Adam & Eve

Lachlan

What are you guys working on today?

Juliet

Oh crikeys it's been a bit of a nuts day actually. We've been making signage for a pr company, it's laser cut and we had to drill some holes and get light fittings to fit in. We've also been putting together some giant cardboard panels with plastic hinges for an exhibition design and a couple of other things. It's all a bit crazy! And you guys, where have you come from? Where's your base camp?

Lachlan

We work out of Exit Films in South Melbourne - a big shared space.

Juliet

So not far from Keep Left PR. They're just under the overpass. Quite an interesting bit of landscape that.

Chris

Yeah it's pretty cool - some good places to eat.

Lachlan

You've got a boutique espresso house and then a whole bunch of brothels.

Juliet

(laughs) Everything you'll ever need for lunch!

Chris

Someone was telling us yesterday that the owners of the cafes own the brothels as well.

Juliet

That'd make sense. So if there's a waiting list you can go next door and have a Parmigiana, or get your heart rate up. So, do you know much about us at all?

Chris

Well actually my girlfriend Steph is friends with Kat. Is that...

Ben

My missus, yeah.

Chris

And she's friends with Arnsdorf? Did you do stuff for them?

Juliet

This is the Arnsdorf store here. So everyone knows everyone! Six degrees of separation in Melbourne isn't it?

Chris

So was this where the actual Arnsdorf store was?

Ben

Yeah. The Arnsdorf range was called Optiks and was inspired by crystals. We thought, because the Fortress of Solitude in Superman 2 is a really great reference for me, why don't we replicate that in an abstracty way for the skin coloured Arnsdorf range using tights. And then it was both of us picking up the phone - obviously I didn't have much success asking girls to donate their tights.

Juliet

You sounded like a pervert!

Chris

You could have gone round raiding peoples washing lines.

Juliet

There were quite a few donated from a lot of friends. A lot of people have skin coloured tights - we phoned all the school teachers we knew because for some reason they have flesh coloured tights.

Ben

So there's that overlap, but also another potential overlap considering we might be doing some work for Architecture In Helsinki who of course you've made music videos for. We met Cameron and Kellie because they know Vinnie from Midnight Juggernauts and we did some set stuff for them. So they came in to chat. We knew a bit about them as a band but our point of reference was the video Contact High where it's a sort of hyper saturated slick thing where he's wearing the glasses and there are pastel blues. So it'll be interesting to see, because we used that as our reference for the process for when a band comes to us and says, "Hi, do you want to do a music video?" How do you design a music video I spose....? I'm just thinking of things that might be good to talk about. The other thing that is kind of interesting is that there are two of you and two of us and therefore how do you work together?

Juliet

You do everything together do you? So, you're going to be working on the Life of a Polar Bear and you're going to be doing a music video for The Wiggles and you go off and do it and come back?

Lachlan

No, no. We write everything together and bounce and morph ideas between both our brains.

Chris

Although, we were discussing today that with film stuff you have to plan ahead. Once the planning stage is done and you both know what's happening you can just pair off and go and do a certain job and come back at the end of the day.

Juliet

Then sometimes the project evolves. We obviously plan it, draw it or whatever, and then make it. It's usually in the making process that the design changes - by making it you actually realise it I spose.

Lachlan

Yeah, that definitely happens on set. I dont know about you guys but we have to work with so many other people on set at the same time and there's this weird conglomeration of people's ideas. As a director you have to be in charge of that but you have to give people room to do their own thing. It's interesting.

Juliet

So, who does your sets?

Lachlan

Mostly my brother when it's pretty skimpy budgets. He's a graphic designer but he was actually a labourer for a little while...

Juliet

So, handy with the power tools!

Lachlan

Pretty handy with building freestanding doors and...

Juliet

I spose that's where you guys have got it easy because our doors have to stand up, yours only have to stay there for half an hour. (laughs)

Lachlan

It stays there for one day and we do all this haphazard stuff.

Juliet

If we did that we'd get sued! (laughs)

Chris

We found that Architecture in Helsinki are really precise about things like colours and small details. I think they're the most interesting band that we've worked with in the sense of how much input they had into everything.

Lachlan

They're just really good at communicating - like the feeling and the emotion of the lyrics of the song and how that translates visually. It's always really interesting talking to them about it.

Chris

On that last video that we wrote the treatment for they came back to us and Kellie had written a whole list of key words - words that her emotions had brought up while reading the treatment. She was like, "I dont know if this helps but...".

