Joe Lonie
Director
Joe Lonie began making music videos while playing bass for legendary band Supergroove. Since then his 60 plus music clips — four of them Tui award-winners — have included one-shot wonders Gather To The Chapel (for Liam Finn) and Blowin’ Dirt (for Goodshirt). On top of a busy commercials career, and a Cannes Gold Lion award, Lonie began adding drama to his CV in 2012, thanks to two short films set in a moving vehicle: foulmouthed, festival-hopping taxi tale Honk if You're Horny, and rock band short Shout at the Ground. He also directed South Auckland-set web series The Factory.
Filmmaking is the best job there is. Every time I get the chance to do it I count myself extremely lucky. Joe Lonie
Shout at the Ground
The Factory
Web series The Factory is the tale of a South Auckland family and their love of music — and one another. The Saumalus compete at a $50,000 talent contest, on behalf of the textile factory where their father and grandfather Tigi work. But the family are keen to play something more modern than the traditional Samoan music Tigi favours. The 20-part web series features the Kila Kokonut Krew team, who originally created The Factory for the stage. The pioneering Pasifika musical went on to headline the 2013 Auckland Arts Festival, and was performed at the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
The Factory - Series
In this music-heavy web series, a South Auckland family competes in a local talent quest. Alongside battles over performing the traditional Samoan music favoured by their grandfather, the Saumalus have to deal with a dodgy competitor and some last minute changes of tune. There's also romance, heartbreak, and a shifty Palagi factory boss. The final episode (of 20) features behind the scenes bloopers. Directed by music video veteran Joe Lonie, The Factory began as a highly successful stage musical from South Auckland-based theatre group Kila Kokonut Krew.
Honk if You're Horny
Don't Feed the Ducks (Wonder Performance bread)
The Devil Dared Me To
From the duo (Matt Heath and Chris Strapp) behind bad taste TV series Back of the Y, this feature follows Randy Cambell's rocket car driven mission to be "NZ’s greatest living stuntman". Gross and petrol-fuelled palaver ensues en route to a date with speedway destiny, as Cambell romances a one-legged female Evil Knievel, and fights a not-so-death defying family curse. Scott Weinberg (Cinematical) praised this low budget "cross between The Road Warrior, Mad Magazine and Jackass" as "loud, raucous and adorably stupid" when it premiered at US fest SXSW 2007.
Gather to the Chapel
Another all in one shot beauty from director Joe Lonie, this gorgeously-crafted video was filmed in and around the historic St Stephen's Chapel above Auckland's Judges Bay and Parnell Baths. The camera floats through pohutukawa trees and Auckland pioneer gravestones as an ubiquitous Liam Finn exhorts everyone to gather by the chapel. The tiny, elegant church in question was built by Bishop Selwyn, and as it turns out, just around the corner from where Finn grew up. 'Gather to the Chapel' appears on his first solo album, 2007's I'll Be Lightning.
Falling
Sophie
How long does it take to remove all the furniture and fittings from an apartment? If you’ve got band Goodshirt on the case, apparently three minutes and 45 seconds. One of a series of Goodshirt music videos directed by Joe Lonie, all of them filmed in one continuous take, this clip highlights the dangers of having the volume up too loud. As a young woman listens to Goodshirt’s latest single, she is unaware she is being robbed her of everything she owns. Sophie took away three gongs at the 2003 NZ Music Awards: Best Video , Best Single and Songwriter of the Year.
Blowin' Dirt
Goodshirt's attention-grabbing promos were typified by high concepts rendered with low-budget No 8 wire smarts — often with game participation from the band members. This mind-bending creation by director (and ex-Supergroover) Joe Lonie is no exception: a Mazda 929 (or an Austin 1300, if you watch the video's other version) is re-deconstructed, before leaving in a cloud of smoke, loaded with frog men. Lead singer Rodney Fisher gives the standout performance. He had to sing every lyric backwards to achieve the desired time-warping end result.
Screems from da Old Plantation
"Samoa mo Samoa!" — King Kapisi blends his Samoan roots with hip hop culture in this video shot on Samoa's ring roads. The hip hop music video standby of the drive-by gets revised Pasifika-style, and the fire poi, papase'ea sliding rocks, lavalava, coconuts, and colourful Apia buses make this clip staunchly fa'a Samoa.
Pressure Man
The first single off mutli-platinum 1998 album Supersystem helped bring Christchurch rockers The Feelers to a wide audience. For the video, director Joe Lonie has been given the resources to pull out all the stops — maintaining momentum with constant motion and cutting, while underlining the pressure motif by having the band performing in a boiler room, and claustrophobically running through a pipe. 'Pressure Man' was nominated for Best Video at the 1998 New Zealand Music Awards. Lonie had first begun making music videos while playing bass for Supergroove.
If I Had My Way
This single from Supergroove’s second album Backspacer (1996) reached number seven in the charts, and captures the band's shift from funk to rock after the exit of rapper Che Fu and trumpeter Tim Stewart. The lyrics ask "who would you kill?". Via madcap music video logic, they’re channeled into a fictional TV show, an exercise equipment promo, a pigsty, ice-skating rink, and a burning piano on a beach. The results won Best Video at New Zealand's local music award ceremony in 1997. Bassist Joe Lonie and cinematographer Sigi Spath had won it the previous year, for 'You Gotta Know'.
Derail
From Shihad’s first album Churn, the video for 'Derail' is a dark and unsettling affair, recasting everyday Kiwi pursuits in a tense, almost disturbing manner. It’s directed by ex-Supergroover Joe Fisher (now known as Joe Lonie), who marries their dissonant riffs and twisted time signatures to black and white footage of horse racing and punters at the track. Added to the kiwiana gothic mix is some serious looking gumboot tossing, churches and religious imagery: cows and power pylons, golf, bumper boats, roller coasters and dodgems.
Sitting Inside My Head
Shot in alternating colour and moody black and white, this is a straightforward music video: cutting together a wahine washing her hair in a basin, with the band performing on a garbage strewn wasteland, slo-mo strolling along a city street, and singer Che Fu (Chicago White Sox cap and duffle coat) wandering a wintry North Shore beach. Director and band member Joe Lonie captures lively performances from the band's multiple members, to help bring the clip to life.
You Gotta Know
Black, white and red exuberance abound in this award-winning music video from Supergroove. The band's funk-heavy live performance is intercut with scenes of the band clowning around at the Otara Market, on a Three Kings volcano, and crowded into the back of an open-top VW. The hairstyle of vocalist and future Cambridge classics scholar Karl Steven — shaved, aside from an extended fringe arrangement at the front — is a relic from another era. An alternative video made for the same song revolves around the band doing everything backwards.
Can't Get Enough
It had to be a big ask getting all seven members of Supergroove in one shot and looking good for this video, but the result trips along with pace, great upside down special effects, and some bonus goldfish. Shot in one epic, 18 hour session, Can't Get Enough was one of the earliest Supergroove videos directed by bassist Joe Lonie, who went on to helm 50+ clips for everyone from King Kapisi to Goodshirt. In 1995 'Can't Get Enough' was the first of a trio of Supergroove videos to take away the supreme award for Best New Zealand Music Video of the year.
Scorpio Girls
Supergroove's 'Scorpio Girls' hit number three on the NZ charts in 1993 and was the band's first single to attain gold record status. It was also included as the opening track on their 1994 debut album Traction. The video, directed by Supergroove bass player Joe Lonie, translates the band's sense of fun and boundless energy to the small screen, combining live performance clips with footage of the band members, armed with torches and running through the old tunnels at North Head on Auckland's North Shore.