Sam GreenwoodHailing from Carlow, Josh is a filmmaker, who like the rest of the country has been stuck wondering what exactly is going on and when are we going to get our lives back.
This restricted time has, however, allowed Josh time to work on various exciting projects. You will probably remember Josh Meany’s name from July 2020, as the young filmmaker and close friend of Sam Powell, whose nostalgic video accompanied Sam’s track ‘Floating‘, which created quite a stir amongst our readers and in Ireland in general.
Most recently, Josh has produced the music video for Belfast DJ and producer Kessler, who currently resides in Rotterdam. Kessler’s latest track ‘Vrieselaan’ has just been released with the mighty Shall Not Fade, with Josh being commissioned to create the music video.
We spoke to Josh about his new video, it’s concept, location and the many frames of footage that he’s incorporated into these 6 amazing minutes.
“The idea behind the video was to kind of visually represent the complicated transition between stages of emotion from happiness, anxiousness, anger, joy and frustration. I tried to achieve this through a combination of intense sequences of images, a fast-paced video which contrasted with really calm slow-motion sequences of nature and urban life. The video is also a bit of a homage to Rotterdam, where Eddy is based at the moment, so a lot of the footage came from there. A lot of the scenes surrounded the idea of going somewhere or a journey so lots of train stations, cars, roads, and bicycles this too plays into the idea of the transition through emotions.
The Rotterdam footage was shot by Mark Bolk and by Eddy himself, we included a lot of mobile phone footage because we kind of had to due to covid restraints, but I think it has a nice effect on the video and gives it a kind of lo-fi aesthetic and makes it feel more relatable and nostalgic maybe. What wasn’t shot in Rotterdam I shot in Dublin and Carlow myself. The Dublin footage was all just masses of people going here and there just about their lives in the run up to Christmas to try and capture as many people as possible experiencing life in an everyday way. The Carlow footage was a lot of nature scenes to contrast and provide a bit of relief from the rest of the intense editing going on in the video.
The final sequence in the video is a love letter to clubbing, festivals, dancing, and music. We gathered all the footage we could from Eddy, Eddy’s mates, myself and any willing donor i could find and just created a mashup of dance floor scenes with little snippets of previous parts of the video“.
Reflecting on Josh’s last two projects, Josh is like ourselves, desperate to get back into the streets, clubs and crowds that have allowed him to picture, video and create the amazing work that he has showcased so far. We can’t wait to see what project and films, Josh will bring to us next.
If you want to keep up to date with Josh’s various projects and imagery, you can follow his Instagram page here, or email him any queries and questions regarding any work here: goodchapjosh@gmail.com.
You can watch the video below, plus purchase Kessler’s track via Shall Not Fade’s Bandcamp page on vinyl and digital here.