Béatrice Pégard On Directing the Retro, Trippy Promo for Parcels

At just twenty years old, Louie Swain, Patrick Hetherington, Noah Hill, Anatole Serret and Jules Crommelin of Parcels dream big. But they have not forgotten where they come from. If it is necessary to look for Parcels' DNA anywhere, it would probably be in the bay of their native city in Australia. These five boys reconstruct the history of soft rock and funk while projecting into a king of future of pop.

Tieduprightnow, their latest single, is already moving forward like a heady tube: magnetic keyboards, obsessive guitars, a sweet harmony, an oceanic languor... The video, directed by Béatrice Pégard of LA PAC, takes us straight under the Australian sun for a ride in a convertible as well as on invisible surfboards.

Below, we go behind the scenes with director Béatrice Pégard.

Q> How was your collaboration with Parcels?

Béatrice Pégard> Their record label Kitsuné got in touch with us, it was a pretty regular pitch procedure. I fell in love with the track as soon as I listened to it and couldn’t stop playing it over and over again. All I could picture was summer, the outdoors, surfing and Byron Bay. And then I found out that Parcels were from Byron and that they were going to be there during the allocated shoot days, so the choice of location was sealed with the pitch!

Q> Can you give us a summary of the music video?

BP> tieduprightnow is a wet, soft and fun ballad through the quintessential Australian summer. And by quintessential I mean budgie smugglers, 'roos, surfing, beach cricket, surf life savers, koalas, lamingtons and shenanigans. As the band travels with the audience through Byron Bay, the film becomes gradually more surreal and starts focusing on surf-less surfers in trippy backdrops. 

The music video celebrates all the clichés Australia has to offer in a sexy way, with a touch of bogan mixed in. It also celebrates the Australian landscape and the joys of surfing and reminds us of how tragic it would be if we lost it all. Australian coastal areas are currently being destroyed by profit-motivated policies. Its wildlife is disappearing at alarming rates because of climate change and human greed. The Australian lifestyle as we know it, the joys of summer, of surfing and living by the beach, in the bush, would not be much without a thriving ecosystem.

Q> How did you get the idea for this clip?

BP> I’d been wanting to shoot a surf film with effects for years. I really wanted to show the poetic and dreamy side of it. I find that single fin riders evolve on their boards in similar fashion to dancers. When I heard Parcels’ track, the mood was just perfect for it. I combined that idea with all the cliches of the Australian summer at a time when Paris was really cold and shitty and I was homesick for the ocean and the wilderness. There’s not that many trees in Paris and you never get to be woken up in the morning by kookaburras... So I thought that tieduprightnow had the perfect feel to showcase the beauty of Australia via Byron Bay, the importance to protect it, and that it had to be done with a little touch of humour and surrealism. 

Q> What was the biggest constraint?

BP> The elements! We had very limited time and although it was summertime, January is usually not a great month in Byron as the weather can be unpredictable and it can rain at any time for days. But we only had two days and just one with the band, so we got really lucky with the sun. The surf is also usually pretty flat in the summertime up there and the locals hadn’t had surf for months before we got there. The right conditions literally kicked in a day before we were meant to shoot the surf shots. But the day before we faced tricky conditions for the drone scenes. When we were set to shoot, we had a 35 knot wind with very specific drone shots to get in the can and a limited time to do it. 

Q> What did you enjoy the most during the shoot? 

BP> Shooting with the amazing long boarder Lauren Hill and her equally amazing surfing friends and legends. Lauren and I had been talking about working together for years but our schedules never matched. Lauren is not only an incredible and graceful rider, but she is also one of the most generous people I have met. She and her friends were true inspirations. 

Q> If you had to do your autobiography of a director in a few words, what would it be?

BP> If I had to start somewhere I would say that I have learned everything thanks to Michael Gracey, Michel Gondry and Georges Bermann. When I first started I didn't know anyone in the industry and knew nothing. I knocked at hundreds of doors in Sydney and Michael gave me a chance. He is an incredibly generous and patient person and an amazing director. Thanks to this experience I landed work on Be Kind Rewind in the art department and the following year in wardrobe for Bjork. I had the time of my life working for Michel and his team and most of them have become life long friends. On my days off I would make zero budget music videos. When I moved back to Australia I started directing music videos for indie bands and little fashion promos while working in academia. And one day I decided that I wanted to become a full time director so I quit my job, sold all my stuff, bought a one way ticket to France and got the incredible chance to start again thanks to Grizzly Bear and La Pac.

Q> What are your inspirations? 

BP> David Lynch, Miranda July, Oliver Sacks, Sylvia Plath, Jean Cocteau, Ernesto Neto, Charlotte Gainsbourg dans Melancholia, The Groundlings et Matthew Barney.

Q> And what's your favourite movie?

BP> I have too many! But I guess among others: Shirley Barrett’s Love Serenade, Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy, Peter Greenaway’s Drowning by Numbers, Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game, Dario Argento’s Suspiria and Jean-Luc Godard’s Weekend. 

Q> What kind of projects do you dream of working on?

BP> I would love to do fashion and my ultimate dream, like most directors, is to direct features one day. I’ve just finished a screenplay, but I know it is a very long ride!

Q> And who would you like to work with?

BP> I've always dreamed of working on a project with Doug Aitken. Maybe if I send him 50 emails a day he might cave in and say yes...

I would love to work again with Clemence Poesy, she was so inspiring and generous. I also dream of working with Michelle Williams and Greta Gerwig, Joanna Newsom, and projects for Sufjan Stevens, The War on Drugs and Planetarium. 

I dream a lot!