Stealth Records presents: Inside Ibiza with Roger Sanchez

Written & Directed by: Terry Church

Camera/Edit: John Taws

After much awaiting, episode 3 of Inside Ibiza with Roger Sanchez is here. Throughout this series, director Terry Church takes you behind the scenes of Roger's DJ life and his relationship with the White Isle.  From Roger's residency at the island's superclub Space, to events for his record label Stealth, his studio sessions, and the characters around him, Inside Ibiza is a documentary that aims to get to the heart of DJ culture and Ibiza. For this episode, we're taken to view an entirely different aspect of Roger's career, to meet the people that attribute to Roger's vast success.

Catch episode 3 below, as well as Church's director's notes that dig further into the details of this particular episode. Watch previous episodes on Roger's Youtube channel here.

Director's Notes: Episode 3 of Inside Ibiza with Roger Sanchez

The first two episodes of Inside Ibiza focused mainly on Roger Sanchez' DJing activities and the clubbing life that he leads in Ibiza, so for this third episode I decided to take things in a completely different direction.

This episode begins with a scene of Roger's Events Manager, Maarten van't Veld (who often is accused of having the easiest job in the world), who floats into shot on an inflatable in a pool with a beer, whilst he mutters something about having a "hard life". This scene sets the tone for the episode perfectly.

I decided to add scripted humour to Inside Ibiza because DJs and clubbing industry folk in general tend to take themselves too seriously. A lot of the time, DJ interviews are pretty dry, and quite often they fail to capture the interest of anyone outside of the electronic music scene. Writing in humour, and setting up some scenes/interviews to be deliberately funny was my attempt to address these problems. I also hoped that it would allow us to show some of the unique and fun characters that surround Roger Sanchez in Ibiza. 

When it came to presenting the humour it would have made little sense to fill the entire episode with jokes (after all this is meant to be a fairly serious music documentary series), but by juxtaposing it in between scenes of Roger working in his music studio, actually elevated the humour to another level. 

Whilst Roger is working hard on beats, and enthusiastically explaining his set up and technique to the camera, we keep returning to interview snippets and scenes of Roger's staff fooling around like two naughty schoolboys. 

What's brilliant about this contrast (at least for me as a director), is that it is probably the closest that the documentary series comes to capturing the emotional truth of all three characters. Roger is the ever-diligent music producer who is obsessed with sound and rhythm. He is motivated by DJing experiences. Maarten is a beer-swilling Dutchman with a biting, sarcastic sense of humour and an unconventional work ethic. Jermaine is a former NYC nightclub doorman turned DJ touring roadie, a man who has never taken life too seriously. 

All three are endearing personalities, and I hope that by the end of the episode you feel like you really know them.

The track that Roger builds throughout the episode in his studio is 'Animalz', a new club single produced under his S-Man moniker.

- Terry Church

Be sure to stay tuned for the remaining and final 2 episodes of this series…