THE “3” ALBUM PROJECT
This 5 year project has culminated in so many successful and meaningful initiatives. It all started with singer/songwriter Ngaiire wanting to create a concept album based on shining a light on her Papua New Guinean heritage. I travelled to PNG with her and a small creative team and acted as video and photo documenter. As the project has gone on, I have created a documentary, video clip, release covers, joint ventures, merchandise and much more.
ARIA 2021 Nominated Album art
Several styled shoots were carried out on a shoestring team in very remote locations of Papua New Guinea. One of these involved climbing a mountain for 2 days to Ngaiire’s mother’s birth village. Photos by Daniel Segal & Emele Ugavule.
Album Pre-Release Campaign
The pre-release campaign was heavy handed given how much noise there was in the media, due to COVID-19 restrictions and other major world events. The cut through which such original graphics was well received as the album charted at number 2 in Australia (independent charts) in the first week.
So along with standard hype ads like the ones shown above, I devised a “Pre-Release Party” campaign partnering with a local alcohol supplier to send lockdowned fans a bit of a fun, whilst engaging with Ngaiire’s loyal audience.
The promotion allowed everyone who “Pre Saved” the album on a streaming service the opportunity to listen to the album along with Ngaiire the night before it was released to the world. This was facilitated by a zoom call that hosted close to 100 fans on the night. 15 lucky fans were selected to receive a cocktail pack that was sponsored by Distillery Botanica, a local gin maker. The pack included cocktail ingredients, a few small gift, a personal welcome from Ngaiire and a cocktail recipe card.
“HIM” Lyric Video
The last single to be released before the album dropped was for a song called “Him”. I co-produced this with Ngaiire, shooting and editing it all whilst she created the vision and the costumes for this powerful song. Video was colour graded by the very generous and talented Elliot Goodman at Goodman Brothers.
Once the album was out, it was time to begin using some of the hero images we had taken on the trip that had yet to be seen by the public. With the astonishing uniqueness of the photos and the very strong themes of the album, these ads performed really well with the album charting extremely well and vinyls being sold out within the first week.
Given that I have set up a print-to-order system for Ngaiire’s merchandise, we are able to cycle through lots of designs in order to keep her wide audience intrigued and to keep up with her various artistic stages of development. Below is a retro-film style tee with stills taken from the “Him” video shoot, a coffee pouch with pattern based on the album artwork and sweater which is a re-issue of an early merch run that showcased various PNG tribal ceremonial costumes.
“CLOSER” VIDEO CLIP
For this video clip and single campaign, I took on the role of Producer as Ngaiire had decided to be Creative Director - and what an incredible world she dreamt up for this. This was a challenging role as there were so many moving parts and people but I think I nailed it and the response was fantastic. The video clip was filmed in a national park with a cast and crew of 45 and put together by some of Australia’s top film and TV professionals.
See Ngaiire’s costume designs and references for herself and the rest of the cast. The incredibly gifted and patient Melanie Gillbank (maker) and Chloe-Jean Laws (Hair & MUA) recreated Ngaiire’s dreamy culty draggy vision to perfection.
This illustration became the single cover design along with a carefully selected font (Mogena) which helped the cult movie aesthetic be realised.
The visuals were so strong for this single, we needed similarly punchy merch to go with it. Both yellow and blue shirts held the single artwork with incredible impact while the hoodie was a little more withheld and minimal.
I created a coffee collaboration with KWILA COFFEE in Sydney who are a PNG owned. Together we created a short run of 100% ethically sourced coffee beans from PNG. Customised further of coarse with a Closer branded sticker for the bags.
TRIBAL ILLUSTRATIONS MERCHANDISE
As part of Ngaiire’s creative process, she began creating her own illustrations based on Papua New Guinean tribes-people’s armoury and ceremonial dressings. This insprired me to create a line of merchandise celebrating these incredible pieces of art and their story. The response from her audience and fashion buyers was overwhelming with a huge spike in sales transpiring after their release.
WOMAD TOUR COVERAGE
A short wrap-up video covering the on and off stage magic of Ngaiire and her band on tour for WOMAD Adelaide Festival in March 2019.
I accompanied the band on the 3 day whirlwind tour trying to capture the details and addictive grit of being on tour; the set up, the make-up, the waiting, the travel and of coarse - the magic!
SHIVER : DOCUMENTARY
An art-documentary shot by me over 3 weeks trekking through PNG whilst Ngaiire gathered content and concepts for her 3rd album’s development. I edited co-directed this with Ngaiire with sound design by the album’s producer, Jack Grace and was colour-graded by Andriy Zvir.
The completed work was released to accompany her single “Shiver” a song that touches on death and the mourning of her grandmother. The choice to release with a documentary rather than a video clip seemed fitting and more impactful as sometimes story-telling is more important than “hollywooding”.
“BOOM” Lyric Video & Cover Art
A lyric video was shot on short trip back to PNG in early 2020, where Ngaiire experimented with a local flower to create makeup and costume. The editing process became very collaborative with Ngaiire remixing the lyric video I had edited using a series of mobile glitching apps to create a rather unique music/lyric video.
Using Kyva to play the male love interest, we then created a heated and sensual scene for the single cover and spotify canvas. This aestheic was huge knod to the mid-90’s R&B with soft-lighting, chunky jewellery, bold hair styles and polyester textures. We also included references to the Ngaiire’s islander heritage and themes of the upcoming album by including tropical fruits and bright colourful table props. Video was shot and edited by me. Photography by Vassi Lena, MUA by Summer Pagaspas.
“HOUSE ON A ROCK” Video Clip
Created in Tel Aviv to accompany the 3rd single off her album. This was shot on an iPhone and assisted by a local hair & MUA and model, and colour graded by Andriy Zvir. Since we had only one day to shoot, we opted for a heavy aesthethic with a light story-line ie. a couple in a toxic relationship. The film-noir / flat european style combined with the rustic/urban setting of Tel Aviv helped to tell the story of the gritty relationship and ofcoarse the beautiful subjects!
ONCE : VIDEO CLIP
WROTE // DIRECTED // EDITED
Music video for NGAIIRE.
Filmed by Patrick Sidoti & Produced by Ben Pierpoint & Emele Ugavule.
Ngaiire was interested in imparting some of her life's key events in a music video that celebrated loving and trusting life by taking risks and doing things for love. We worked closely together to develop a concept for her debut single ‘Once’ which required a music video, cover and tour art, merchandise, and various digital graphic pieces.
The production involved a huge cast of volunteers and a small team of paid professionals which I (with the assistance of producer Ben Pierport) directed and worked with to pull together a very well received music video.
