WHEN Clonakilty video and filmmaker Chistopher Luke needed some inspiration to make a music video for one of Ireland’s most popular musicians, he found his creative spark in some iconic West Cork venues.
Christopher filmed in West Cork between the legendary music venue Connolly’s of Leap and the Clonakilty Distillery for the video of Mick Flannery’s new single, Goodtime Charlie.
‘I had worked with Mick before, and Mick’s manager asked me to make the video so I was delighted,’ says Christopher. ‘I didn’t know exactly where the video was going at that stage.
‘A friend of mine had said follow the idea and the story will reveal itself. So that’s what we did.
‘The video is about a guy called Johnny, and I had an image of him in a boardroom with a deck of tarot cards. I thought of the cask room in the distillery, I had been there on a visitor tour before and it has an amazing long oak
desk. So, I guess I followed the idea and the story revealed itself.’
Eamonn Flannery, Mick’s brother, plays Johnny in the video, while the part of the villain is played by Grace Keane O’Connor. The video also features Valerie J Deady, a writer from Clon, and Christopher’s girlfriend, upholster Laure Mouniamy, who runs LM Upholstering in Clonakilty.
The tight schedule of the band, and the locations, meant everything had to be turned around in an extremely tight schedule.
‘It was all very DIY,’ says Christopher. ‘We filmed at Connollys, and then we had more or less one day. We used a yoga studio to film some of it for about four hours, and then we filmed in the distillery from about 4pm to 9pm.’
The guerrilla nature of the filming, on such a breakneck schedule, made for a quite a rush. ‘You’re running around and stressing but you get into a kind of flow. ‘I can’t surf but I imagine this is what it must be like.’
Christopher has had an interest in video and film from an early age. ‘Many years ago my mother used actually work in the Xtravision. I remember I used to admire the DVD boxes that I wasn’t allowed to rent.
‘When I was 12, we used to watch a lot of Jackass, and Tom Green, and we had a video camera so me and some friends used to make a couple of skits. But it was just a hobby.
‘I left school and I hadn’t a clue what to do. So making videos seemed like a good way to waste some time.’
Christopher studied film formally for a year at St John’s in Cork but drifted out of and was happily mixing bits of creative work with his friend Sean Farr, making music videos for musicians and bands, while working in DeBarras in Clonakilty, where he was able to enjoy another of his passions, music.
But just before covid, he was almost giving up on his creative dreams, having started office work. ‘It was in the middle of covid, and it was a massive point of frustration. I hadn’t done anything creative for a while, when the opportunity came up through Mick’s manager to work with Mick and Susan O’Neill on videos for In The Game. I jumped at the opportunity.’
He filmed three videos for In the Game – Freedom, Baby Talk, and Chain Reaction – and worked on two others.
The flame reignited, Christopher threw himself back into his passion. He worked with Susan O’Neill on The Space Between, a multimedia art and music documentary made with backing from TG4 which included artists like Liam O Maonlaoi and Lisa Hannigan.
There are tentative plans for a second The Space Between, and Christopher is also working on a documentary on an Irish artist with a UK production company. He recently returned from Canada where he was working with the musician Jenn Grant, a hugely popular figure in the music scene across the Atlantic.
And having enjoyed a fruitful creative relationship with Mick, he is hoping to work with him again in the future. ‘I’m very grateful to Mick and his team for having me back to make this video and for allowing me the space to follow through on my strange notion.’
Mick Flannery is currently on tour and plays two dates in DeBarras on October 26 and 27 next. Before that Mick will have a headline show at The National Museum of Ireland on August 26th, with special guests Valerie June and Susan O’Neill.
Stream or download Goodtime Charlie at https://pocp.co/goodtime-charlie
