Interview with Joey Barlow, Legends documentary film director
Lorna Allan, the Art director on the Legends project, interviews Joey Barlow about his involvement in the project and his career path as a film director. Photo credit: Peter Jakubow
L.A. Hi Joey. We are here with Joey Barlow, our film director of the Legends documentary, and we’re just going to have a little bit of a chat about your career so far and about the Legends project. So thank you so much for talking to me today. So I’m just going to fire some questions at you, and we’ll just have a little chat about that. So, Joey, how did you first connect with Zoë on the Legends project?
J.B. I first connected with Zoë, I think in 2018 I had been working at the time with someone who then was was photographed by Zoë, and who invited me along to that photo shoot to film a little bit behind the scenes and just to make a little short video that went on online, on social media, and in fact, some of that footage from that behind the scenes video ended up in the documentary. So I’m glad I kept that, but it was, it was maybe a year later, in 2019 that Zoe and I reconnected to discuss Legends specifically. And we spoke about doing a little promotional film to go alongside it. And it kind of started to grow from there, of course, at the time that the series was going on display in March of 2020, and which famously a bad time to open a public exhibition as we went into lockdown. So then at that point, we kind of weren’t sure what status of the series end of the film was going to be but a couple of years later Zoë got back in touch and told me that it was going back on in this year, 2024 and so we discussed making the film again. We kind of felt that what we had at the time, which was only a seven or eight minute short piece, was outdated, not only because the world had changed around us, but the series had changed and it had grown, and we felt that it deserved starting from scratch and taking a new approach. And that’s kind of how it how it began.
L.A. Did you face any challenges when you were making the film? Like, gaining people’s trust? Because when you’re making a documentary, it can be quite intimate.
J.B. Definitely, I think, particularly when you’re speaking about quite vulnerable topics, sensitive topics. We were talking about adversity and some of the hardships that people had been through. I think it was really important that I had that trust with them beforehand, and when I’d never met them before, I’d never spoken to them before they arrived in the studio. You have to work really quickly to build that trust. So from the moment they arrived to the second I hit record on camera, I was trying to build a rapport with them and make them feel comfortable while they were you know, having their their makeup and hair done, or beard trimmed, or whatever it was they were doing, I chat to them about anything other than the documentary, I’d just make conversation and be friendly with them and a lot of the people in the series as well that they’re not comfortable being on camera. It’s quite an intimidating experience, even for people who do it professionally. I think as as Papa Essieudu says in the film, you don’t have a character to hide behind but for a lot of the people who are not used to being the camera at all it was a very intimidating experience, having the lights on you and the camera on you and the questions asked to you. So, so yeah, it was, it was a challenge, but I think that because it was a small set, and it was a small team, and everyone was very friendly, that we were able to just help people relax, I think the most important thing is if, if you’re calm, hopefully they’ll also be calm.
L.A. That’s a very nice sentiment as well. I think that brings a lot of the threads that Zoë has when she’s doing her shoots too, that she kind of likes to make everyone feel super comfortable and happy, so that she can really draw out that essence of a person inside. So that’s really lovely that that went into the filmmaking as well.
J.B. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that Zoë, same thing as me, often on a much shorter time frame. It made me think of the photo that she took of Orlando Bloom, where she had less than 10 minutes with him between performances in a West End Play. And so that’s very, very little time to gain someone’s trust, but, but it’s, it’s a skill that you have to pick up quite quickly.
L.A. Do you think, do you hope audiences will feel or think differently about some of the sitters after they’ve watched the documentary?
J.B. I hope that they find that, I think there’s something for everyone in the documentary. Everyone talks about very different and unique experiences that I hope people can find relatable but also sort of inspiring, whether that is about working hard and persevering, if you’re if you’re a fan of Oasis then you’ll probably like it, but equally that there’s something to be said about making people feel empowered. One of the really key things in the documentary was about the community and coming together and uplifting people and highlighting marginalised voices and making everyone feel empowered to do what they love. So I really hope people can find something within the documentary that speaks to whatever hardship they’re going through or whatever aspirations they have.
L.A. And what do you think you drew from listening to all the Legend stories like, what was your biggest takeaway from the whole project?
J.B. I think talking about adversity and success, you realise that obviously some people have success, whatever that looks like, comes easier to them than others but I think the key takeaway for me was that you never really know what people have been through to get to where they are, nor how hard they’ve had to work. It’s very easy to dismiss someone’s success out of a place of jealousy or insecurity, but you don’t know what some people have been through, and I think that life shouldn’t be a competition, and I don’t think it’s necessarily about material success that’s an important aspect of it, but I think that we should all aspire to be rich in experiences and in relationships.