Ben

What do you mean reading the treatment?

Chris

We have to write a treatment of how we see the video and then...

Ben

So what is that? Is it like a narrative thing?

Lachlan

It's a pitch. Anything from visual references to a full sequence of story - a storyboard. Basically everything we want to do as best as we can explain it to them and how it relates to their tune and what they've given us.

Ben

So that's actually a printed document? It's not a video?

Lachlan

No, no, but sometimes we'll have some You Tube links if that helps. Sometimes we've done little test videos, often there's diagrams. I love a good diagram.

Juliet

Sometimes we get so carried away with our diagrams it throws the client over the edge - they're like, "Oh what is this?" And we're like, "It's alright it's really simple".

Chris

But you guys would have to do the same thing like have a document pitching what you want to do?

Juliet

Explaining the process.

Ben

And there's a real art to that because you don't necessarily want to show all your work right at the start. So the way we do it is you talk softly softly. This is very logical because it gradually takes them through it and then at the end of it...

Juliet

Tah dah! Usually there's a model or something that represents everything you've talked about. So the idea is by the time you get to that it makes so much sense because everything they've been shown leads to that point and it's like, "Of course, Hallelujah!"

Ben

It's quite nice, sometimes we'll have a model actually around the corner so there'll be nothing on the table and, "Hang on I'll just go around here...", and then you come out and "Tah dah!"

Juliet

People are easily distracted too. If they walked in and there was a model on the table they'd be like, "I dont know, is the window big enough...?" You want them to think about the bigger picture.

Ben

And you can see how they're reacting when you're talking so you know whether to pull back from going too far down a certain path with something and talking about the other stuff they want to hear. Maybe they're interested in the sustainability or something like that. We'll also use references and precedents like Google Images and all that sort of stuff - images that try to create an atmosphere in a document spatially and communicating that. They're not necessarily our projects or materials. We've been really lucky in that it seems to work really well, we've had a couple of ones where they literally turned over the first page and gone, "No, no, no...".

Juliet

Oh, we had one! He looked so uncomfortable - stood up, sat down, crossed his legs, folded his arms, looked at it over his shoulder and went, "No".

Ben

It's hard to keep it going because the conversation isn't even there. It'd be like, "Bzzzt, game over!"

Juliet

Can i suggest we go for lunch? I'm starving.

Ben

Interview suspended. What do they say in The Bill, "Interview terminated...".

Juliet

So, to give you a quick history of this place, it used to be an old electro cladding factory built in 1924. I bought it two years ago. We basically just poured this new concrete slab, painted it white and ripped everthing out because it was like a movie set from a horror film - it was just horrendous. I mean it was great but even as architects we walked in to have a look at it and we were like, "Oh my god". It had the old asbestos roof and the windows were all just smashed and dirty so there was hardly any light in here. The floor was dirt and the vats of acid had been along here and there was a central channel where the acid would run from the electro plating baths. It was a bit Wolf Creek! So do you find you prefer doing music video clips for music that you like?

Chris

Definitely. It makes things a lot easier.

Ben

Have you done any for bands you really despise?

Chris

Yeah, probably shouldn't say that. (laughs)

Lachlan

We made this video and then it got shelved and never released.

Juliet

That reflects the fact that maybe you didn't really connect with the music.

Chris

It was a learning experience because there were things that we weren't familiar with or realised at the time like making the lead singer look hot and amazing and having to spend almost half the budget on just styling and makeup.

Juliet

Photoshop! (laughs)

Lachlan

We just weren't used to that. We where like, "What? I want to spend the money on this, not makeup or something".

Chris

They wanted to spend six thousand dollars on hair and styling.

Juliet

It's hard. We had a guy who wanted to meet us about a new house. I can't remember his name but when we met him he gave us this really long brief. He didnt really have a budget but wanted this massive house with a round marble room when you came in and a round staircase with a dome... We'd been in business for maybe two months and we're thinking, how can we possibly look like we're going to translate into this massive... Needless to say, we didnt get the project.

Ben

It was that thing where we needed the money but it was going to be the job from hell!

Juliet

We've become much more ruthless and therefore much more broke but we're not pursuing things that we know now are...

Lachlan

Trouble.

Juliet

Yeah, because they do end up being trouble and an emotional drain. And now we're doing more stuff for free that excites us. It's not a good business move but hey, as long as our accountant gets paid he can keep his opinions to himself! (laughs)

Chris

We're pitching on something really commercial at the moment - a big pop singer.

