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Movie-making with Mirrors
Brighton's new wave electro-poppers Mirrors dicuss the video to their new single 'Ways To An End'...
"The video for ‘Ways To An End’ was filmed in Brighton's Duke Of York's cinema, which was opened on 22nd September 1910 and is the UK’s oldest purpose-built cinema. As a live band with a strong visual identity, who make use of projected visuals throughout the live show, we thought it perfect to shoot a debut video in a cinema. Being Brightonian, there was only one option, and a nobler old cinema than the Duke Of York's I cannot think of. The video was directed and shot by Simon Pollard.
“‘Ways To An End’ is a seething, waterlogged, saturated, yet sprightly groove, and it splashes about in the feelings of recklessness, abandon, dreaming and confusion that arise in the brain when faced with all kinds of emotional junctions. The fast-cut editing of the projections, and their constant flipping through film snippets, footage of wildlife, dentistry, art and artists, photoelectric charge etc is meant to be disorientating, and it could be a reflection of the excitement, anxiety and confusion that can come spitting out the brain at any split-second.
“Much of the footage that makes up the projections is culled from the internet, itself a swarming mess, and no one individual aspect of it is particularly thought-out, worried about or pondered over. Rather, it is the overall, collage-like effect that we wanted. In combination with the sharply besuited band-members prodding away at synthesizers perched on stark metallic desks, the effect is a sort of barrage.
“The idea of a band playing in front of projections is influenced by, of course, Pink Floyd, Kraftwerk, and more recently, The Horrors' video of the band playing in front of a Koyannisqatsi-like projection of moving traffic. Mirrors play live with constant imagery, and so essentially this video is an idealized live performance.
“We are fussy and regimented and polished in the way we record music, and it turns out that the same approach is taken with videos. Originally it was meant to be a pure live performance, including the audio recording of that performance. This didn't work however for various reasons, and being rigid and perfectionist in nature, we couldn't help but create a non-real version of the idea. It sounds and looks better and more polished.
“The end of the video was an idea to reflect the ideas of building/breaking down, and to draw attention to the fact that the entire thing, from the music, to the appearance of the band, to the cut-up footage, to the video itself, is a construction, and one that has been built painstakingly from small little pieces. This idea in turn goes back to the theme of the song we wanted to bring out in the video, that of the Rubik’s-cube like constructive/deconstructive nature of thought and decision. The end of Jonathan Demme's 'Stop Making Sense' live film of Talking Heads was an inspiration for this. Talking Heads are like a perfect machine, out of which emotion and meaning ooze like engine oil. This is something Mirrors would like to emulate through our music.”
WAYS TO AN END IS OUT AUGUST 23
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