The success of This And That Media personifies how working hard in support of talented artists, becomes a mutual benefit to both the artist and supporter. The London born, Bristol based media channel emerged in 2016, filming music videos which earned a far-reaching reputation for consistent high-definition quality and adventurously memorable themes, whilst featuring some of UK hip-hop’s most iconic artists in the process. Soon afterwards, This And That Media caught more attention after releasing a string of freestyle recordings by talented Bristolian rappers, as well as visitors of the South-West city for a video series called Side Note.

2019 has undoubtedly been This And That Media’s busiest year yet, having worked prominently with labels such as Blah, Potent Funk and High Focus Records amongst others. With the release of the This And That Media 2019 show reel, we took time to speak with the man who single-handedly runs the channel - Dom Q, to reveal the stories behind filming each of the show reel’s 19 videos, behind the scene insights into working with the featured artists and more.

Interview by Evo @ethanevo
Photography by Bexus Potatus @wetpotato

“The first video of 2019 was Parallax - In Doubt For Too Long. It was a wicked first video I'd done man, really fun playtime with these effects that we were putting into place. It took ages to plan, it was so nice to have that as a first release. That was a nice indicator of what was to come this year, I learnt a lot of new techniques and I was just applying them to ideas I had. I was gassed with that one man, a cracking song. This video was released January 8th, 2019. We probably started it a couple of months before, we spent time planning it. We had four or five different storyboards written down in different documents, we had 55 pages of documents for that one. The transitions were crazy.”

“The next release was Icarus for Lazy Eyez, which was really nice to do as we were able to go back to his hometown, I got to experience his childhood upbringing because the whole song is about family and things of that nature. So seeing him in his element with his family was amazing, I was happy to film that. I knew him before, I actually met Lazy Eyes on the set for One Way Ticket for Dutch Mob. From my understanding Res was just starting to work with him or just getting to know him, so I met him from there and then we became best buds from that really. He introduced his song Icarus to me, and I was down straight away to do the video, I was gassed. It was really nice to do that, it was one of those ones where we knew what we wanted to cover, in the sense of what events of what themes. But we let it happen very organically because we didn't need to force anything, he and his family started playing Scrabble, he started going through photos and stuff, so that was ideal - all that stuff was genuine, organic and natural.That's why I really like that video, because nothing was forced, it was really nice.”

“I think the next release I had was Ramson Badbones, Weirdos which was released on 31st of January. That one was High Focus, he smashed that one but that was a really hard video to do, because he wasn't in the video and usually you base the whole video on the themes and story around the character. He didn't want to be a part of it, he didn't want to be a character so I had to devise a whole theme without including the artist. So that was a really hard one to do, but I'm very happy with the outcome, with the swirly faces. I got like 55 people from Bristol, fans of Ramson Badbones and I guess myself were happy to join in. So that was really cool, to get so many contributors to that one, that was wicked. I was gassed to do a video for him, I've listened to him from day so to be a part of his project was wicked man. I spoke to him about the ideas back and forth, but I was approached by High Focus.”

“The next one was Onoe Caponoe, Valentines Massacre which was released February 14th. That one was safe man, that was 100% his idea, everything was his idea and I was happy to go along for the ride, because his ideas were wild. I wanted to see them come to life, he wanted a no face, goth witch demon. He wanted to be a Japanese god in a green cloud, I was just down to see how it would turn out. I was just there for the ride man, that was a wicked one. This one was filmed, edited and released within five days.”

“Ronnie Bosh, 100% that dropped March 4th, which was fucking jokes because that was the first time I ever met him. We spoke online about the videos, then I actually met him for the first time on the set of 100%. It was just us two in a locked room basically, an all-white room studio. I was getting him to dance in his bathrobe and shit - that's trust right there! He just trusted my vision. It was for his solo album, All People Expect. It's fucking fire, I was actually lucky to do three videos on that, because that was his comeback album. He hadn't released anything for ages. I did 100%, You Know and Get Out, so big up Ronnie for getting me involved with them. Contact Play have been teasing people recently, they re-released their old album on vinyl which is sick, Champion Fraff.”