Juliet

Like Kylie?

Chris

Close.

Juliet

Danii?

Chris

(laughs) Normally we'd say no, but we're kind of broke. We thought, they've got a big budget so we'll just pitch whatever we want to do. If they go for it then fine.

Juliet

It could be really good too because you've been doing what you've been doing for a while and that's what we say sometimes, "It's good to be challenged". Can you translate that style onto the commercial pop world? It might be a whole new product that no one's seen before. Suddenly you'll have all your bling on, phones ringing, "Sorry, we're too busy ring us next year". You never know!

Ben

So is it very much a case of people coming to you asking for your take on it, rather than, "I want to make a video, and it's going to be a rap video on a boat..."?

Chris

Sometimes they'll come to you with a whole spread of what they want.

Lachlan

Strangely enough Midnight Juggernauts are like that. They're a bit collaborative and because Vinnie used to work in film he kind of comes to us and goes, "I had this idea...".

Juliet

And he's very involved and thinks about everything really intently. That was a pretty amazing clip I loved it!

Chris

Thanks. So everyone is very different to work with - Architecture In Helsinki are like that but they dont know much about film so their whole thing is colours and words and...

Juliet

Feelings, emotions...

Chris

And Midnight Juggernauts are different again with film references and art references.

Ben

Cut Copy, you do their stuff?

Chris

Yeah, they're different again.

Juliet

I saw their latest stage show with the big freestanding door.

Lachlan

Yeah, that was us

Juliet

They used that stuff really well on stage I thought.

Chris

We shot some super slow motion exploding sculptures for that.

Juliet

I love blowing stuff up for a living. That's not fair!

Chris

It was a really fun experience because the explosions would only take one second - you'd blink and it was over, but then look back over five minutes of explosion.

Ben

You obviously do music videos but is there anything else you want to do?

Lachlan

We're at a point in time where we'd like to transition into other areas. I guess music videos are good because they're so spur of the moment. You get a budget, you've got a song, you've probably got four weeks to make it. You can just churn out something really simple without having to source funding, and film takes so long.

Chris

We are in this weird position at the moment where we're signed to Exit Films who are all about commercials but some of their directors do feature films as well. They're gearing us up with meetings with agents and producers to try and get us into the commercial world which is different to what we do. We'll probably have to start again in a way. This is one goal. Our other goal is to get into feature films, but as Lachlan was saying you've got to have the patience to sit there for three years.

Waitress

The soup today is chicken, the fish is snapper, and the pie is beef and mushroom. Does anyone need a drink to start?

Juliet

I'd like a pinot gris thanks.

Lachlan

I'd like a water.

Ben

I'll have a glass of rosé.

Chris

I'm fine with water.

Juliet

Spot the drinkers in the group. So, architects two drinks, film zero! (laughs) We're thinking of sharing a pizza, if you guys wanted pizza we can do a bit of a sharsey if you feel like it?

Lachlan

Three then?

Juliet

Doesn't phase me. A table full of pizza.

Chris

So, do people come to you guys? Do you have to look for work or do people come directly?

Ben

it's a bit of both I spose.

Juliet

It depends how you say look though. I mean you're always looking because you're always thinking. So, opportunities arise because you're always thinking. But then because we knew Vinnie from the Midnight Juggernauts we were like, "Hey this would be great...". It's hard because we have quite specific visions about the type of work we want to experiment with so we've been trying to get the opportunity to show and experiment with skills in say, exhibition design. We've done three now and it's great. We built, finished, photographed, put it away. And we want to do more retail. So the Arnsdorf store was like us showing our wares in a retail sense.

Ben

So I spose it starts by having a definite direction we want to go. We're quite focussed about it.

Juliet

As long as it's design challenging then we'll do anything.

Chris

That's the trick - even if you get some commercial project at the end of the day you have to make it interesting for yourself.

Juliet

And it's got to represent our brand Edwards Moore too. We're quite passionate about it. If you just churned out a rooster it wouldn't look too good on the website would it? There's areas we want to get into like set design. Since I watched Blade Runner as a kid I always wanted to get into set design and I still do. But now it's different with graphics. It's very much production design internalised in the computer.

Chris

We've been talking about that a lot. Many young directors and directors of our generation, and even a bit older like Spike Jonze, are heading back to how it was done in the old days. Everything shot in camera or a balance of what's shot in camera and in computer.

Juliet

So what would your dream job be?

