Steve Annis

P!nk "What About Us" (Georgia Hudson, dir.)

Alecia Moore aka P!nk returns with plenty of fight and beauty in what you wish was a post-apocalyptic fantasy, but is surely meant to depict the here and now.

Georgia Hudson, director: Hearing the track, it was huge, and what an incredible opportunity to work with such relevance to our climate right NOW.  Dance is a real passion to me, it seemed the right way to talk about these ideas, both the societal and inter personal versions of the tracks narrative. 

Dance is so inclusive, it transcends semantics and is driven by emotion and response, which just seemed a perfect sensitive way to treat it; when we cast it I was explicit that we had no roles to fill, we were seeking the people that this video was going to be about. Choreographed by Nick and AJ of the Goldenboyz, the way they translated the conceptual messages into the dancers and Alicias bodies was extraoridnary.

The diner scene is so satisfying, staggering the raw, frustrated choreography both inside and outside of our location gave a really great image and consolidated the idea of a community uprising from everywhere, that you are outside looking in at first, until you are right inside and a part of it too.

Throughout all our dancing, it is meant to be driven from the stomach, guttural, raw and screaming, like a real expression and ante up.  WHAT a crew of dancers we had, each one of them irreplaceable to this video.  I have so many favourite moments in this video.

This was a mad production — Steve Annis pulls no punches with his lighting list, using a helicopter as a top light was a totally unique experience that also added to the atmosphere incredibly as we created these scenes, Steve absolutely made sure that we all understood NOTHING would be as good as an actual helicopter.  True.  Our helicopter ops were pretty gassed to be operating using 40-80mm zoom lenses on a shot over helicopter —  an industry first apparently (geek note). Seeing the helicopter chase P!nks car only 3 feet from the ground was a moment for sure.

Working with Alecia was such an immense privilege, she really knows how to hold the creatives around her — She is so inspiring and so heartfelt and authentic."