FEATURE:
A Second Date?
Will Amelia Dimoldenberg Explore Further Her Gift for Music Video Direction?
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I recently wrote a feature…
IN THIS PHOTO: Amelia Dimoldenberg directing Maisie Peters in the video for her track, My Regards (taken from her forthcoming album, Fluorescence)
where I talked about the sensational Brighton artist, Maisie Peters. I have known about her music for years now. However, as she has a new album coming soon (Fluorescence), I wanted to check in once more. I did not realise the video for her song, My Regards, was directed by Amelia Dimoldenberg. I am going to come to an interview with her soon. However, you will know Amelia Dimoldenberg as the creator and host of the hugely popular Chicken Shop Date. She is also doing her third stint as a Social Media Ambassador and Red Carpet Correspondent at this year’s Academy Awards. Prior to coming to this new side of Amelia Dimoldenberg as a music video director, I did want to bring in this BBC interview from last September. Marking ten years of Chicken Shop Date. This is someone who now has this huge platform and has incredible influence. In terms of similar interview series on YouTube and projects that take a lead from Chicken Shop Date:
“Amelia is speaking to BBC Newsbeat at an event set up to mark 10 years of Chicken Shop Date - the web series that made her one of the UK's best-known content creators.
It's a story that started at the Stowe Centre youth club in north-west London, where Amelia interviewed grime artists for a column in magazine The Cut.
She eventually began to film the conversations, framing each one as a "date" and uploading it to YouTube.
The success of Chicken Shop Date has taken her around the world and made her a celebrity in her own right.
But it didn't happen overnight.
"So many people I feel like don't understand the history of the show, the journey it's been on," says Amelia.
"Some people think it's been, like, two years."
The rise of Chicken Shop Date reflects "the journey of digital media and how that landscape has completely changed".
"When I started the show content creators weren't at the height they are now," she says.
"I spent so much time trying to persuade publicists, managers and talent to come on the show."
In 2014, Amelia suggests, social media wasn't seen as the best place to promote a celebrity's latest album, film or product.
"Now, 10 years later, it's completely the opposite and I'm batting people away," she says.
The 31-year-old believes Chicken Shop Date, and similar YouTube shows such as Hot Ones have leapfrogged more traditional chat shows to the top of many celebrity agents' lists when their client has something to promote.
While traditional TV viewing figures have been trending downwards, the reach of online personalities has only increased.
Alongside YouTube, TikTok gives content creators a place to share their best clips, drawing in more viewers.
Amelia has interviewed some of the biggest stars in the world, such as Billie Eilish
Despite them increasingly shaping many people's viewing habits, opinions and purchases, "content creator" is not always regarded as a "real job".
That's despite them contributing £2.2bn to the UK economy, according to a recent report.
"Obviously YouTube has been going on for 20 years, that is still a relatively new sector in terms of content creators," Amelia admits.
But, she says: "It should be easy for you to get a mortgage - it's a legitimate career."
Amelia was one of the high-profile YouTubers who put their names to a report produced by the video site earlier this year which called for greater recognition from the government, external.
"Taking people who work in digital media seriously is something I'm really passionate about," she says.
"We're storytellers like directors, like scriptwriters. We've been doing everything ourselves from the very beginning so I'm advocating for us."
This week an all-party parliamentary group (APPG) was launched with the aim of representing UK creators and influencers and building links with politicians.
Amelia says it's a sign that things are heading in the right direction, but believes there's more work to be done.
Amelia held space on the Chicken Shop Date schedule for Wicked star Cynthia Erivo
The MP in charge of the new group called content creators such as Amelia "trailblazers of a new creative revolution".
"I do feel like a bit of a trailblazer in the sense that there wasn't a blueprint but now there is," says Amelia.
Earlier this year she launched a summer course to train up the "next set of young creators", equipping them with some of the things she's learned since the start of her career.
"It's great to have an idea and put it on YouTube," she says.
"But you also need to have the right team around you to make sure it's not a flash in the pan and you can grow it in a sustainable way."
Amelia says "doing everything on your own terms" as a creator is "fantastic", but after a certain point "you need a team to actually continue at the same level".
Most fans of content creators know that it is, in fact, a lot of work.
The rewards for those who make it big can be huge, but there are many aspiring influencers whose careers never take off.
And even for those who do manage to become established, it can take a toll on their mental health.
A 2022 UK government report, external identified an influencer pay gap on the basis of gender, race and disability.
