Leah Burton on Collaborating with Joan As Police Woman and the Editor-Artist Relationship
Leah Burton, editor at Final Cut, is no stranger to enthusiastic collaboration – or enthusiasm and collaboration. She’s amassed an impressive collection of work for clients such as British Airways, Dr. Martens, Concern Worldwide, Formula 1, and On Running. Last year, she even cut a number of social films for John Lewis’ Christmas campaign, working alongside Object & Animal director Hugh Mulhern.
She has most recently partnered with singer/songwriter Joan Wasser, better known as Joan As Police Woman and named after Joan of Arc. Having grown up in New York City in its creative prime, Joan has become, as The Economist puts it, “One of the 21st century’s best musicians.”
Recently, these two creative forces collided, with Leah cutting Joan’s music videos for the tracks ‘Remember the Voice’ and ‘Full-Time Heist’. Joan’s eclectic persona and the emotional charge of her music shine through in both, and the themes of duality, identity, and transformation are bravely flipped inside out.
Layered symbolic imagery, a moody, introspective tone, the push-pull of human connection – these are all qualities that can be found when either video and form part of the creative framework Leah worked through when cutting them. But does a shared creative vision between editor, artist and director guarantee a well-oiled and working machine that will deliver creatively-cohesive ideas? And what role does the music play in a video’s execution? And how much does the artist’s personality need to be considered? LBB’s Zoe Antonov chats with Leah to find out what it was like working with Joan and why some edits are just better than others.
LBB> Leah, how did you get to know Joan As Police Woman (JAPW) and how did this relationship start? What creative overlap did you have?
Leah> The relationship was actually through a connection at Partizan. Danny Herman, the EP sent the treatment through and thought [JAPW’s director] Sekou Abineri and I would be a good fit creatively. Danny and I go back to our days in the trenches as runners and he’s now absolutely killing it as an EP. Once we were all happy with where the edit was, we sent it through to Joan and her team to review to see if they had any additional thoughts on where they’d like to see us take it.
LBB> You've now cut two music videos for JAPW, was the director on both Sekou? And similarly, what was your relationship to these promos?
Leah> Yes, the director on both was the incredible Sekou Abineri. This was the first time we’ve ever worked together. It’s always lovely to get to know a director for the first time and figure out how you’re going to gel together. He created a world that perfectly complimented the thoughtful melancholy of the songs, it was such a joy to bounce ideas off him in the edit suite and just generally have fun. He’s very trusting and gave me the freedom to play around and experiment. He was an absolute pleasure to collaborate with.
LBB> Why do you believe you were right for this project and how did cutting one of the music videos lead to you taking charge of the second edit as well? How important is momentum in a creative relationship?
Leah> I was locked into both from the get-go so, thankfully the first one went well and they were still happy with their initial decision to have me do both!
It’s so important to continue with momentum. Once you’ve established a good working relationship, I feel like every project you do together keeps building on that and you bounce off each other in ways that continues to produce exciting and surprising results.
LBB> How closely do you work with music video directors and what insights do you have for other editors entering into music videos? How do you manage to fit within the director's vision, while following your personal style and creative expression?
Leah> It really depends on who you’re working with and what their personal style is too. Sometimes I’ll have directors who never come into the edit and others who are present every step of the way. The best advice I would give would be to always be able to adapt. Every edit is going to be different and every director or creative you work with will have a different way of doing things. Hopefully you’re lucky enough to be aligned with the director’s vision but you’ll always have different opinions at points and I think it’s important to trust your own thoughts and vocalise them in the room, but also you need to show that you’re willing to explore alternate routes and find the best outcome for the project. At the end of the day it’s a collaborative process and exploring options you wouldn’t always consider is part of the beauty.
LBB> How important is music to you? How do you work with it to arrive at the final project?
Leah> Incredibly important! The music video is an extension of the song, it’s there to compliment it and add something meaningful to the original. Every decision you make along the way should be serving the song and helping to explore its themes.
LBB> When cutting the two MVs, were there particular techniques that you employed in order to create a cohesive world? How important was this to the artist?
Leah> With the videos for Joan, we had the same crew for both and we shot them in separate but connected locations on the Sussex coast which helped to marry them to the same world. FTH was right on the beach and in RTV you can still see the lovely seaside setting through the function room windows.
As well as this, throughout both videos we keep Joan’s performance understated and she acts as a spectre watching the characters’ journeys as they embody their layered emotions through movement. She plays the same role in both so we needed to have a similar feel.
Sekou and Joan had spoken prior to the shoot about how they wanted the project to live in the same world and to create two interconnected videos. The release of the videos coincided with her album so it was great to create a symbiotic relationship between all three while being able to have everything stand alone creatively.
LBB> What were the biggest challenges on these two projects and how did you overcome them?
Leah> The biggest challenge was probably in RTV. e had so much great footage of Ali the dancer, it was hard to get everything that we wanted into the video. A great problem to have but it led to some tough decisions in the edit room.
LBB> And what was the most fun part?
Leah> I love working with narrative and choreography so, for me ‘Full-Time Heist’ was the perfect combination of both. I loved cutting the more linear narrative element with the couple arguing at the beginning and telling that story in a traditional filmic way with the juxtaposition of the more experimental dance in the second half. It was so freeing to cut the movement to express the duality of emotions they were going through.
