Director Price James on Beth Ditto art projects and Rachel Zoe Lookbooks for James Week

Welcome to James Week, Pedestrian’s celebration of the best, brightest and most chilled out James’ from across Australia. Why James and not Karl or Barry? Well our good friends at Jameson are looking for Australia’s most easy-going James. If you think that’s you – or if you know one – you should head over to the James Week page and get involved. The James they crown as Australia’s most easy-going will be flown to the Jameson distillery in Ireland and crowned as the Australian Jameson rep.

James Price aka Price James is a New York based London bred director who has created video clips for the likes of Florence & the Machine, The Gossip, Friendly Fires, Peaches and Simian Mobile Disco. From handcrafting pop up books to standing on top of ladders and dropping salt in front of projections of Operator Please his on set manner is self assessed as that of a “hyperactive child”. The auteur first caught our eye with his pop-up puppetry masterpiece for the now defunct Shit Disco. Get acquainted and read our Jameon James Week interview after the drop.

What have you’ve been up to today? Working on a commercial so flat out tired. I had some great Pakistani food with some friends. Perfect end to a day! Although now I have severe raw onion breath.

You made the move from London to New York earlier this year, why the move? Pork buns. Seriously.

You shot Rachel Zoe’s lookbook for Bloomingdales in NYC can you talk us through that? Was Rachel actually on set, were they filming for her reality show while you were shooting? No I think I would have choked if there was a full on reality crew. We were shooting briefly with Rachel in LA it was mainly her clothing line that we shot in New York. We had Tim and Eric’s director of photography who is a super funny bastard.

Can you talk us through some of the other projects you’ve been working on? I love working with Beth Ditto, that’s a collaboration that I love. We still have an art project that we will finish some day. It’s her interacting with the audience in Europe, America and Sydney! I want to keep it going for years, but I think maybe it’s time to actually edit it.

Last time we saw you in Australia – you briefly mentioned you were working on some kind of long form rock opera with The Gossip – did that ever happen or am I imagining it? Any details? We still want to do it, I really hope we can, it’ll be epic but it’s a love project so it’s a matter of timing I suppose.

You also mentioned some long form personal projects, any details you can unveil? Have you gotten around to working on that film yet? I’m excited about a comedy that I’m working on with some friends. Very dry, very English. We’ll see what happens.

I always find that directors are either calm collected and easy-going on-set or anything but that – which category would you fall into? Maybe there should be an official grading system. I think I fall into the ‘hyperactive child’ category.

How are you finding the creative community in London compared to NYC? It’s pretty similar as far as the East London/Williamsburg hipster comparison. Loads of creative people living and working in their studios, everyone helping each other out on projects, good vibes.

You don’t need to be called James to enjoy the videos below but if you are called James or you know a James then Jameson wants to hear from you.

Florence & The Machine – “Kiss With A Fist”

Operator Please – “Logic”

Peaches – “Talk to Me”

Stay tuned for more James week and if you know an easygoing James or you are one don’t forget to head to the James Week page now.

Title Image Provided by James Price

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