“That's You Know, with Ronnie’s floating head in the sky. I was actually on a train to Brighton to film CMPND, Fliptrix calls me and says, "Yo do you want to do another video for Ronnie?" The first thing I replied was, "Well we could just make him a massive fucking head in the sky?" That was the first thought that came to my head, then he was like, "Yeah fuck it, let's do that." Then I developed a storyboard, my influence and reference for this was that Rick and Morty episode, where them talking heads in the sky say, "Show me what you got!" I must have watched that episode that week, so I was like fuck it, I want to do that with a rapper. Rick and Morty is good inspiration man, the imagination on that is fucking bonkers. You Know was released May 31st, a little bit later down the line. That was a real hard one to edit, I literally just got all the head shots in a room with a white background, put it on a tripod and we did four or five different angles, because from the point of perspective of the camera in the video, sometimes you're looking really far away or sometimes you're looking directly up. We needed different angles for the head, we did four or five different angles. Made sure he was pretty damn still, then I just had to painstakingly mark out the head in editing. There's definitely better ways of doing it, but it worked out. It was real fun man, but real tricky to cut his head out - especially around the beard with all the stubble, but I'm very happy with it.” 

“After 100% was Eyes with Datkid and Leaf Dog, featuring Conway The Machine. That came out on April 12th, I was told they wanted a very, very simple video. Something more than just a loop photo, but not an entire video if you get me. So I had this middle ground to work with, we ended up doing loads of timelapses in cars just to add a bit of motion. I actually just bought a shitty, £10 car mount from Amazon. We did that, I set me DSR on it, no insurance or anything. It was just on the outside of the car, we were going on the motorway - I was fucking scared! It turned out alright, I actually used the same car mount for the Get Out video with Ronnie Bosh later down the line. It's worth getting man, it's probably not going to be good for longevity, it's probably broken by now but it was definitely good for this little project. I wouldn't say it's essential, it's not a requirement to film but if you wanted to film on a car, then yeah it's essential. You get some smooth ass shots man, the camera moves with the car so it's beautiful.”

“I've also done Cook Book with Datkid and Leaf Dog, on the same album. That was sick, a lot of that was actually filmed last year. Then because obviously, a lot of albums take time to come out from the point of preparation to execution, it takes fucking ages. So this was one of those cases where we just had to wait for the video to be inline with the album release. So we just touched it up a little, we added a few extra scenes but really, a lot of that was from 2018. But because it was a 2019 release, it ended up on this video. One of my favourite ones to film was Cook Book for Datkid, because I made my own camera rig so the camera would always follow him, like a GTA character if you know what I mean? I went to Homebase and bought £50 worth of plumbing pipes, I made my own fucking rig using a tutorial online and saved myself like, £400. So that was hella fun man.”

“We had CMPND, Whatuplayin@ which was just before on April 25th. That was the first video I did for CMPND, I asked to get 10/15 people for the background. We ended up having like, 50 people in a house. It was sick but fucking hard, a really good introduction to CMPND. I ended up doing four more videos after that with them, they were really good to work with man. They're doing bits, I'm excited to see what they're going to be doing in the future. I'd say they're mid-20's which is nice to work with, because I'm that age as well and I'm used to working with artists who are a little bit older maybe. So it was nice to work with people at the same stage of blowing up, know what I mean? I'm a fan of their music for sure, as you can tell with the song in the show reel - I've actually used Wundrop's instrumental for U Know We Fly, one of the hardest beats I've heard so I had to ask him for it straight away. This was before I even knew I was making a show reel yet, I heard the beat and was like, "That's for a show reel right there." Their music is hard, I think it's definitely bringing in some of that new sound to High Focus, a really good decision to endorse.”

“The next one was Flight 370 by CMPND, on June 7th. So this was my second round with CMPND, we both kind of knew how we both work so this one went off without a hitch. It was more arty, they had to trust my vision. There was a lot of sitting in a darkened room with a tripod, that's what you need really. Again, a fucking great project to work on with these guys. Recording these videos was spread out, I think we started these videos some time before they announced any release. So we had a lot of time to play with, we were going back and forth just building up the videos. The last CMPND release was on October 11th, the first release was April 25th. So I was on and off all year, working with these guys really. The releases of all the CMPND video was April 25th, June 7th, July 23rd, September 6th and October 11th. Five videos this year for their album.”

