Dan Wilton

0:14 Hello so my name is Dan and I'm a photographer. And this is David Tony and I put that up there to give you a little bit of back story how I became a photographer I used to really like photography but I more than that I really wanted to be the next him. So instead of doing at University I did environmental biology and then as soon as I got there I kind of realized that it wasn't quite as exciting as I thought it was going to be it was a lot more statistics a lot more maths and I think it was when I realized my cation was about how wood lights excrete urine as the gas to save water but it might not be the Rock and Roll Lifestyle that I was kind of looking for so at that point I decided to start teaching myself photography and I started photograph with my friends around me as practice and my friends at the time were in a band and so that's been the basis of me learning photography and I think that's why I've always hovered around music photography I do lots of different Touch of Photography but I've always been involved in it.

1:14 And so I do presss for lot lots of different record levels I've collaborated with some amazing artists which is really fun and I do I've done lots of shoots for artwork this thing isn't quite working and I really enjoyed that. And I' like I said we did sck magazine in Music Academy but the thing I realized a few years ago was that a lot of editorial shoots or artwork shoots are quite brief even if you're say collaborating on with James Blake you you do three or four days but I quite like spending a lot of time with the person so you can really collaborate and so I started to get the idea in my head that I wanted to work with a band for a long period of time. And so I started looking for a band that like an upand cominging band that I can work with I've got way too many pictures of other stuff that I've taken pictures of and so in 2012 I met not them I met it's gone in the wrong order but I met these boys who are called the Bots and they're from Glendale California and the guy on the left is MAA right Ania and their two brothers and I think at the time MAA was 19 and anayah was 15 and I listen to their music I really like their music.

2:39 And then when they walked into my studio I realized that they were the band that I' sort of been waiting for they're super fun really chilled really unassuming really funny there're a bunch of teenagers skateboarding and bouncing off the walls and ania's got massive hair and braces and KNE high socks so so as soon as they walked in I I I wanted to work with them and at the time they were over from from La for like a couple months in London.

3:09 And it was around the ti was like two months before the Olympics and so I come up with a master plan I'd actually rented an extra house so I was going to rent it out to some sort of Rich plump Americans to make loads of money but that didn't really work.

3:21 So I couldn't find any so I rented it to them instead made a massive loss but it kind of cool cuz they were in a house r corner for me.

3:30 So we were just hanging out. And I didn't have a specific idea to produce a photography zene or anything like that.

3:36 But I just wanted to photograph them a lot. And so anyway it turned into stet which is a photography zene that I made with them they like writing their name backwards for some reason because it looks cool but confuses everyone so that's why the Z was called stet but the at the time getting ahead of myself at the time we didn't I didn't really think it was going to be a z we just talked about going on tour so they had a little European tour and so I went off them with them in a little van and this is in Belgium I think and we've been driving along and I spotted this Meadow that I really liked and so I told him to get out the van and go and stand in the meadow and EA an ice cream I think but that that picture was a bit rubbish but then on the way back I was like micaa skipped like an idiot and he did that it looks really cool so I quite like to collaborate and sort of instigate little things that happen so it sort of seems candid but it's it's got a little bit of structure behind it.

4:36 Basically we were driving around Europe for nine days in that tiny van there was seven of us I think in total there the two of them me drum Tech the driver my brain's gone dead but the main other one was their manager was also their mom which is quite an interesting decision to make when you're going on tour in a small van so there was lots of family politics and arguments U which was quite amazing there was lots of sit in a van playing GTA and eating biscuits and there was lots of tie dye cuz they really really like tie-dye and so that became a sort of theme of the Zen this is when they tiey my shoes for me. And this is no okay oh no that's when I T one of my t-shirts for me and yeah and this is when they really went overboard and I thought he' broken his arm and all the tie started to clash but so the tie started to be a theme that I wanted to when when I realized I wanted to make it into a z that I wanted to incorporate into the packaging and then. There were other things I would set up I mean and I was he's a 15y old kid so he's always on Facebook.

5:48 So I would like sort of set up little things like this and also me and the mom mama would kind of clash sometimes and she had this little replica of her dog who she missed and so she was really really car about it a lot. And we'd have an argument cuz she could be a bit of a dick and I so I I'm much taller than that.

6:09 So I could put it in trees that she couldn't reach and then I' got take a picture and an eye would really like it.

6:15 So I there's a sort of theme of me torturing a sort of stck dog throughout the whole Z as well which was fun and then. I also made them swim a lot.

6:25 This is the one on the left is when we were in in Vienna and they played a gig and we got a little bit drunk off I was like she drunk she jump in the river it would be really cool we take a picture jump in the river so I persuaded him to jump off this bridge with me then when we got in the water he he actually told me at that point he couldn't really swim very well.

6:45 And then he wanted to do it again and again and again and at the time I had a broken finger and so that hurt quite a lot. And so then I' I'd make him swim sort of and he given an opportunity after that. So that's one other thing. That's in it.

6:58 And then the other one is we were in stutgart. And we were there was I think we got there really early I think and I just looked up things to do in stutgart. And I found the schine museum which is the world's biggest pig Museum it is the world's Premier Pig Museum and it has 38,000 Pig artifacts and some really really pred German tourists from the IR backround and so for me it was amazing because that's like they have like a bank vault put into the museum and filled it for the piggy banks so for me.

7:36 This is much more interesting than like photographing I don't want to photograph them playing a gig cuz like I don't really find that interesting but put them in a bank full of piggy banks it's much better yeah and there was also there was a bgsm floor in it which was really weird a woman breastfeeding some piglets and I he's 15 so he was just like whoa and then.

8:00 This is my favorite which is pig Lings with Jesus which isid anyway. So that all sort of formed together into a kind of narrative of some format this thing doesn't really oh there we go so so when we came when we came back sorry that one yeah when we came back we still hadn't really got the idea of making it to a but I I definitely wanted to print something.

8:31 And so at this by this point now we're living in dford and we had these meetings Skype meetings and so this is my favorite one Al so sa at the bottom right then. I was also watching American football cuz I'm quite a big American football fan and we're also watching fix bum Gardener jump out of the space Ballo and then I've got my Domin pizza delivery tracker a good day and then. And then.

9:00 So then we came up with the idea of like incorporating tie dye packaging into it somehow and so we got some well I found some Russian ladies who were amazing and sew these bags together.

9:14 And then we TI them go to the next one Dan wton ocean blue and the red kind of form a violet a ♪

9:33 chance don't hate just appreciate hello mate my name is Dan Wilton. And so then.

9:42 That's the final product after that that film kind of gives the impression they tied out everything they didn't actually do anything I tied out all it they did a tiny little bit skateboarding but this is the final thing and the Church of London helped me design they're amazing and I just really like the way it's not just that the to packaging really fits with the whole kind of design makes it a bit more of a tangible finished product and there's just a few pictures of it you go to the next one yeah and so we got I an IR the dates of the tour on the back of like a hotel receip or something and there's lots of meat running through it as well which I quite like neither of the meat meat and also there's a pink page that runs through it.

10:37 So we prob wanted to reference pigs throughout all of it so a lot of the ti the tiey is pink there's a pink page that runs symmetrically through it. And it's it's not s stitched it's center with pink thread so the design is really nice and then we have a little launch party which is one I thought everyone would finally figure out stop it is the Box backwards the V you can see from the inside it sort of said the box but no one understood it at all even understand and then.

11:04 And then from that it sort of led to more collaboration them.

11:09 So I got to model a shoot I did for lazy o recently and it's just really nice it's just keeps on going and they were super stoked to get paid to wear clothes they didn't really understand the concept but I liked it.

11:24 And then I'm doing another Z with stvg collaboration with him when they were last over I I took them to th Park and put roller coasters and CVG is going to draw us over the top and yeah. So it just keeps going and that's kind of it thanks