Orange Juice (1984)

In the early 1980s, Jarman struggled to get feature film projects off the ground and invested his energies in different fields, including music videos. In 1984 he made the promo for ‘What Presence?!’ by Scottish post-punk band Orange Juice, as fronted by Edwyn Collins. Before the official shoot, however, he visited the location and made this tape, trying out shots with a newly acquired Olympus VHS camera. The warm colours and fuzzy softness of the format, plus the decision to shoot handheld, imbue this little-known, rarely seen artefact with a palpable directness.