“After Flight 370 was Gimme, for Baileys Brown featuring Dabbla and Datkid. I think that's my favourite video of the year, that video's the one with all the frozen money, where everyone's throwing money and the camera moves through the scene, the money is stuck to the scene with it. I was fucking gassed, I don't want to give everything about the editing for this one away, but all the money I had to take photos of myself. So all the £20 notes, that's just one £20 note which I scrumpled in different ways. All the £50 notes, was just one £50 note and then I scrumpled it, took bare photos and then the rest, you're going to have to guess. That was inspired by films, I'd seen bare examples. In X-Men for example, there's one scene where the super fast dude in spinning around, there's water droplets in the air and shit. Also the Matrix, you know the bullet scene which is in slow-mo? There's so many, it's such a nice idea. I learnt how to do some 3D stuff in after effects, then the next step was money. Because the song was about money, gimme my money, yeah, it was ideal. I think if anything, the idea for this was fucking exciting because I really had to consider the world in a different way. I had to really challenge myself to get that right, because in the end there were like, 8000 video layers in that editing software. So that was a massive challenge, I love that because I love trying to learn something new.”

“There was another one for Baileys Brown called Something Else (Not Human) featuring Lee Scott and Dabbla again, that was a fucking fun one man. They hit me up, they had this idea to make a robot which you see in the video. I had no idea they were going to take it that far man, Dabbla made the robot himself with a friend, it was so good man, a really fun one to film. The film location is connected with Dabbla, he knew someone that has a workshop as a part of their job. We were lucky enough to use that, all the shit you see in there is genuine, workshop, robot-making shit baby. We kind of just took over it man, the robot and everything else was 100% legit. That was dropped on July 26th, it was just them two videos for that project. Props to Baileys Brown man, he has been killing it.”

“After Gimme was F.M.L with Lee Scott and Jam Baxter, which released July 12th. This was fucking awesome, I got a call from Baxter one day randomly saying he wants to invite me out to Spain to film. I was hyped because it was like, February or March or something - it was fucking freezing! So, I was absolutely gassed. It was a nice trip, it was maybe three or four days? Every discussion was creative, we got some good shit done man. That was cool, I rate them. The weather was good obviously. I think because we had so much time to play with it, it wasn't like we had to film everything in a four hour slot where I just came to London for the day. We were there for three days, we had time. So it was stress-free really, we just took it as it came and I think that was a really nice approach to filming these guys, because it just happened. We just had time to think about what we were doing, then let it be. That was the first video I'd done where Jam Baxter had his name on the song, but he was also a cameo for the Gimme video with Baileys Brown, he was there.”

“So that was actually the first one, then I've actually filmed with him since - I'd done a video called Red Hawaiian which released November 26th. That's one of the last releases of this year, and the last video in the show reel. That to me was like a victory lap, because I knew it was one of the last releases. I learnt these effects and I was so gassed to get Jam Baxter involved, so that was definitely the right project for that. In the first half, the hologram effects were dope to play with because you could do so much with it. You're not only messing with the X & Y axis, but you're doing the Z axis, the depth and... Anyway, I fucking love that one.”

“Space War 169 as well for Ivy Lab, with Onoe Caponoe and L-Zee Roselli. That dropped December 6th on their new channel, that was fucking sick because we were able to get a light technician to work on the project. That just brought a whole new fucking element of cinema to it, it was sick - it made the video. So that was an amazing one to work with as well, there was a bit of team play in that one. Shout out David Witchell, check him out on Instagram. He's been killing it, he's been behind some of the biggest videos this year in grime and other genres, so big ups to him all the time.”

“There's four more I haven't mentioned - on July 23rd, I did a CMPND video called Paraphrase which was the one that was all pink and blue in Brighton. I made the colour grade like it's Tokyo, but in 2049, know what I mean? That was a fun one, a very quick one really. We just kind of ran around the town and found some great spots, then I just fucked about with it in editing. That was a very nice one to do, we were very comfortable with that.”

“Then we had CMPND E.W.A, which released September 6th. That was a sick one, with the themes of the white chair and the car. In editing I was able to make it seem like the car was a million miles away, surrounded by darkness. That was another great one, I think CMPND I've worked with them the most this year. I've got no regrets, I really enjoyed it.”

“After E.W.A was OTHER MC’s BIRDS by Lee Scott and Jam Baxter, that was dropped September 30th. That was really fun, I actually just filmed and did a bit of editing, but the main edit and animations, colour grades was done by Dew8 - he works closely with Lee and Blah I guess. So that was really nice to collaborate on with him.”

“The last video we haven't mentioned yet is Hindenburg, for CMPND featuring Fliptrix, Dirty Dike, NuphZed Stinkin Slumrok, HERBiCiDE. It's like a big posse cut, you have to check it out. It's like seven to ten minutes long, it was a mad one to edit. Again, I had one day to film seven artists. So that was fucking stress, then I had about three days to edit it. So that was hella painful, but a really fun one because again, I played with these new techniques I learnt. So that was great, that dropped October 11th.”