Richard Barrett – Composer

Daryl Buckley – Electric lap steel guitars, effects and live processing

Peter Neville – Percussion

Tristram Williams – Piccolo trumpet and quartertone flugelhorn

Alistair McLean – Sound

Kris Chainey – Lighting

Agatha Yim – Videography, Set conception

Daryl Buckley – Direction, Set conception

world-line by Richard Barrett is an intense 30-minute rollercoaster ride of electronics, electric lap steel guitars and FX pedals (Daryl Buckley), percussion (Peter Neville), and piccolo trumpet/quartertone flugelhorn (Tristram Williams). This complex work is comprised of 15 sections, with each section having a specific electronic and/or musician configuration that at times intersect and other times seamlessly transition.

By the time I was brought in for this project, Daryl, Peter, and Tristram had already been living and breathing this work for about a decade. For someone new coming in fresh such as myself, I had to listen to the work with the score many (many) times to get a sense of the compositional structure, and how the musical lines moved at any given point by each instrument. I also had to figure out the film coverage required that aligned with the feel of the music, the logistics of filming and how this beast would need to be cut together in post-production. For world-line I was musician, filmmaker, and spreadsheet fanatic - all in one.

Within the realm of physics and cosmology, world-line describes the path an object takes through four dimensional spacetime. In preparing for the shoot, I stumbled upon these beautiful satellite streaks captured by a telescope in Chile, which ended up being the inspiration for the lighting concept of this film. Each musician had their own top-down spot lighting, that contained them within the otherwise dark space or ‘black box’. It was incredibly important that the lighting streaks in the background visually connected the performers to each other - providing this sense of being separate yet still connected, a slight nod to the compositional structure of the piece.

When cutting something like world-line, I feel that there is a real responsibility as a filmmaker to make sure that where I draw the attention works with the experience and emotion of the piece. The decision to cut or not cut is one that can change the tone and tension in a narrative film, so it would only make sense that this would also apply to something as visceral as a music video like world-line.

I can’t quite believe we’ve finally wrapped up this beast, many hours of work was put into this by everyone.

Congratulations to ELISION and Alistair! And many thanks to the team the Melbourne Recital Centre for being so incredibly patient and accommodating.

Here are some of my other collaborations with ELISION Ensemble: