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Interview: Southern Souls Videographer, Mitch Fillion

Southern Souls is a self-funded video music series aiming to capture unique performances by Canadian musicians in interesting locations.

Mitch Fillion is the videographer behind the project with a goal of "seeing musicians play in the places that they live and breathe".

In the spirt of Mitch's minimalist style, I will let my interview with him about his production speak for itself.


Q: What is the process behind choosing a location to film?

A: Most of the locations are found the day I meet up with the artist, I'm not a fan of planning too far ahead, it's really anything that strikes me.

Q: How rehearsed are the videos prior to filming?

A: Nothing is rehearsed, and we generally only ever do one take.  If the band wants a second take and even likes their performance better the 2nd time I still mostly go with the first one since most of the magic happens the first time around, and it's not supposed to be perfect, but real, and charming.

Q: What kind of collaboration do you have with the artists?

A: We find a location, the mics go on, and I press record, our collaboration is what happens after that.  I like when the artist surprises me during the take, improvising is what it's all about on both our ends.

Q: What is the significance of capturing and "seeing musicians play in the places that they live and breathe"?

A: I think it offers a truer representation of them, it's very organic and raw, they can't hide behind reverb or distortion and they are generally more relaxed.

Q: What are the challenges behind shooting?


A: Being that it is only one take and one shot it's very hard to be happy with everything that I shoot, you really have to always be on your toes.  We shoot in a lot of public places and I've got to be very quick at setting up the mics sometimes.  With a band of about 6-7 members, and about 8 mics to set up, I can usually do that in under 5 minutes, which used to be a challenge but now it's just second nature.

Q: What is the methodology behind the minimalist techniques you employ?

A: I try to film under the Dogme 95 manifesto.  Or at least a new-age version of it.  Handheld camera, filmed on location with no props with no special lighting.  When I was having coffee with Chryde from La Blogotheque in Montreal a couple months ago he stressed that all their directors follow the Dogme rules as well.  Vincent Moon created this whole style of documenting bands and everyone that came after is really just following in his footsteps.  My goal was to work with La Blogotheque some day and contribute to their site, and I knew I could only do this by shooting in a similar style, and it eventually paid off.


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