W P Onak in conversation with fashion film maker Ruth Hogben
Ruth Hogben, award winning Film maker. Contributor to ShowStudio.com and a person who truly believes that breaking the barrier in physical and mental state its her way to work. In conversation just two days after finishing filming film Celine an day before going on the set of the new Gareth Pugh Film.
You’ve been assisting Nick Knight for a couple of years how was it and why did u decide that photography wasn’t your media anymore?
I assisted Nick when he shoot on ten which was a huge job for being an assistant, It takes three to four people depending on how hectic the shoot is, and when Nick went to digital, it was a big change for all of us.
Nick is always making films on the shoots just for his records and of course for ShowStudio and I helped him on a project called Editing Fashion which I had to see through a switched with him right down and it came to me that there’s a huge sort of unopened world out there of Fashion Film and from that moment I learned how to edit and had an amazing opportunity to work close to Nick and this kind of thing, I spent all of my spare time editing and shooting on the side of Nicks, talked to him on the shoots about what a film could be, what it needed to be. Just having a creative conversation with Nick, which was an amazing opportunity for me. Nick and I started working together, and I think that together we have sort of opened up doors for each other, I was lucky that he was my mentor and we get to work creatively together , that’s when I started.
How are you finding the concepts of the films now, are you looking to type of fabrics, or designer sketches, or its just your vision nowadays and the clothes just fitting in with our vision? Or maybe clothes are the most important element?
It kind of happens the other way round so the looks and the designs are always the starting point, and that’s my narrative; fashion is my narrative, and cameras and lenses and concept and lighting and music all fits around the story of the woman, or the cut of the jacket, or the flow of the skirt, fits around, and (the film fits around that.) so it’s never the other way round, I don’t ever take for film of a girl and then I think of a designer, it’s always the fashion that inspires me first.
What about the films that you don’t use clothes, like the one for Alexander McQueen show last year, are they still fashion films, are they conceptual films?
I think that film was a punctuation for the show and I think that it’s a very pure vision of his show, it’s about going back to water and it was very very intrigued by his collection. I drop on land back on snakes, and they went underwater then it roughly metal with them and they went to this beautiful sort of electric ion underwater so it was the punctual of the show but if it had clothes in the background, it would have been too much of a struggle so just a bit of a very pure vision of his fashion, I think it is still a fashion film, but in a very sort of pure way, so it’s just about ideas, it’s about direction and about theory of life
What about the fashion films itself? How long have you got to create them, isn’t that long right?
It kind of depends on what the usage is for. When I make a film for a fashion show, I don’t have very long time at all, because of the production of the clothes and how long they take to get made between them being finished and when the show is done, the timing can be a bit tight but I just shot one editorial that is going on Showstudio, so the deadline is my own deadline, hopefully I’ll be able to end that in two weeks and the week away from it and then another two weeks on it, so I intend in the future to be able to spend longer and do my work more and in a more of a calmer way, but it just depends on what is the usage for and how organized the production is and this sort of thing, but the aim is to be able to have enough time on a film, to be able to have enough time away from the film, to reconsider it and focus, I guess
I’ve seen you sleeping wherever you can, while you’re working, because you are so busy, how are you keeping with the stress itself, in the short time scale that you have?
The less time I have, the more cash there is, and the bigger the audience is, I sort of love that pressure and I love that intense feeling of trying to make it right; not quickly, but having to be sure about my decision and being put on a spot is kind of a nice feeling; When I worked to the Alexander McQueen film, I had something about 10 days to do it in which isn’t a real tough order, it’s kind of just enough any less days would have been but I kind of put myself in a place where the world don’t exist: I don’t watch the news, I don’t really speak to anybody on the phone, it’s sort of me and whoever I’m working with and my computer and depending on where I am in the world, sometimes I should be in my hotel room so I can sort of listen to the vibrations of my computer when the rendering is finished. I don’t have to work in that way, I’m sure there is a more sane way to work but I like to push myself physically and mentally to this sort of hole where definitely exists, so I can just have pure focus on it, not to worry about friends, problems, or family or anything.
I have just seen recently when you are doing a new film for Showstudio, I noticed that you use just a regular camera, is it Cannon, I think, so Do you think that this is the way that photographers are going to start using, for example, SLR, as a video camera as well?
Each film is different, each film has a different outcome, so each film we have to approach it with fresh pallet, and then decide what media to apply to it. It depends on the job, it depends on the outcome, so sometimes I need to shoot on the relish with stills, it depends on, atmosphere you want to create, which is, if you want a bit more of a personal then analog is really good for that, or is it the internet, then shooting on a semi-professional SONY camera its fine, because you can put nice lenses on it. Each job depends on what is out coming, and what its look is, so it’s not a state way that I work. And I’m also fresh to film, so with each job I try to challenge myself and try to make it better and try myself to understand the media more, because it’s not something that I’m trained at, so camera movements and although I like a camera to be still of moving, I’m still trying to find my feet with the new media, I like the fact that I’m bringing something completely… I’m trying to learn all the rules and the codes I’m supposed to use. Just so I know when I’m breaking up, and why I’m breaking up and trying to see the mark. When I’m doing a certain cut from a certain angle of a lens, what that’s going to the create to the audience. I’m trying to get my head into this film world, whether I use it or not, it’s just a matter.
Listening to your interviews you gave before the ceremony for Shaded View, and you said that “Fashion films are not to replace any other form of fashion communication”, So how are you treating fashion films ?
I think it’s another form of communication, I don’t think you could take away from fashion prints, because it’s so amazing.
For that show, for Gareth, it’s the clothes suited it, the designs suited it, they were able to communicate dimensions that you wouldn’t have been able to see on the catwalk, I think that sometimes it’s appropriate, but I also think that it’s not a staple that “this is the way it’s going to go”, or “this is the way it should be”, I think it’s nice to sort of give designers another option, another medium, another way to communicate their designs, but I think that was appropriate to that show, but say like the last show, I don’t think his presentation would benefit him for having a film.
We’re living now in a kind of instant world, all these films, and life streaming shows, life streaming photography, behind the scene, and all these things. So, do you think that the fashion itself is getting overwhelmed by that amount of information that people are giving now a day? For example, on the twitter, you always want to have the latest news from fashion designers, or from many people.
I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but I don’t really get involved in it, I don’t go on Youtube, I don’t go on designer websites to look at other people’s works, and I don’t go on Twitter, and I’m not on Facebook, and I’m not involved in that way with the internet, and I don’t really know what’s out there, but I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not. I don’t know if it’s kind of bad, but I don’t like to watch what’s other people doing or I’m not really that technically up to date.
