Music, Sports, Video - My 2024 Review!
- georgemattock
- Jan 2
- 9 min read
It was during a zoom call in 2023 that I found out how big of a year 2024 was going to be for me work wise. Alongside my plans for ambitious (and frankly ridiculous) videos and music, Getty Images was going to send a videographer to the UEFA EURO 2024 Final week in Berlin. And that was going to be me. And on top of that, I would be one of 2 videographers going to the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris (alongside Xavi, who joined me - legend!). 2024 was a year full of travel, great content and amazing experiences.
The year started off with an exhilarating trip to Iceland with my good friend and talented filmmaker Bilal Bounit, to create the craziest video I have EVER attempted - for my latest track ‘Twilight’. I have never written about my music on a blog like this before, but I have made some videos on it. I started making electronic music during lockdown in 2020, I have had a few ‘track of the week’ records on BBC Radio, and 10’s of thousands of streams around the world. For my track ‘Twilight’, featuring a fellow Brit Rory Hope (amazing voice) - I wanted to create a video about the story of chasing one of the world’s most beautiful and rare sights - the Northern Lights. Something which captures the brutal reality of Mother Nature, the unpredictable weather, and the high stakes of making something like this happen. Here is a link to the outrageous music video :
As you can see, it didn’t go quite to plan. We arrived in Reykjavik on a 2 day trip, to thick cloud cover, extreme 100mph winds and cancelled Northern Lights trips. Oh, and there were active volcano eruptions on the Reykjanes (5 miles from where we were staying) to top it off. To say it was not looking good was an understatement. Obviously we rallied on, captured what we can with the drone (which almost got blown away in the wind) and camped out in a remote spot, a few hours north of the Icelandic capital - hoping to see the elusive northern lights. Ultimately, the 2 day trip turned into a mildly unsuccessful adventure - so we returned home, running on 3 hours sleep; wondering what to do next.
For me, it was clear the job was not finished. A month later, I booked a flight at 6PM for the next day at 7AM. My friend Nathan (standing in for Bilal, who sadly couldn’t make it) and I jumped onto a plane at Stansted for the most last minute, high risk trip I’ve ever done. After tracking the weather, reading an embarrassingly high amount of articles on the science behind the northern lights; and monitoring the Icelandic met office forecast for everyday since we got back, I saw a window. Clear skies, and a high chance of Northern Light activity. As soon as we landed, we drove for hours in our hybrid VW (the heated seats came in handy) to the same remote spot as before; and I captured some of the most beautiful video I have ever shot. With Nathan driving, and me out in the -15 celcius climate, the drone shots speak for themselves. Although this was outrageous, this was not what we came for. We talked plans in the journey back south, about where we would go and about how little sleep we could run on, the next day. After hours of uncertainty, not knowing if our risky adventure was worth the hassle - we had the most incredible Northern Lights display. Even to the naked eye, the deep, bright green trails of the natural phenomenon lit up the nordic sky. Thank goodness they did, as we returned to Suffolk 6 hours later. I am so proud of the video, and to date I am confident it is my best music video. I love the idea of leaving a legacy, creating something that will be around long after I’ve gone - and this track plus the video will do just that. Bilal, Rory and I created a ’behind the scenes’ video of how we made everything - and you can watch it here (including how our hire car got crashed into in a car park) :
And as I write this, I’m about to release a brand new track that is even better than Twilight. It’s called ‘Dreamers’ and it comes out on Friday, 17th January. Start your new year right with an emotional, progressive track about the craziness of being in your 20s, heartbreak and working out what on earth we should be doing with our lives! You can pre-save it here now : https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/vekken/dreamers-what-we-need-now
After releasing Twilight, my most popular track to date - I continued working on music, and on my video work with Getty Images. I love shooting video. I find so much joy in creating something with my cameras and my imagination. The next few months were full of video assignments, Formula 1 edits and football editing. One huge highlight of the year for me was my team Ipswich Town securing back-to-back promotions from League One to the Premier League. Having watched Town for 20 years, and not seeing a single promotion - we got to see 2 in 2 years, and of course I had to film the gigantic promotion parade through town. 55,000 people lined the streets, hanging out of windows, on roof tops, pubs, cars to welcome home our heroes. What an honour to capture a real slice of Suffolk history. How lucky am I to call this work?
And then my phone rang in late June. 3 days later I was sat in the First class lounge at Heathrow Terminal 5 (thanks Clive). Montreal was the destination, working on the Gran Turismo World Series in the Canadian province of Quebec. If you know me, you know that my career in video / media started thanks to me racing on a video game (believe it or not). Sim racing is a much more accessible alternative to real life motorsport vs karting. For the previews for the event, I joined the drivers on a cycle ride around the city which was amazing. Good weather, and we even got the chance to cycle the Formula 1 track (Circuit Gilles Villeneuve) which was a real highlight for me.
