Blue Leach

Blue's Biography

16th October 2007 – Released today! R.E.M. have released R.E.M. – LIVE, their first ever 2 CD/DVD in a career spanning 27 years. The DVD was directed by our very own Blue Leach and produced by Emer Patten:

Click here to read the official release.

Click here to read the exclusive interview with Blue.

Click here to view the official Warner Bros trailer.

Having spent a significant part of his career as a touring screens director, Blue has developed an ability to focus and examine a band and artists’ performance. It has helped him build a closer and more truthful flow throughout a concert film between the band’s energy and their message. The overall film introduces some of the elements of a music video, constructing a visual journey with myriad creative influences.

Blue says: “I am passionate about live music, and driven to create adventurous and stimulating performance films. I want every song to look as different as it sounds, to take you deep into the drama and emotion of the performance. My point being that if the sound of each song in a two hour set carries subjectively an independent message & feeling then clearly the pictures should do the same. To augment the experience. A symbiosis with the music.”

He continues: “I’ve been very fortunate recently to take my touring screen chemistry on to a bigger screen for bands like R.E.M. and Depeche Mode. I am unafraid of dialling in to the band’s essence, and I will use a variety of techniques to help me communicate that visually. I’m not necessarily interested in saying “this is what the show looked like from the back of the hall” or “this is what the singer looked like in close-up” – of course these things are important but I’m more interested in offering a visual interpretation to give the viewer something else to connect to in the music, perhaps in a way they weren’t necessarily expecting. It makes my films a bit more personal and it means that each one is tailored, coutured, a true one-off.

“The overall intention is to take you to a fantastic and sanguine place in your mind, a place where only a gig can take you, a place that every gig takes me.”

Request a copy of Blue's showreel

Download Blue's credentials (Adobe PDF)