Steve, Vince, Flo, and the rest of the gang

This trust seemed to come pretty naturally to Steve, as someone who works with Vince often. ‘Everyone knew each other, but I feel [like] the only person in the room who knew what he wanted was Vince. And I don’t think he really knew what he wanted a lot of time until the final moments before filming began.

St. Jude was planned and filmed between noon and 6:30 p.m., which is madness. There was a constant fizzing of creativity on each set and each job, which was a good thing. Shots and scenes were either choreographed and staged to perfection or made up on the spot. I never realized Vince intended to make this into one long film. I instinctively made sure each video had a similar look and style by utilizing similar lighting techniques and film stocks and lenses.’

And of course, as Steve explains, that trust works both ways: ‘Often he lets me just film things. Often he asks for something very specific. I’ve known Vince since the Calvin Harris Bounce days, so I know exactly the look and style he wants. I know he likes to shoot hard and fast, and shoot 360 … and I’m good at getting him this and making sure it looks good. It’s often a very, very difficult way of shooting, but if I can come out of this creative cave in one piece, then I can hopefully do most anything!’

An immensely talented, trusting, and collaborative crew doesn’t just rally around a project of this magnitude by accident. It grows out of an artist/director relationship with the same trust and creative energy. Vince and Florence are friends and have worked together for years, and from that came an extremely personal project. ‘It was influenced by Florence’s descriptions of how she was feeling when she wrote the music,’ Vince shares. ‘We always fictionalized the truth a bit so that it would all fit into the themes and visuals we created.

Everything, down to the locations and wardrobe, always came from a very personal reference to Florence and my ideas or feelings about a song or story we shared. We always started with real stories or feelings Florence had about a song or scene, and then turned that into our visual language — whether it be choreography, lighting, dialogue, etc.’

Doug Klinger