francis Ford Coppola, Hirokazu Koreeda, Jim Jarmusch and Lynne Ramsay are people who I will always admire.
What elements of directing do you enjoy the most?
I really like the idea of conception stage, it’s that element of directing where it doesn't have to contend with the tricky opponent of reality yet LOL. I also really enjoy the editing stage actually as well, it can be sobering if it's not coming together as you want but then again I also feel like it's the point where you actually start to know what you've got, which can be really rewarding. I also really love the collaborative experience of directing, because really the whole process is a village of minds fusing together into this one collective power to create something from nothing, its magic.
Tell me more about your Production Company, FIGARO.INC and how you came up with that logo?
To be honest, I don't really know if it's a production company in literal terms. I'm not really trying to start my own production company, if that was a byproduct of my career then great. Arthur Parisi, my editor and the co-founder of Figaro Inc decided that it could be something for us to channel our energy into later down the line, but it's not our main goal currently. Right now, we kind of view it more as a creative signature for us and frequent collaborators of mine. I wanted no two Figaro pieces to look the same, and for it to represent a certain standard for what is made. I'd always been interested by the visual representations of very classic americana advertising so that's what inspired the style of the logo. Then with the name I was trying loads of stupid ideas, and then after a while i thought a solution would be to combine the names of my favorite songs, and they were Figaro by Madvillian and then Feel Good Inc by Gorillaz. From there "Figaro Inc" kinda just stuck.
And finishing up, What are the plans for the upcoming year? and what are some of your future aspirations?
End of the year plans are just to keep working, hopefully get signed so I can work on bigger projects, and then keep learning, improving my craft. Lastly, I'd love to have my next narrative short film in the works by next year too!
Interview by Jai Toor