WORDS RACHEL EDWARDS - PHOTOGRAPHERS KAROLINA WIELOCHA & DIOGO - CREATIVE DIRECTOR'S + SHOW DESIGN UDC
In the world of music and creative direction, there's nothing more exciting than witnessing your vision come to life on stage. The collaboration between creative directors Harrison Smith and George Thomson, founders of The Unlimited Dreams Company (UDC), and Loyle Carner is a perfect example of this. The creative directors, who have worked with the likes of Alicia Keys and Chase and Status, have worked with Carner since his first 'Hugo' show in Dublin, leading on to Glastonbury and Wembley and culminating in his latest performance in Victoria Park for All Points East - a homecoming that seamlessly blended music, emotion, and storytelling.
F Word sat down with UDC to talk about the lead up to the performance, the need for slower, more meaningful creative direction and what the pair have coming up next!
Rachel Edwards: Loyle was amazing! How did it feel seeing everything come together on the night?
Harrison Smith: Amazing really. It’s a combination of eighteen months of working with Ben [Loyle] and the band. Me and George started working with him on his first ‘Hugo’ tour, starting out in Vicar Street in Dublin and then to Wembley and the rest - it’s been a momentous journey. This sort of homecoming in Victoria Park felt like a link up of elements of all of the shows and it landed in a space that fits perfectly. The audience were magical, the weather was perfect, the features were magical! Everyone was so into it, it went so smoothly and it’s so enjoyable to see a crowd with their hands in the air singing along and thoroughly engaged in it.
R.E: It did feel magical! And the fireworks too - there was something in the air. What was the process like working with Loyle? What did you envision going into it and how did that change going along?
George Thomson: He’s super collaborative. What we do is we translate people’s stories onto the stage rather than projecting a concept onto people and being like ‘you should do this’. It’s about finding out what their story is and what their message is. With someone like Ben (Loyle), he’s so collaborative and he's such a well known storyteller in his generation, so getting to work with him was so amazing. He’s different to other people we work with due to how open to collaboration he is. He’s very even with everything - he likes staying in the same hotel as everyone and he likes travelling with everyone. He has his kids with him in rehearsals and it feels like you’re part of a very open creative experience, rather than this top down hierarchical artist/manager label. Anyone can approach him with ideas and work through them with him, so when we started working with him it felt very aligned, and that synergy really worked.
R.E: It’s amazing. It reminds me of what I’ve been hearing about ASAP Rocky and how grounded he is, and people are drawn to these people because there’s something very real about them. They’re massive stars but there’s something relatable as well.
G.T: He’s a genuine person. He’s very insightful and he’s this unbelievably talented musician and writer.
H.S: He’s also a video director and makes films and is a very visual person, so this contrasts with other people - they’re very focused on the music whereas he sees that but he also totally understands colour and light and can communicate what he’s trying to achieve and how to illustrate sentiment on stage.
R.E: How did you go about translating his recent album to stage?
G.T: I suppose because he has such a clear narrative direction in everything he does, the album already had that clear narrative art going from the first track showing hate and resentment towards his father, to the driving lessons, to then arriving at a place of forgiveness and acceptance. We already had that emotional arc that you’d have in film. Our background is in film so we already talk in that language. It’s above the actual music and the visual choices within it that the audience don’t necessarily need to know or engage with but that you can feel and sense. We were trying to find a way that was broad enough for people to relate to and have an emotional response to without being specific. We quickly came up with this idea of light and the movement of the sky and the sun translating to emotion, so going from red intensity of sunset to contemplation of night to brighter tones showing a new day. With that reference point you can kind of feel it. We wanted to make it about the light and the mood and the emotion, and in the same way as film direction light is the biggest component - how you shadow and contrast and direct the viewer to what you’re saying and to moods and emotions. It’s the same.
R.E: It’s true, it’s a lot about human psychology. You have to understand why people feel a certain way from a setting, even when they aren’t aware of it. People have a different conversation when the big light is on for example. So how did the company come together? Unlimited Dreams Company is such an amazing name!
H.S: Well me and George have mixed backgrounds. Neither of us knew where we wanted to end up or what we’d end up doing, we ended up doing a plethora of different things. I was a VJ for record labels doing dance acts, then I was doing set building for my editorial stuff, then I moved into doing projection mapping, and then I was making content for larger pop acts. Around then I met George across his journey. He was an architect, VFX supervisor, director, music video director, and he’s still writing a feature film now! So we met each other and we noticed this approach in the industry where everyone was making things for makings sake. People were creating content or doing shows and projecting ‘it could be this or it could be that’ but not sitting above and asking about the story or the concept behind it. Our views aligned and we started the company three years ago in 2021 with a mission to try to speak to artists and be direct with them, then translate that for life. We know space, we know video, but we know story the best and we know how to translate that the best. That led to artists recognising this and seeing our work which then snowballed into headlining these different shows. We’re proud of where we are.
R.E: It’s crazy that it’s only been three years! And you’ve worked with huge acts like Alicia Keys and Chase and Status. Have you ever had any diva requests? Has anyone asked for a pink elephant appearing in a puff of smoke on the night?
G.T: (Laughs) You know what, as Harrison was saying before when we were working freelance and working with really big acts it was a bit like that. There were a lot of random choices so lighting would just go off and it’d be like ‘okay, hire these lights because they’re available and they’re cheap’ or ‘oh maybe flowers would be cool’, and because there was no direction the artist would just be like ‘oh maybe we can have a pink elephant’. We now start with the artist - we recently started to work with Jorja Smith and it was five or six conversations of ‘what do you want to do?’ and really trying to understand her vision before we started saying ‘pink elephants’ or anything. We’d shape that into a tight shape, then we give that story to all of the teams like the choreographers and the lighting team. They then all move to that one beat that fits with the music. The music is the most important thing, everything we do is secondary and should support that. It shouldn't just be random choices so it's finding out what that conceptual starting point that made the artist make this music was, then using that same starting point to make an amazing show.
R.E: It makes sense! Is there anyone you’d particularly like to work with? Is there anyone who you think ‘wow I could do something good with them’?
H.S: It would be cool to do something like Metallica or something, big rock n roll metal! ACDC would be something I’d love to do. But FKA Twigs would also be perfect, or Charli XCX or Arca.
R.E: What are you most excited about that's coming up?
G.T: It’s really fun having a studio focused on live shows and music, but we’re also excited about moving into other areas of the industry and other holistic creative direction for artists. We’re going to do a lot more merch stuff and other areas of design that we can apply our approach to. It’s not specific, it's the same approach we had when we were making music videos and we can apply that to different areas. We'd love to do something theatrical with narrative at its heart. The punch drunk thing - immersive theatre. I’m sure Harry has different things too.
H.S: I want everything! We love what we do, whether we do art work or a live show or it could be a Supreme shop fit out in Amsterdam. I’d love something like Absolut Vodka doing a random collaboration with Palace - a big party with mad Willy Wonka type things! So much scope and fun with brands and activations but actually people telling a good story as well.
G.T: I’d love to do a Superbowl!
R.E: I think it’s great what you do because right now there’s a lot of fast, throw away content rather than building something timeless with meaning. What’s your favourite "F" Word?
H.S: Instinctively it has to be Fuck
G.T: I was going to go for Fantasy!
R.E: (Laughs) Fuck Fantasy?
