The La Els "Soulkiller" rocking 5FM
Devin on November 9, 2011 THE LA ELS “SOULKILLER”
Durban-based band, The La Els, may still be relatively new to the South African music scene, but the band members have had many years of sweating it out on stage with various other outfits. Eventually they all found each other and solidly etched their mark into the local scene, commencing their accustic takeover with the moody and electrifying track ‘Soulkiller’, which you may have heard blasting out on 5FM and MK over the last few months.
It all started early in 2010, when the newly formed band entered the national competition ‘Global Moguls’, along with 70 other new band hopefulls from across South Africa. The competition required each band to create a brand for themselves and then to market their brand accordingly. This meant creating not only a cool song, but accompanying it with a music video, album cover and photo. It was at this point that The La Els teamed up with iKind Media directors, Matt Nefdt and Devin Carter, to produce the band’s initial ‘roughcut’ music video and final broadcast music video respectively.
Having started the process quite late in the competition, conceptualization and planning was kept quite brief, with the crew jumping straight into shooting at the Durban University of Technology’s television studios.
Due to the fact that almost everyone in the ensemble still had their day jobs, the band performance scenes took a solid 5 evenings to shoot. Each evening meant a lengthy make-up and rigging session after work before shooting for 3 to 4 hours. The crew somehow managed to position the camera in every angle possible, while the band survived what seemed like a zillion takes, maintaining very brave faces throughout the whole process.
With the ’Global Moguls’ submission deadline looming, the rest of the concept needed to be simplified at the last minute. Actress Tessa-Mae Hadlow saved the day with her outstanding performances portraying the 2 very different personalities depicted in the video, and after another lengthy day of shooting, the entire project was in the can! (or captured and converted into a digital form, if you want to be technical.)
The completed project did the job and The La Els went on to not only win the overall ‘Global Moguls’ title, but also the best music video category (Devin Carter - iKind Media), the best photography category (Xavier Vahed Photography) and the best Design category (Dusty Richardson Designs).
www.thelaels.com
| Soulkiller Music Video | Credits | Band | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Director | Devin Carter | Keyboard | Jonathan Berg |
| Director of Photography | Devin Carter | Drums | Raul Diaz |
| Camera Operators | Matt Nefdt, Luke Mason, Mark Edwards | Vocals | Jonas Barausse |
| Lighting Effects Operator | Shanelle Jewnarain | Guitar | Joshua Beechey |
| Production Assistants | Shanelle Jewnarain, Luke Mason | Guitar | Gregan Aherin |
| Editor | Devin Carter | Bass | Paul Fugueira |
| Executive Editor | Matt Nefdt | Actress | |
| Make-Up | Shanelle Jewnarain | Girl | Tessa-Mae Hadlow |
