Alex Southam

Alex Southam

Alex Southam started off training as a lawyer but changed career path and went into working in film. Started his career in film on his own, he is entirely self taught, and is often very creative with his music videos taking on a variety of different styles all of which he is using to teach himself about film and make himself a well rounded film maker. When starting off Alex took on the role of doing everything for his videos he would do the camera work, the lighting and the editing all by himself, now though he had a director of photography that works with him. He has worked in the past with Agile Films and now works freelance with OB Management. Alex prefers music videos as a medium to be creative as he believes it allows for more creative freedom as opposed to commercials, this is because Alex takes his work very seriously and does not want to do anything to compromise it therefore because of this Alex focuses more on music videos but he also chooses to present his work on Vimeo as opposed to YouTube because he believes it is a more professional platform than YouTube. 

Alt J "Tesselate" 

Alt J's music video for "Tesselate" was Alex's first big music video shot in only one day for a budget of £10,000, even on this tight schedule and small budget Alex Southam still managed to make the video a hit. The real standout feature of this music video is Alex's work on the special effects using After effects, which are really effective and gained Alex attention which allowed him to go on and make more music videos. 

Chase & Status "Lost & Not Found" 

Chase & Status' music video for "Lost & Not Found" is one of Alex's biggest productions to date with a budget of £50,000. After being influenced by Massive Attack's music video for "Unfinished Sympathy". 

Massive Attack "Unfinished Sympathy"

  

Which follows a woman around a town and you get glimpses of the town and life going on around her. Alex took this idea and decided to expand on it using a steadicam and filming at a 36 frames per second which was later slowed down in post production. He followed the events of daily life in a town and all of them seemingly connected as they are all happening so close to one and other. What really makes this music video stand out however is how it appears to have all been taken in one shot as the camera goes through the different locations, when it is in fact three pieces of footage seamlessly cut together to create the effect of one continuous shot.