Soda Blonde 'Straight into the Arms of Something'

Irish band Soda Blonde have always approached their music with a sense of scale, but bringing their album Dream Big to life with the National Symphony Orchestra at Dublin’s National Concert Hall pushed that ambition even further. Straight into the Arms of Something, directed by Alex Delap and shot by cinematographer Leon Forristal, captures that performance as a full concert film. Recorded in the summer of 2024, the project set out to preserve a rare collaboration between band and orchestra, with more than 65 musicians sharing the stage for one night.

The creative approach focused on immersion rather than spectacle. With such a large ensemble, the goal was to honour both the intimacy of Soda Blonde’s songwriting and the cinematic scale of an orchestral performance. Cameras moved fluidly between the band and the orchestra, allowing the film to breathe with the music. Leon Forristal’s cinematography leans into the natural rhythm of the performance, building a visual language that feels both expansive and personal.

Capturing that scale inside the National Concert Hall required a careful balance of precision and restraint. The production deployed eleven camera positions across the venue, each placed to reveal a different layer of the performance. One of the more unusual additions was an overhead remote-controlled camera rigged above the stage, offering a perspective rarely seen in the space. With such a large number of musicians and limited room to manoeuvre, every camera position had to be carefully considered in advance.

Lighting designer Conor Biddle shaped the atmosphere of the evening with a restrained and elegant design that complemented both the orchestra and the band. His work gave the performance a sense of depth without ever overpowering the music. The film now carries an added resonance, as Biddle sadly passed away this year. His lighting remains one of the defining visual signatures of the piece.

The finished film premiered at Dublin’s Lighthouse Cinema on Thursday 11 November 2025, bringing the concert to the big screen for the first time. What began as a live performance became something more lasting: a document of a singular collaboration and a night where orchestral scale met the quiet emotional weight of Soda Blonde’s music.