Someplace Else is film about a collective of talented individuals – surfers Ozzie Wright and Dylan Graves, musician Hanni El Khatib, skateboarder Andrew Brophy and artists Jeff Canham and Rose Ashton were pulled together by Corona for a bus trip down the forgotten back roads of the Mexican coast. The mission was to find the common threads that bind creative souls.
“It’s very rare that you get a bunch of people together who don’t know each other and walk away from it super tight. The guys on this trip have been so awesome, I’d like to be on a bus trapped with these dudes all the time.” Said Hanni El Khatib, the collective’s resident muso.
Essentially this short film is six strangers who’ve been piled into a decommissioned transporter for seven days and seven nights, traveling dusty wastelands, surfing, skating, painting and jamming from dawn to dusk, meeting locals along the way, getting lost and experiencing the true heart and soul of Mexico. Capturing every moment was the film’s director Riley Blakeway, who not only has an eye for breathtaking scenery but also pretty killer music taste.
We asked Blakeway to give us a track by track run down on each song featured in the film. You can watch the film below, and read about the tracks in their running order.
Chris Hess – ‘Instrumental’
“Chris Hess is a friend of mine from California and a really talented musician. He plays in a band called SWIMM and I’d heard his music through a mutual friend. He recently wrote some beautiful music for me on another project so when it came to editing time for Someplace Else I knew I wanted to have him create another original piece of music for the film.”
Hanni El Khatib – ‘Save Me’
“‘Save Me’ just has a rad upbeat vibe and it suited the surf part of the film perfectly. It was suggested to me during the editing period and it was a perfect fit for the tone of this scene. There are good breaks in the music for the 16mm shots and the pace varies to keep the surfing interesting.”
Froth – ‘Lost My Mind’
“Froth is a small band on Burger Records – A Californian record label that I license music through a lot. I always have my eye on their bands and their catalogue. One of my buddies who is also on Burger showed me Froth’s music a while back and I gave the Patterns album a lot of airtime leading up to the edit. I think “Lose My Mind” would have worked in several of the segments, it’s such a rad track.”
Hanni El Khatib – ‘Family’
“I asked Hanni to perform whichever song would translate best to an acoustic version and Family was his pick. I was hyped on how it came out. The morning of the shoot he played me the first verse to check the sound and we pretty much could have ran with that recording had we been filming. His live performances are so consistent – It’s pretty remarkable to watch.”
Woods – ‘Cali In A Cup’
“Bend Beyond is another album I gave a lot of airtime to last year and I just felt this track kinda summarised the entire vibe of the trip. It’s moody and cinematic without being downbeat and to me it fit the closing segment of the film like a glove. Some tracks just feel as though they edit themselves and this was one of them. The visuals just compliment the music and vice versa.”
