Behind Bowie's No Plan with Tom Hingston

Earlier this year director Tom Hingston marked what would have been David Bowie's 70th birthday with the release of No Plan.

shots caught up with the director to find out more about the production of the video, why the team decided against using post and how he kept Bowie's fans at the forefront of his mind throughout.

Tell us about the video and the concept behind it. 

This falls into two parts really. First and foremost, the film was intended as a gift to the fans, on what would have been David’s 70th Birthday, so for this reason I was keen to infuse the piece with a number of knowing references, that any discerning fan would recognise and understand.

The track itself is really beautiful, it has this theme of disembodiment - a sense of occupying another space, which is not of this time (indeed in places the song itself is out of time). So I wanted to create a situation which felt familiar, yet somehow out of place; a recognisable street setting, with its day-to-day rhythms and then this hypnotic, otherworldly scene playing out within it.

How did you become involved in the project?

I’d worked on a number of projects with Bowie in the past - including two videos for ‘I’d Rather Be High’ and Sue’ (Or In a Season of Crime) - so there was an existing relationship there.

What were the biggest challenges you faced?

There are always a number of challenges attached to creating any piece of moving content - but our main challenge came from wanting to shoot the whole thing in camera and then spend time grading - but with no post. Approaching it in that way gives the final piece a unique quality.

And of course the other big challenge was making sure that I was creating something really special for the fans - something that would have a strong emotional connection. It’s a great honour to have been asked to do this - so achieving that was very important to me.

The colour pallet features a lot of sombre colours, tell us about this choice.

I wouldn’t describe the palette as sombre necessarily, in fact there’s a certain hypnotic quality to the different hues of electric blue that wash across the screens - I actually think there’s something quite beautiful about that.