Female Filmmakers Festival 2018: Sharon Oreck sounds off on the wild world of music videos with Jenn Nkiru and Alma Har’el
The 2018 Female Filmmakers Festival started with a bang through a lively discussion of the ins and outs of music video production. The talk was moderated by Tabitha Denholm, a British director of music videos, documentary shorts and commercials who may be best known today for her work as art director for popular indie band Florence and the Machine. The panelists included Sharon Oreck, famed producer of over 600 music videos; Jenn Nkiru, a British-Nigerian director known for her short film Rebirth is Necessary and her work on The Carters’ Apes**t video; and Alma Har’el, an Israeli-American director who has done videos for indie darlings Beirut and art-rock band Sigur Rós.
Because Oreck, Nkiru and Har’el’s work comes from diverse backgrounds and time periods, what emerged was a free-wheeling discussion of creativity and the state of the art. “I got my first video in 1984 by lying profusely about my experience,” Oreck said. “I had a baby when I was 16, went to city college, took film classes and started working immediately. And then someone told me about this thing called a music video and I was like, ‘I could do that.’”