Chris

Making a feature film I guess - I think the child in us wants to make some sort of new fantasy film like what Spike Jonze has done with Where The Wild Things Are. Or, to make something like Blade Runner.

Ben

What does Krozm mean?

Chris

Nothing! It's made up because we couldn't think of a name. I think I had a piece of paper and I wrote down some letters that I wanted to use. I think it's actually something in Russian because we get a lot of Russian spam mail. There's also a word close to it that means atoms exploding.

Juliet

It was pretty hard picking our name. We went through a number of names and started off by saying we're not going to use our own names. Do you ever collaborate with other creatives?

Lachlan

As much as we can and when we need people.

Chris

The director in a feature film or a big budget thing only really communicates creatively with the cinematographer, producer and the first assistant director, and then those people communicate with a bunch of people under them. It's a weird pyramid thing.

Lachlan

What about you guys? When something actually goes into construction is there someone on site who is your point of contact?

Juliet

We are! And the builder. So at the moment we're able to do everything which is part of what we aim to do always. But, building sites are very consuming.

Ben

The builders are there all the time making it and we're seeing it all the way to the end. Hopefully everything goes really nicely - following it through to ensure ideally that that product, if you like, was the intention at the start. It's really nice to have your drawings and then see the concrete being poured and physically translated from that drawing.

Juliet

And that can often inform what you do next because you might have seen a particular way they were doing something and when you come to your next design aspect you're like, "Well if we did that but in a different way you could...". And there are things you thought were going to be really easy but were actually really hard to do. I think in architecture a lot of the time, especially in bigger practices, you've got the design team, the documentation, the building site - they're separate entities so you lose that clarity of design by the end of it.

Ben

When you go to a job they almost say are you a Design Architect or are you a Documenter? In other words, "Are you a person that designs stuff - sketches, or do you do the grunt work - the technical part of making it happen?" I think the problem is in the translation.

Lachlan

That's similar to us because with most of our stuff it's all just us. We plan it, we shoot it, we edit it, we do all the effects, but that's not traditionally how film works. Like you were saying it's an advantage knowing how all of it works.

Ben

Learning how to use that drill or chainsaw is quite nice.

Juliet

We had a chainsaw day recently!

Chris

Really, was that fun?

Juliet

Well, we're designing a cafe up the road. It's quite a small space with a big wall and we wanted the wall to look like a stack of logs. So we designed this grid system for fixing them and putting them up against the wall so when you walk in it looks like the wall is just a big pile of logs. I live in Kinglake so I've got a million trees and all the resources we need. There's lots of trees down that we can cut up so it doesn't cost the client anything to get the logs. All we need to do is a prototype and chop up some logs. I hate chainsaws and Ben lives in Fitzroy and barely goes anywhere except maybe Collingwood or Carlton so I borrowed a chainsaw and we met at my place on sunday with the quadbike to load it up. It was quite funny - Ben with his city collar up, I was quite worried about him.

Ben

There's something quite pleasing about using a chainsaw - initially it's really scary but actually it was fine. Just like cutting cheese. It was good fun. Your favourite music video?

Lachlan

I have so many.

Juliet

Today's favourite?

Lachlan

Actually I really do like the Talking Heads one in the feature film that David Byrne made. They've reproduced all these different ads from the time - the late 80's or something and it looks like real advertising. One's got one of the band members being covered in chocolate in slow motion like it's a chocolate bar ad. They used commercial techniques to do really ridiculous stuff. Most of our references come from film or art so we do like the weirder side of things.

Juliet

My favourite is Christopher Walken in Fat Boy Slim.

Lachlan

That's it though - what if i take Christopher Walken and make him do this interpretaive dance in an empty hotel foyer? You can explain it to the garbage man and he's going to enjoy it.

Chris

I gotta say Spike Jonze is a personal favourite. He stands his ground after all this time and even when I look at music videos really critically they are in some ways so simple yet so well made. He has a looseness about what he does which is fun. What do you guys think of the way Melbourne's headed architecturally?

Ben

I think it's the most exciting city in the world to be an architect right now.

Lachlan

Melbourne is finally getting comfortable with urban living. We spent a month in Paris recently and we noticed that it's a city that people really live in. They all might have small apartments but that forces them too get out and meet there friends, have dinner...

Ben

Your backyard is the park, your bookshelf is the city library.

Lachlan

We were living in an apartment and we would say hello to everyone in the elevator, but it's different in Australia.

