Run & Gun Documentary in the LA Desert

I’ll never forget the light. I was sat in a garden in Laurel Canyon, a tree filled canyon in Hollywood Hills, staring up the branches above me. There was a particular, sharp, fragrant smell in the air, one I’m not eloquent enough to describe, so let’s just say it was fresh. And above me, through the tree branches, the afternoon light didn’t shine through, it fell, in blankets.

Of course, this is Hollywood, a city made famous for its light and subsequent film industry. And there I was (lucky me), paid trip with camera in hand, thanks to my good friend Vicky O’Neon.

I knew while it was all happening that this was going to be the era that would go down as one of the highlights of my career. A lot my time was being divided up between a close-knit group of clients that were quickly becoming my best friends. It started with Rachel K Collier. Years back she’d commissioned me to shoot a music video – it was my first. Somehow she came back for another. And another. It was at one of her gigs that a girl (Rach’s percussionist)  with neon dreadlocks shouted at me “I love your work!!” Her name was Vicky. I was confused. I didn’t think I was at a point where I had a body of work. But sure.  I soon found myself following her around, shooting video, fly-on-the-wall, Cinéma vérité style, capturing her musical journey.

And that’s how I ended up in LA. 

I’d never been to the US before. The flight was bad, but LAX was something else. It took forever to get out. I joked on the phone to Vicky that I was convinced that the plane had gone down and I was stuck in one of the nine cirlces of Hell. That gave a few other tired and weery travellers a little laugh at least. 

And then finally I was out, into the ink black night, my disoritentation hightened by Billy, Vicky’s partner at the time, giving me some (there legal) herb to partake in. Best smoke of my life.

Being in America isn’t so much déjà vu but déjá visite – a surreal experience when it’s your first time there. Growing up with so much American media, you’ve experienced it all already. A particular surreal moment that stands out in my memory was driving out of LA on the huge and completely overwhelming highway and it looking exactly like GTA V. Like, exactly. I’d put Soulwax FM on (as I would have in GTA) and a police car in front of us suddenly swerves off a bank, lights on, siren blazing, starting a pursuit. For a split second I was in a video game.

But it was the desert that was the highlight. It felt endless. I didn’t want to leave. We didn’t have long out there so I made sure to get an interview with Vicky that became the seed for the edit at the top of this post. As the sun set and everyone headed back to the car, I had this overwhelming urge to just walk deeper into that unknown landscape. There was something about the silence and the completely surreal desert rock, the beautiful evening light, that just made me (not wanting to sound too hippy-dippy) become one with it.

But I made it back to the car. There was food, booze and music in Laurel Canyon that night. That was a good consolation prize.