After a plethora of Elvis Presley impersonators flooded lounge bars across the USA, and Australia birthed the famous ABBA tribute band Björn Again, the popularity of tribute acts has grown exponentially. There are now entire weekend festivals made up exclusively of tribute artists, and some of those same tribute artists are garnering huge followings of people who are fans as much of them as they are of those who inspired them. Colin Peppard’s music video Discipline for Irish band Makeshift Art Bar, featuring a Harry Styles tribute performer based in Benidorm, looks at the blurry lines between the art, the artist, and the tribute artist. Peppard talks to Directors Notes about celebrity culture, working with Irish entertainer Sean McNicholas on this window into the life and career he has built in Spain, the skeleton crew and their guerrilla filmmaking, which captured the story, and how the 5-minute music video was crafted as a result of more than 7 hours of footage.
Congratulations on this super music video for Makeshift Art Bar’s Discipline. The first questions have to be where did the inspiration for the video come from, and how did you find Sean McNicholas?
Thanks so much for including the music video, I’m such a huge fan of Directors Notes.
The idea came to me late last year as I was doomscrolling and stumbled across a TikTok of Sean performing as Harry in a way that felt deeply human, yet extremely uncanny. I contacted Sean on Instagram and asked if he wanted to have a chat, and that I was intrigued by him, his career choice, and the world of Benidorm. We had a couple of chats on the phone, where he told me about the sacrifice and craft of portraying someone else, the emotional weight of losing his Dad and how the Harry Styles Show became his way of coping with the grief. Sean stood out to me not just because of his talent, but because of his self-awareness – he adores what he does and really finds comfort in performing as someone else, even going as far as to say it helps him ‘escape being me’.
Since then, I started to develop a feature documentary about tribute artists in Benidorm, with Sean as the entry point into the world. When Makeshift Art Bar reached out about doing a music video for their next single, the contrast between the heavy thump of Discipline and the colourful, absurd visuals of Benidorm and a Harry Styles tribute artist was something I couldn’t get out of my head.
With music videos, or any piece I work on, I need to be fully invested, and have to throw myself in headfirst to feel fulfilled – I really can’t do anything by half, it’s not in me. In the past year, I also have moved into the documentary world and doing a documentary-style music video really made me excited. So we pitched the idea, flew to Benidorm, shot 7 hours of footage, edited it, graded it within the space of a month, all with only a £2k budget.
When Makeshift Art Bar reached out about doing a music video for their next single, the contrast between the heavy thump of Discipline and the colourful, absurd visuals of Benidorm and a Harry Styles tribute artist, was something I couldn’t get out of my head.
The video is a very interesting portrait of one artist portraying another, with a peek behind the curtain of his personal life. What was it that attracted you to this theme?
A lot of my work explores identity, what happens when someone’s obsession can define them and the control, or lack of control, they demand over what makes them who they are. Sean’s case particularly stood out to me, as he is not in control of his career or success. Sean obsessively keeps track of Harry’s socials, his fresh haircuts, his new dance routines, his outfits – but maybe there’s something comforting about completely letting go of your autonomy? I know so many people who hate having to decide what haircut they’re going to get or outfit they’re going to wear.
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Also, I find celebrity culture wild – a lot of fans feel really entitled to know exactly what a celebrity is doing at all times, and don’t respect boundaries at all. Sean has now gotten his own fans through being a Harry Styles tribute, and sells out gigs all across the world, which makes me think, in 10 years, will there be a Sean McNicholas tribute artist? And then a ‘whoever’ tribute artist who is tributing the Sean McNicholas tribute artist? Are tribute artists the next artists, and when does the endless reproduction of ‘tributes to a tribute to a tribute’ of someone’s identity stop? This is something I’ve been exploring with the feature documentary in an absurd way, which mirrors the recent Backrooms/AI conversation that asks the question: when does something lose its original emotional reality, and is no longer convincing on the surface?
How familiar were you with the work of Harry Styles before and after the making of this video? Do you know if he’s seen it?
I loved One Direction, and love what Harry Styles is doing visually and musically. He’s great! Sean also tells me Harry’s mum follows him on Instagram. I doubt he saw it, but maybe? Although I really doubt it.
Sean has now gotten his own fans through being a Harry Styles tribute, and sells out gigs all across the world, which makes me think in 10 years, will there be a Sean McNicholas tribute artist?
Sean McNicholas is impressive throughout, as committed to his craft as he is the life he’s built in Benidorm. How did the collaboration work between you, both before and during the shoot?
As we didn’t have much of a budget, Sean ended up wearing many hats during filming. He was the subject, driver, costume person, production designer, and he didn’t complain once. Something about being reliant on the subject to bring you around means we were stuck with him (in the best way), which meant we would go with him to grab a coffee, while he showered, doing his vocal lessons, and he was so generous with his time and life – he’s just the best!
The cinematography makes Benidorm look the coolest it’s ever been seen. How did you work with your director of photography to establish the shooting style and the different looks achieved throughout the video?
