Tottenham-based Jude Greenaway is half of Greenaway & Greenaway, which he runs alongside his brother, Jolyon, who is based in Berlin. They specialise in both commercial and artistic audio-visual work. They cover a range of skills including motion graphics, filming, editing and post production across different media including huge screens, projection and LEDs. Jude also runs two vinyl and digital record labels, Yellow Machine (‘experimental underground electronic with references to electro, old school hardcore, electronica and dub’) and Modified Magic (‘old school hardcore, jungle and bleep’). When we visited Jude at his studio on Markfield Road, he had just got the test pressing back for his fifth release on Modified Magic.

Jude told us that before he moved into his current space three years ago, he had seen the space chalked out on the floor.

‘I think it’s a bit of a shame that there’s not more community between the artists. It is a healthy mix of different people doing different things. I do like it here. It’s crazy to see how much this part of Tottenham has changed over the time that I’ve been here.’
Jude said, ‘I’ve been doing this kind of stuff since school. I’ve always known I wanted to do something creative.’ He studied a BTEC in graphics and film and then completed a degree in graphics and animation at Maidstone College. This was followed by a Masters in fine art video, which he completed in the south of France.

Jude explained that if he had to split the roles between himself and Jolyon, ‘Jo focuses on motion and moving graphics and I’m much more editing and sound. We both come up with ideas and help each other form projects.’

Jude previously worked for Light Surgeons making and editing club visuals and music. When he decided he wanted a change, Jude and Jo trialled some projects together producing some video content and music videos for bands. This went really well and that was the beginning of their business, Greenaway & Greenaway.

‘We’ve been fortunate enough to work with a wide range of clients, from big brands to quite big pop names, through to doing our own artistic work as well.’

Jude and Jo worked on Pet Shop Boys music video, Electric, which Jude found ‘really good fun.’ He continued ‘we did all the post production and editing.’ They also produced a video for The Who which was played just before the fireworks at the closing ceremony of the London Olympics in 2012. ‘That was a video about celebrating people. It was a few days of walking across London shooting video portraits of lots of different people. Fast paced edits covering a cross-section of all types of life across the city.’

At the time of our interview, Greenaway & Greenaway had just finished working on the AV tour content for the band Current Value. They are also working with a tourist museum in Norway.

We asked how Jude finds working with his brother in another country. ‘I think it’s quite healthy doing that. Getting full use out of What’s App – it works for us.

‘I’d be in here editing stuff or composing a track, Jo would be designing and animating elements and then we’d bring those together in an edit with music.’

Jude explained that when they start working on a new project, they work on the music first ‘Or [we] at least have the idea of the kind of track, the BPM, the mood or a skeleton track with a structure or tempo to work to. That sets the tone to create a visual story board. From that story board we would work on each scene and shot or then go out and shoot stuff and bring that in. All those elements come together over time, especially if we’re making the music as well. It’s beautiful when you’re at the point of sculpting both at the same time, but they’ve already grown together to that point and you’re just making them fit really well.’

‘The sound is 50% of the emotion in terms of how you experience a piece of work… I think if you can convey that emotion and have that down early on everything comes together.’

Jude told us that their biggest installation was a commission from Ron Arad for a project in the Roundhouse. Ron had designed and built a 360 degree curtain made out of 8000 silicon rods and different artists were commissioned to come up with a unique design to take over the space. ‘We wanted to work with the idea of architecture… rotating the space, taking details of the Roundhouse itself, twisting them up and throwing them back on themselves.’

They created a 10 minute experience where people could go inside and outside the space and be ‘taken away into this trippy architectural world.’ Jude told us.

‘I did a lot of filming where I managed to get up in the rafters of the Roundhouse. We did lots of tracking shots, pans of lovely details of the architecture. We created this other world out of these elements of the Roundhouse and designed it into this wrapping 360 film which was then projected back into the space.’

They also created the music to go alongside the experience. Jude told us the project was technically quite challenging and ‘it was very rewarding to have our work seen in that way’.

We asked Jude if he preferred working on a big scale. ‘One of the things we’re really interested in is films for spaces and designing films for environments.’

Jude has always been practising visual art and music has always been a side passion. ‘I’ve DJed for years and have been buying records since the early 90s.’ It was in the late 90s that he started making music. ‘The two have grown together.’ He explained.

A lot of Jude’s music work is electronic but he’s also written some classical pieces. ‘I once made a piece of music that was played by a small orchestra which was pretty special.’

He enjoys producing vinyl and explained, ‘making a vinyl is a true commitment to putting out the tracks, it’s worth making the effort to believe in the music and have other people play it’.

Jude has just put out the fifth release for his label Modified Magic and is working with two new artists for Yellow Machines. He has his own release coming out on a Spanish electronic label under the name ScanOne.

View videos of Jude’s work and see it come to life.

greenawayandgreenaway.com
soundcloud.com/yellow-machines
www.yellow-machines.bandcamp.com

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This article first appeared in the Music & Performance issue of Discovering Tottenham which was released in June 2018.