L.A. Oh, that’s lovely. Joey, I want to ask you some questions about you and your career. So how long have you been working as a director, and what was your route into filmmaking and documentary in particular?
J.B. Yeah, I’ve been working as a director sporadically for only about five or six years. But I wear many hats. I do many things. I edit, I shoot, I work a lot in production, and I think you have to have that diversity of talents to get by in this industry. I went to university and studied film production, and saved up a bit of money to buy a camera and started just filming things. I was collaborating with a lot of fashion students at my university making fashion films or sort of things for their projects. And it was through that that I started building connections with people in the fashion editorial side of the world. And through those connections, I eventually met Zoë, but also it was through those connections I made at university that I was able to get work in in the more commercial side of things, as a production coordinator and as an assistant director, which I then did for three or four years, while slowly picking away at directing projects as well. So I’ve done a variety of things, and continue to do a variety of things, I think I’d also get a little bored just doing the one thing.
L.A. Is there any adversity you’ve had, or any difficulty that you found moving into this area of working in film, or something that you’ve had to overcome to work more effectively in what you do?
J.B. It’s a really challenging industry to be in and to make a living, particularly at the moment in the UK. I think the stats in September last year 2023 were that 75% of the UK film industry were out of work. 12 months later, that number has gone down a bit, but it is still over half. More than 50% of the people in the UK film industry are not working at the moment, and it’s a very competitive place to try and work. So there are challenges all the time in just getting by, let alone trying to have some fun with it as well. But I try to overcome that by just connecting with other creatives, other like minded people, other people who are having similar difficulties. And we share ideas, we support each other’s projects, and we try to collaborate and uplift each other and share what we’re up to.
L.A. I love that idea of community and helping each other within an industry
J.B. I think it’s important because it’s very easy to see the other people in your industry as the competition, but it’s really important that we stick together and support each other’s work. We’re all trying to do something that we love. It’s the reason most of us get into this industry is because we love film. We love the act of filmmaking. We love cameras. Whatever, it is that gets us into it, it’s because of a passion, and it’s easy to start to lose that enthusiasm when things get hard, and it’s only through having those connections with other people that we can keep that enthusiasm ignited.
L.A. Totally agree. What do you think your younger self would make of this career that you’ve carved out for yourself?
J.B. I suppose it depends how far back you go, because I think if you spoke to me as more naive teenager, he’d perhaps be a little disappointed that I’ve not made it to Hollywood already, but also that’s an unrealistic expectation. And I think if you spoke to me even four or five years ago, I think he’d be impressed that we’re still we’re still going, that I’m still doing this full time, and hopefully he’d be proud of of what we’ve achieved, and some of the projects that we’ve been able to work on, and some of the people that we’ve had the opportunity to work with as well.
L.A. So what kind of advice would you give to young people looking to pursue this kind of career in filmmaking?
J.B. You have to be willing to adapt. And that’s, that’s maybe what my younger self had to learn the hard way that, you know, I had a very specific idea of what I wanted to achieve, and the timeline in which I wanted to achieve it, which wasn’t a realistic one and I thin its really easy to put a lot of pressure on yourself to do well and to do well quickly, but sometimes, despite, I think the theme of the documentary being about perseverance, which is important, I think it’s important to recognise when a forward move maybe isn’t possible, and the lateral move is maybe the right one, or even to take a step back and kind of adjust your approach to things.
Another stat that I read was that 70% of the UK film industry reported struggling with their mental health as a result of the challenges of the industry. And I think we have to look after ourselves. You know, again, going into this industry because you love it is the most important thing. Doing it for the enthusiasm is the most important thing. And if you start to lose sense of the reasons why you’re doing it, and you’re just pushing through because you don’t want to seem like you have failed is the wrong approach. You have to adapt to new methods and look after yourself and look after each other, and do it because you love it.
L.A. That’s a very nice point about, and I’m really happy you touched on mental health. That’s really important to talk about that within the industry, I couldn’t agree more. Do you like, have a teacher that helped inspire you, or pushed you in a direction that you’d like to mention?
