Brendan Fletcher /Crowe background

(Cinematographer, Associate Producer) on TOFOG's 'Texas' & Music videos 'Circus' & 'Memorial Day' & Crowe mates Aussie Bike Trip - Who are you looking at?

HQ - June 2000 By Alex Craig.

In late July last year a group that calls itself La Famiglia (Italian for family) hit the road on their Harley, Ducaits and Honda bikes to travel into he outback for three-and-a-half weeks. La Famiglia is a loose community of Crowe's friends, associates and family who get together for rides and to stay in touch. This was the biggest trip yet and attracted a crazy mix, from an LA costume designer to a childhood friend who owns a plumbing business. Crowe asked independent filmmaker Brendan Fletcher who had filmed a Grunts music video for the song "Circus" late in '98, to come along and film it with him. The journey took them from Darwin to Alice Springs to Ulura and all the way back to Sydney with friends flying in for various legs of the trip.

"It was a pretty full-on experience recalls," Fletcher. "When you enter into a project with him you certainly enter into a project where you're up to be pushed. You know, he's demanding to work with but Russell's dedicated to pushing the creative process to its limits. As a person he's just so intensely creative and always has so much energy…it's great to be around that there's not slack. It can be rewarding too to see where the commitment to an idea can get you. I mean he likes to get the most out of life is what it comes down to."

Release of "Memorial Day" Single and Video

The release of Memorial Day is accompanied by a music video that combines footage from Easter Action In Bougainville with the work of filmmaker Richard Frankland and new dramatic footage shot recently in Northern NSW by Crowe, American director Brett Leonard and Sydney cameraman Brendan Fletcher. The result is a striking and at times harrowing video that is sure to receive attention in the lead up to Anzac Day.