Amelia tells Newsbeat she wants to use her "privileged position" to give people from less well-represented backgrounds access to the resources to start careers as creators.
For anyone who wants to follow in Amelia's footsteps, and maybe end up interviewing musicians, actors and comedians one day, she has some advice.
"Do your research, always, number one," she says.
"Do as much as you can so you don't go blank when you're sat opposite someone.
"But saying that, I still do that sometimes.
"It's very hard to listen to someone and think of your next question at the same time."
And as for dating advice?
"It's all about sense of humour," she says”.
I do think that Amelia Dimoldenberg is going to have this incredible career as an actor. She recently appeared on the series, Industry. In terms of huge film roles and anything like, I am not sure what the future holds. A standup tour. However, when I saw the video for Maisie Peters’s My Regards, it made me curious how the collaboration came out. I brought int his i-D feature about the video for My Regards. Casting Peters as a hotshot star being hounded by fans, this collaboration with Amelia Dimoldenberg is perhaps the start of a long career in music video direction:
“It sounds like the setup for a shit joke: A popstar, comedian, and professional dater-turned-film director walk into an 18th-century mansion. They want to make a music video together. It could be chaos but also maybe awesome. It turns out it’s actually a little bit of both.
I arrive at Addington Palace in deep South London and accidentally saunter straight into shot: Maisie Peters, the big-gun British indie-pop girl, is filming the music video for her new track “My Regards.” Dressed in a black business suit, hair slicked and clipped into place, she is in bodyguard mode. Her client? A blue-jeaned Benito Skinner who, at this moment, is being set upon by a gaggle of rabid fans. Someone shouts “Cut!” It’s Chicken Shop Date creator Amelia Dimoldenberg.
This combination of characters was Peters’ idea. A mix of people she’d never properly met before but is a big fan of, like Skinner, and acquaintances who she shares a common language with, like Dimoldenberg.
The song is a sexy, country subversion of the boy-protector and girl-protected narrative. For the video, Peters originally had a different idea: “When I was writing, I very much saw it as this old country-and-Western film, with me on my horse and my boyfriend behind me,” she says. But after sending the song to Dimoldenberg, she had a different idea, inspired by one line: “Call me Kevin Costner / The way I’m guarding his body.” And so here Peters is less cowboy, more CIA.
“When Amelia had this idea, that the reason I’m so protective of him is because it’s my job, it clicked into place,” Peters says. “Then we agreed that this man in the video had to be a sex icon, and we both thought: Benito Skinner.”
Skinner’s in the makeup chair getting touch-ups, looking good, he thinks, because he’s recovering from food poisoning. He’s having fun. His preparation was pretty easy. He just listened to the song 50 times. “Not having any lines is kind of explosive,” he says. “Like, it’s all in the eyes.” (For most of the video, his star persona wears sunglasses.)
“When my brain brought me Benny, I realized that adds another level to it, because I know how funny Benny is, but he’s also genuinely gorgeous,” Peter says. Dimoldenberg, understandably locked in for the day, told me later: “He was the final piece of the puzzle.” Following the creation of Chicken Shop Date and directing her first short film, she felt like she was ready to add something new to her bow. “Stepping behind the lens for my first music video has felt like a natural evolution,” she says. “I wanted this to feel playful, humorous, and in line with everything else I’ve done.”
“She’s so stoic, thoughtful, and sharp,” Skinner says of Dimoldenberg as a director. “I feel like she’s going to be doing this a lot”.
Many people do not value music videos. I think they are really important and a necessary and powerful promotional tool for artists. They can add new layers and insights into songs. My Regards is a brilliant video for Maisie Peters. Amelia Dimoldenberg a natural director. I do hope that she can do more of this. Not that it is a second thread. She has many roles and is an actor, comedian, presenter and ambassador. I have seen this observed in a couple of features, but it is clear Dimoldenberg has this flair and visual style that I could see used on other videos. I don’t think we discuss music videos enough. Sectors of music of the past are disappearing. Opportunities for televised live appearances are dwindling. The once-arresting and hugely popular music video medium not really respected or exposed anymore. There is no end to the talent of Amelia Dimoldenberg. After My Regards and her work there, it will be fascinating to see where she heads and whether there are going to be further examples of her directorial prowess displayed elsewhere. I think this year will be one where Dimoldenberg is featured more on screen, either as an actor or director. This truly incredible human has…
A truly fascinating career.