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We found the kid who’s in the video. He was the b
est actor we ever could have hoped for it. Molly Keane Fontaines D.C. Molly Keane describes her introduction to directing music videos as “the first jump into the sea at Seapoint of the year.” Although Keane has just one music video to her name at the time of writing, she is one of the most recognised names in photography, music or otherwise, in the nation. Keane’s work has ranged from a veritable trove of live music photography, to more politically centred works like The Humans Of Repeal project, to appearing on the second season of Sky’s Master Of Photography series during her sixth year in secondary school. So, it really was no small jump in logic to assume she’d be the right kind of driving force behind a music video shoot. Keane’s first outing in a director’s position resulted in the superb video for Fontaines D.C.’s Big. Her familiarity with the camera started young. Keane’s parents are directors and photographers. “I grew up in an extremely creative household. Where there were photography books lying around, everywhere, all the time. We have loads of lovely art all over the house and we watched films at home all the time as a family.” She describes her parents’ influence as foundational, though never particularly pushy. “I first picked up a camera myself when I was about nine or ten…They [her parents] were like, ‘just go out and take some photos outside in nature and see what you come back with.’ We grew up on top of a mountain in Donegal. It was a beautifully inspiring place to grow up in, visually… Looking back that kind of led to me wanting to capture the world as I see it and share it with other people.” Fontaines D.C.’s Big Landscapes are not what most would associate with Keane’s work. If anything, her work seems consumed with the individual. Her intimate, sometimes heartbreaking, portraits on the ‘Humans Of Repeal’ project illustrates the point. If landscape or location has played a role in her work, it is only so much in how the person in the lens interacts with their surrounds. This sense of the portrait emulated into the shoot for Big. Keane notes, “the idea for the video and how it turned out was formulated based on it being a portrait of Dublin and youth and hope. We found the kid who’s in the video (Finn). He was the best actor we ever could have hoped for it.” “The guys came up with this concept where they really wanted a one-shot video of this kid, kind of if he was a young version of Grimollykeanephotography.com an (Fontaines D.C.’s lead singer) singing the song as he was walking down Moore Street.” The minute detail of a photographer’s eye is everywhere in the finished product in Big, from a last-minute change in location from Talbot Street to Moore Street, to the opening shot of the lead wearing Grian’s old Doc Martins sporting an impression of the singer’s movement on stage. It’s in these small details that the nuance of humanity is captured. Keane works as a freelancer and courts job offers day-to-day, but going forward it’s certain that whatever projects she chooses to work on will strive to capture those nuances. 28