Juliet

People don't talk to each other. But saying that - I love the fact that I live on top of a mountain seriously in the middle of nowhere. You really feel like the only person on the planet. I've got views that go for ever and ever and ever. I've got a five bedroom house on 45 acres and it's the price of an apartment in Elwood and only an hours drive from the citty. I love the fact I'm here in Fitzroy everyday amongst it, and at night I'm in the middle of nowhere it's pretty special.

Ben

It's the in-between thing that's shit, that suburban...

Juliet

No spontaneous interaction. No one walks, it's very American almost.

Lachlan

What's your favourite building in Melbourne? Favourite old one and favourite new one?

Ben

My favourite new one is Monaco House. It's in the city. And yours is...?

Juliet

By the same architects in the middle of the train lines down Spencer Street. A concrete box with stars of different depths on it.

Ben

It's called the Yardmasters Building. It was about making a gem out of something that was really utilitarian - a box.

Chris

I was just thinking that when I was in primary school I wanted to be an architect.

Juliet

Really! I wanted to be a tight-rope walker. And then I wanted to be a journalist. I don't know how I ended up being an architect. We both have the same favourite old building - the Nicholson Building. The thing with the Nicholson Building is that it's still occupied by so many arty types. You get in the lift and there's that grumpy lady with all the photos of people's dogs.

Chris

Speaking about Blade Runner...I'm really into this program on t.v called Megastructures..., it's about crazy engineering feats.

Juliet

Yeah it's good. I like it too.

Chris

In the middle of an episode I was looking something up and came across all these future designs for mega buildings. There was this one in Tokyo - they haven't made it because they don't have the technology or materials yet. It's a glass pyramid over the top of the harbour for people to live in. It houses 175, 000 people or something. The inspiration for the guy who designed it was the Tyrell building in Blade Runner.

Juliet

Without Blade Runner the world wouldn't be the same. We went to Tokyo last year as a little bit of a creative retreat because Jetstar have these two for one flights. We were like, "Bugger it" lets just book them. We went for four days and met some architects and did all the buildings and spent all day pounding the streets taking photos. In our guide book it said where they filmed Blade Runner. It was a little bar called Albatross. Both of us are quite big fans of Blade Runner. It's where they took the footage of the scene when they've got the flying cars and the women on the building. We were like, "We have to go there on our last night to have a drink". I don't know if you've been there but it's quite hard to find anything in Tokyo. We had the guide book but for some reason we ended up in this tiny little laneway in Shinjuku. The doors were really narrow, the bar was tiny and there were five people sitting there looking at us. We walked into this bar called the Albatross and started walking upstairs but they tried to send us back down and we're like, "No dammit we're going up to the roof!" Anyway, they wouldn't let us up and we ended up squashed in downstairs. It was an amazing bar, we met lots of people and drank lots of plum wine, got really drunk and had a great night. It was only towards the end of the night we realised it was the wrong Albatross bar, so there was no roof and we never quite got to relive the Blade Runner experience.

Chris

I always think about Blade Runner as the pinnacle of the idea of the future in sci-fi films. It started in Star Wars where you have the Millenium Falcon - it's a junk pile that doesn't work. All the spaceships and technology are kind of old and dirty and that was how George Lucas made it different to sci-fi films that came before it where everything was clean and nice, even 2001: A Space Odessy.

Lachlan

It came after that era of fairly optimistic airbrushed futuristic space stuff as well where everyone's with their future wives. It's like The Jetsons - airbrushed.

Juliet

And that's one of the good things about Blade Runner - at a ground level it's gross, there's water pouring and piles of bins and rubbish trucks and cardboard boxes...

Chris

Blade Runner is definitely the pinnacle of a dirty, grimy, fucked-up future.

Ben

Nobody wants to be there do they? They want to get off.

Juliet

Fucked up people. I love that film. I don't know which bit of it I love the most really. There's never enough time in the day to relax. We've actually given ourselves a day off tomorrow. Do you ever do that?

Lachlan

We have the odd mornings off.

Juliet

You see the problem with that is I'm a morning person so i get up at five, swim a kilometer, come to work and I've been there for two hours before Ben arrives and he lives 100 m away! But then he's there till seven or eight and I leave at four so...

Lachlan

I get more done at night.

Chris

When we go into production it's full on and quite often I feel like I'm going to die at the end of it.

Juliet

And there's nothing left to draw on - It's like, "Don't ask me to do anything because I can't!"

Chris

My thinking time is the morning and doing time is pm.