Cait Byers’ love for creating began at a young age, but only really came to fruition when she started looking at photography in secondary school. She looked into portrait photographers who pushed boundaries like Marta Bevacqua and Emily Soto, inspiring her to explore the presentation of the weird and surreal through the medium of imagery. This progressed more during her time in college, where she worked on producing portraiture images, exploring abstract and embracing quirky themes. She drew inspiration from stories such as Alice in Wonderland, Bridge to Terabithia and Narnia, combining these themes with the image inspirations of her favourite photographers. Cait experimented with multi-media; using collage-making, scanography and photography to produce other-worldly portraiture images.

 

Investigating films during the process of creating these portraits, specifically the cinematography of her favourite films, Cait took an interest in what goes into filmmaking, and the preproduction and collaboration that is necessary. When applying to universities, she looked into both photography and film production courses before coming across the Northern School of Art. Deciding to go to the NSOA with dreams of pursuing cinematography.

 

Cait started with aspirations to eventually specialise in cinematography at university but was excited to gain practical skills and professional knowledge of the process of filmmaking.

 

Over the past three years, she has worked on a variety of interesting, challenging, and exciting projects, which have allowed her to work closely with local creatives on things such as short films, theatre shows and music videos, focusing mainly on the visual side, being in the camera department.  From working on the visual side of filmmaking, Cait discovered how the Art Department and Art direction is involved in the mise-en-scene, how the look and feel of a project can come from the process of set design and prop making. Along with this, Cait worked with MAAD Productions creating music videos and found their art direction fascinating and pushed her to investigate further.

Putting these things together, Cait found art direction in music videos would allow her to combine her passion for visual imagery with her love of the weird and abstract. Eventually, Cait wants to work in art direction, specifically in music video production.

 

To progress in her journey to becoming an art director for music videos, she will be continuing her studies at The Northern School of Art, opting to study for her Masters in the MA Arts Practice course. In that year, she will be collaborating with fellow filmmakers and creatives to produce innovative and quirky music videos for a range of Northern artists.

 

Still massively inspired by all things weird and wonderful, Cait hopes to create music videos that entice the viewer to look further into the world of the abstract. She is inspired by the work created for artists like dodie, Doja Cat, Tyler, the Creator and Chappell Roan and hopes to bring a fun, artistic style for North East musicians.

 

 

Drawing from her inspirations, in creating these videos, Cait wants to develop her practical art skills, in prop making too, she wants to experiment with creating masks to bring strange and abstract characters to the stories of the videos she makes. Cait is enthusiastic to continue working with other artists to expand her portfolio and experience, personally and professionally.