Benidorm is a very interesting place. The divide between the beautifully picturesque old town and the neon-lit, Brits-abroad-filled new town is stark. You really notice it and they don’t mix very well. At one point, we were sitting outside a beautiful little tapas restaurant in the quiet streets of the old town, and out of nowhere, a drunk man, wearing nothing but an England flag, ran past us singing a slurred patriotic ballad. So there’s definitely not a wall between them!
I also tried my best not to show Benidorm in a mocking or stereotypical way. I wanted to respect the reality of Sean and the people that holiday there as much as I could – which was difficult at times.
Oisín McFarland Smith and I had long chats about the visual style, including the slow, controlled zooms and the colour palette of the video. I am a big fan of slow-brooding zooms, and felt that they could really let the audience sit with Sean’s internal tension between authenticity and performance, and it helped to cut through the pace of the song, which was beautifully shaped by Annie Walsh, our wonderful editor. We then gave our incredible colourist Jake White, who actually graded Obsession (shout out Curry Barker), a deck filled with Martin Parr images – which he beautifully translated into the saturated, colourful images you see in the video.
I also tried my best not to show Benidorm in a mocking or stereotypical way. I wanted to respect the reality of Sean and the people who holiday there as much as I could – which was difficult at times.
With a small production team flying over to Spain for the 3-day shoot, how did you go about filming in public locations, and did you have to be very guerrilla at times?
The whole shoot was extremely guerrilla; Oisín carried the camera (Sony FX6) and a huge bag full of vintage lenses varying in sizes. Myself and Claudia McCormick, my producer, took turns carrying the tripod, and a heavy bag filled with water, our monitor and release forms. We didn’t want to sacrifice the ‘slow-zoom’ style, and it gives such a different feel on a tripod.
There’s something to be said about just arriving at locations and asking for permission then and there, having a quick pitch as to what the project is and how long exactly we would need it for. Emailing or ringing beforehand didn’t work very well, as they’d have time to think about it, but just walking into a bar and asking if we could film there worked best for us. Also, everyone there is so willing to help out, which was nice considering a lot of locations at home would quote you a stupidly high price that a TVC paid them once. It also helped that we had a tiny crew, which suits my instinctual style of working.
You ended up with more than 7 hours of footage. What was the post-production process like in identifying all the moments you would use in the 5-minute video?
We only had a week and a half for post-production, so you can imagine Annie’s shock seeing 7 hours of footage come through! I exported the proxies and transferred them to her every evening, so she was able to start assembling mid-shoot, which was helpful, I think. We had a rough plan of the structure going into it, but that all goes out the window when you start shooting. So Annie did a brilliant job of making sense of my instinctual shooting style – every first draft I’ve ever gotten back from her is genuinely spot on, I trust her so much.
There’s something to be said about just arriving at locations and asking for permission then and there, having a quick pitch as to what the project is and how long exactly we would need it for.
I am also very inspired by the work of Aube Perrie, and love how he uses diegetic sounds and drops out the music to make the world feel more tactile – which felt right for this style of video.
What were the responses of both Makeshift Art Bar and Sean McNicholas to the final piece?
They all loved the end product, thank god! I think there was a bit of skepticism from the band at the start as to whether it would work with the song or not, so I had to put a strong deck together to get my ideas across. In the end they put a lot of trust in me, and I’ll be forever grateful for that.
Sean absolutely loved it, he was so eager to see the final cut once we wrapped and wanted to see every shot straight after we cut. He just is full of energy and passion, and that’s so contagious and necessary on a long shoot like that.
What’s next for you?
I have two short documentaries in the pipeline. One is a personal film about an old friend of mine whose politics have drastically changed, called My Friend, Kev, which is premiering at the Galway Film Fleadh. The other is a portrait of a retired bodybuilder called Lock Gannon, which was selected for the OkayStudio Final Frame Fund. Apart from that, I’m trying to develop the ‘Benidorm-tribute-artist’ feature film called Close Enough, which has recently lost its ‘pitch-ginity’ at Docs Ireland.
And finally, what is a short film or music video by another filmmaker you would recommend to the Directors Notes community and why?
A short I saw recently and absolutely loved is Neighbour Abdi by Douwe Dijkstra, which uses clever green screen animatic recreations to re-enact moments from a Somalian man’s past that led him to a robbery. It really opened my eyes to the rules a documentary can break. You can watch it on Vimeo Staff Picks.
I’m travelling down to Galway for the Fleadh and the Irish short film world is popping right now – so I’m very excited to catch a lot more down there, especially in the short doc category like Niamh Barry’s Something in the Air and Sam Howard’s Relic.
Irish music videos I’ve loved recently are A Dawning by Niall O’Brien for Talos, and Do It by Sophie O’Donovan for Really Good Time. My favourite music video of all time is Time to Dance by The Shoes, directed by Daniel Wolfe and shot by the one and only Robbie Ryan.
