Fitchie and the boys come in, set up and just hook into it. Everyone is blown away.

The Drop & RadioActive 89fm present

World Premier Screening:

C4 Music TV
10 pm Friday 21st MAY

Repeat screenings:

10:30pm Monday 24th May
9:30pm Sunday 30th May

Make a cocktail, get yourself comfy and settle in for a nice chunky bit of Fat Freddy's Drop, courtesy of Director James Barr, The Drop, Radio Active & C4.

JB Diary Notes: Mid October 2002. Lunchtime. Nice day.

I'm walking along Lyall Bay when the cell phone rings. It's Dave Gibbons, station manager at Radio Active.

"Jimmy, it's Dave... Hey do you want to bring your DV camera up to the station on Thursday night and shoot Freddy's doing a live to air?"
It's Wednesday.

"I'd love to...Hey, we should see if we can rustle up four cameras and a live mixer"

The year before my first film making effort had won 'Best music Video' at RadioActive's Handle the Jandal competition , the Freddy's shoot would be a fresh challenge.

Thursday night. Fitchie and the boys come in, set up and just hook into it. Everyone is blown away. At one stage a crewmember, Luke, says to me quietly through his mic: "This is the best gig I've ever been to".

Diary Ends.

//

Roll forward to 2004. James Barr is contemplating the final edited Freddy's show beaming into the nation's lounges on C4. Barr says capturing the live to air session was simply "four camera guys and girls and a couple of support crew trying to be as quiet as possible, set adrift amongst the genius of Freddy's.

As director it was a dream to work with talent that is so real and upfront, and a privledge to be able to capture their special musical honestly. I wanted the images to not compete with, but rather to compliment the musical strands, as if the camera were just another instrument in the band or another element to the music. It stands out to me as an incredibly passionate and eerie performance from the band that is arguably the leading light in NZ music".

"As Freddy's perform their faces show an emersion into their music and craft. Their connectedness allows them to feel their way through the songs and create them anew, as they happen. No two performances of their songs are the same, so this is a definitive document of where Freddy's was at the time".

Using a great live mix from the night and the tapes from each camera, James Barr approached Art director Glen Atkins to do justice to the music and the raw images.

"Glen is an extraordinary designer who has created a stunning visual aesthetic for each song. Split screens ebb and shift with the music to allow the viewer to see what's going on all over the performance. Tones and colours vary to suit the mood".

"The show is unique in New Zealand because this was originally a live-to-air radio session that was filmed for posterity and DVD release. As we got into the crafting of it we realized what we had in our hands, something special, something not only very Wellington, but very New Zealand. It had to go to a wider audience. This is the nuts and bolts of Fat Freddy's, an hour of pure pleasure and an intimate peek into the way they make music".