The amount of incredible races that took place here, that I have watched over the years back home on TV and here I was taking the racing line on a bike. Although I don’t think I would be challenging for a purple sector any time soon. And of course, being in Montreal I had to try the local cuisine. Here is a picture of my ‘poutine’. Fries, cheese curds and a LOT of gravy. If you are in Montreal, you HAVE to try it!
After returning from Canada, a few hours later I was editing the first semi final of the EUROs in the Getty office, then headed straight to the airport for the final in Berlin. I felt so privileged to be at England’s second consecutive EURO final, and to be covering the press conferences and pre match build up was amazing. A highlight of the trip for me was going up to the top of the Bell Tower of the Berlin Olympic Stadium. Built for the 1936 Olympics, it was slightly damaged by a fire after the end of WW2 and was taken away from the tower when British engineers took it down after it was weakened by the blaze. This was the view from the top :
Work wise, it was so cool to be in the press conferences for Spain and England, to be in the stadium before the game, to be filming at the fan parks around the city, and just enjoying the European summer. Sport really has the power to unite people, and we always see that when England play in major tournaments. For the actual final, I was at the stadium until just before kick off filming outside. Then I headed over to the Brandenburg Gate, to the fan zone packed with 80% England fans, and not many Spanish fans. Sadly, we all know how the game went for England. A disappointing end to the trip from a sporting perspective, but a really fun week in a new city. Shoutout to my colleague and excellent Getty Staff Photographer Alex Pantling for convincing me to try Sushi whilst in the German capital. I will not be doing that again!
The day after England’s EURO final defeat, I flew straight to Paris for a 4.5 week stint to begin my Olympic trip. I arrived a couple of weeks before the opening ceremony. We had an amazing apartment / hotel building that a few of us from Getty stayed at, and an awesome office in the Main Press Centre. For the days leading up to the much anticipated opening ceremony (which included all of the countries on boats sailing down the river Seine!), my role was to film preview content around the city. Think big landmarks, news stories (the water quality in the river before the triathlon was a big one), and anything else that came up! One of my highlights was going up the Montparnasse Tower a week before the opening ceremony. I was waiting for a really nice, clear sky for a beautiful sunset timelapse. I had done a few around the city before, but I had my eyes on a sunset timelapse from the top of one of Paris’ tallest buildings. And wow did it deliver a beautiful sunset!
Sadly, the opening ceremony had quite the opposite weather conditions - I was in the same position for 5 hours holding my spot. It was wet.
One of the reasons I loved working at my first Olympics was because everyone there working for Getty was the best in their field. I always think if you are the best in the room, you won’t learn anything. I certainly was not the best in the room at any point in my 4 weeks in Paris, so I did lots of learning which I continue to put into my work today. Xavi was awesome to work with and I hope to create some more video with him in the future, as he has worked for Prime, Netflix and many others. Sometimes when you do the same thing over and over, you plateau and don’t progress - certainly Paris was good for my development in that sense, being in a special environment like the Olympics. One of my favourite shots I captured was this evening long expopsure timelapse under the Arc de Triomphe :
And I will quickly mention another great project I worked on in Paris with the projections team. Maja Hitij, David Ramos, Carmen Mandato, Hector Vivas, Ryan Pierse worked together to create the ‘Parisian Projections’ idea that really grew across the games. In short, they projected the most compelling pictures of that days events onto the streets of Paris for the public to interact with, seconds after they were taken. It created such a buzz online and really struck a chord with the locals. I joined them for a few evenings to create a BTS video on how the project worked - you can watch it here :
And just over 4 weeks later, after hundreds of gigabytes of video and photo, and countless hours in the French summer, I was in a transfer heading back to the airport. What an amazing experience that was, and my first Olympic Games will be something I remember for the rest of my life. Thank you to Matthias, Paul & many others for the opportunity.
And after a whirlwind summer, I took a couple weeks off at home - with a pitstop in Ibiza to go backstage for Calvin Harris (massive thanks to Wayne Sargeant, a family friend and total legend!), to hear my music played out at Ushuaia in front of a packed crowd (!) and to see Martin Garrix (I hope he checks his email for my new track that comes out in 2 weeks 😀). Good networking opportunities. I then headed west to New York for my birthday in September, shot video outside the NFL London Games (and even had a ticket to watch the Vikings beat Aaron Rodgers' NY Jets), before rounding off the year with a short trip to Amsterdam for the Gran Turismo World Finals in December. I never thought I would have had this much travel in 2024.
I will always be hugely thankful for these opportunities with my work, and I’m excited to take things a step further in 2025 with more music, more videos and some really exciting projects. Sony are kindly sending me their brand new flagship A1 II very soon to test out - keep an eye out for that video and lots more on youtube.com/georgemattock. And make sure you check out Vekken and add my music to your gym playlist! If you made it this far, thanks a lot for reading and I hope you enjoyed reading this. I wish you a happy & healthy 2025!
George Mattock
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