J.B. It’s funny that this is going into the schools program of the National Portrait Gallery, because when I was in secondary school, with my art teachers, we’d do day trips to London and go to National Portrait Gallery and look at some of these exhibitions. And it was some of those art teachers, I think, really helped steer me towards film. I think there was a point in secondary school where I was feeling a little lost and aimless, and I wasn’t really sure what direction I wanted to go in. I felt like I wanted to do something creative, but wasn’t sure what that looked like. I wasn’t sure what medium was the right one for me and my teachers were really supportive and helped kind of steer me towards film. They showed me that, you know, I was watching a lot of films I was really enthusiastic about, you know, feature films and everything. But they showed me that film can be a medium of art as well, and they introduced me to some video artists like Bill Viola and Nam June Paik, who really inspired me to to explore film as something more than just a job or an industry or sort of the big glitz and glamour of Hollywood, but actually as a form of expression as well.
L.A. I was going to ask you to briefly, kind of talk about your approach to filmmaking and documentary filmmaking, if you could talk about that a little bit more as well.
J.B. I think that for me, I like to be as organised as an organised thing, the more that I can plan, the more that I can collaborate and sort of share before we get on set and start filming, the better the product will end up being. I think it’s particularly important that that sort of I’m able to adapt as I go when it comes to something like a documentary, where you don’t know what answers you’re going to get, and you have to be ready to kind of switch your approach mid interview if you suddenly hit on a topic that’s really interesting, that wasn’t necessarily on your list of questions.
You can only plan so much eventually, but I kind of find that my approach is often quite utilitarian, maybe that’s my experience working in production as an assistant director whose role is to do all of the scheduling and keep everything on time that I have worked with some directors and creatives who want to do 50 takes of something or have very outlandish creative ideas, which is great, but that’s been drilled into me that at a certain point you have to compromise in some way on your vision, and having something is better than having nothing, even if that something isn’t sort of precisely what you had in your head. So I’m quite relaxed to the idea when it comes to my own projects of making changes and compromises and having quite a different product by the end than what I necessarily started out with.
L.A. It’s always like that, isn’t it? Ideas are things that we can have in our head but when they start to become real, it’s very different. I think that the resounding point that you’re talking about is really interesting, about adapting, because, in reality, things are never exactly how they were in your head. They will definitely change when they come into reality. And conditions are never quite exactly how you want it to be. But I guess that’s kind of life as well. It’s never exactly how you want everything to pan out perfectly.
J.B. I think touching on perseverance again as one of the themes of the documentary, it’s easy to misinterpret the idea of perseverance and powering through as sticking to exactly what you thought was ahead of you and pushing through but I think that the real perseverance is when you’re forced to change, and your expectations of things change, and not giving up, it’s hitting that moment of realising my approach this so far has been wrong. This isn’t working out. I could just stop right now, but actually persevering and finding a way to adapt to a new solution. That’s, that’s the heart of what perseverance is, to me, it’s realising that you were wrong. Let’s find a new way and let’s keep going.
L.A. I just have a couple more questions for you. I wanted to ask you about your next project that you’re working on. And then I also wanted to ask you about which one of the Legends portraits is your favourite, and why?
J.B. Next project is hard to say at the moment, I normally work in short form, so I can be on a project from a couple of days to a couple of weeks, I’m not someone that works on TV shows or feature films that I’m on for six weeks to six months. I quite enjoy just having a short window of time on a project. But it also means that I’m often called on to a project quite at the last minute, so I can only really plan a couple of weeks ahead, but I might then have a project come through tomorrow for next Tuesday, and have to sort of change plans to meet that. So actually, this documentary has been a bit of an outlier in that it has been my life for the last six months. I think it’s the longest I have worked full time on one project, which has been a lot of fun but also I’m I’m very happy to sort of bounce from project to project for a little bit, and then also have personal projects, passion projects, things that I’m working on just because I enjoy it as well. There’s a lot of ideas I have for a lot of different things.
And then the other question about my favourite portrait, there are some really fantastic ones that are timeless, that speak to a time of almost Classic Hollywood. I think of the the photo of Kim Cattrall or Alexandra Fullerton, that kind of feel like this classic Hollywood, or 60s Hollywood look that that’s really classy and beautiful and powerful, but also some of my favourites are the more kind of understated and subtle ones that that maybe show this sort of more authentic sense of the person being photographed. I think of Rene Macdonald or Char Bailey they are such simple photos that are so beautiful that show a sense of who they really are and they are some of my favourites. But then also, I think there is something particularly striking about the photo of Noel Gallagher. Maybe it’s the way the light frames his face, or maybe it’s his expression and that confidence, but I think that there’s a, there’s a real sense of power in that image that is particularly eye-catching.