Had a new studio shoot this week — as in, a new studio space and a new project.
The clients didn’t have a huge budget, but recognized the need for video, and they were willing to move around some priorities to make sure this was done in high definition.
I’m amazed that some groups still ask for or even REQUIRE 480-based origination video. There are a lot of ways to shoot in HD as your source and downconvert from there if necessary. Even if you need a final 4:3 product. Even if this is “just for the web”. Even if you’re not sure how the project will evolve.
If you think your project can’t be done on HD… seriously, we need to talk.
Yes, that’s basically a no-go at most American radio stations. Yes, it’s harder to advertise gigs or be listed in event directories. Yes, it’ll difficult to have CDs in stores (Wal-Mart, I’m looking at you…).
For Shit Horse, though, that’s missing the point. More precisely — that’s EXACTLY the point.
Background: They came together… not as a joke, more like a conspiracy.
Part was purely accidental, possibly even a twist of fate: because someone else was sick, the first three members grabbed lead vocalist Danny Magic, pretty much off the street*. (*Possibly apocryphal)
Their first release is cassette-only, in June 2010. Let me make this clear: not June 1990. Cassette only, 2010. The band held to a strict “no digital” discipline all the way through the recording process, staying analog as long and as far as possible.
The first run of cassettes sold out, and they’re spooling a new batch. But many of their fans are overseas (Shit Horse is huge in the UK; check out the mania here, and Culture Deluxe’s postings; and some proof BBC Radio 6 likes them), and shipping individual tapes is both a time-consuming pain and relatively expensive. So the band and their label, Odessa Records, have relented and produced a digital album download — primarily to make it easier for non-US fans to get their music.
Hype Factor: The real question is: Are they the real thing?
Yes.
And like most real, authentic things, they’re far from perfect. Half their live shows are so great I’d swear we were witnessing the rebirth of rock, blues, soul, funk, punk and maybe a little jazz — all at once. They’ve made me wonder if this is the start of a new-millennial return to Americana music, with a fully aware, multi-racial, and multi-generational group (members are in their 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s) .
During those shows, I get my hopes up and think: the Delta blues were the call. The Rolling Stones were the response. Is it possible these guys are the fully realized testimony?
But then other shows can end with at least one band member storming offstage, swearing he’s gone for good. And if you’re in the audience, holding some hope in your heart, there’s a bitter tang of disappointment, as the band plays the soundtrack to every major letdown of your wild dreams and impossible hopes.
But they keep reuniting, and keep playing blistering, brilliant shows. At least for now.
What Happened:
And that should help explain why our Creato Destructo video team (helmed by Jerry Stifelman) would spend most of the summer and burn through many personal favors to crank out a three-act tribute/showcase/document — for a group of musicians that might not be playing together in the new year.
Some things, you do for the love of something bigger than money, free time, and air conditioning.
Sometimes, you just have to commit.
And so we did.
Preview: How I Spent My Summer Vacation
What about the “how” of what it took? That’s coming in another post.
This was an absolute blast to produce and edit, for several reasons.
I’m an Asheville, NC native, so to (finally) be part of the historic Penland School of Crafts family has a lot of personal meaning. Penland dates back to the 1920s and Lucy Morgan’s efforts to both learn native Southern Appalachian crafts and help residents market their wares. It has since evolved into an internationally-recognized center for craft education, history, innnovation and experimentation across a wide range of styles and media. Plus, its location and campus are simply breathtaking.
Penland has a benefit auction every year, with (mostly alum and faculty) artists donating pieces, and the proceeds going to help sustain the school’s mission. I basically showed up to this year’s auction (Penland’s 25th) with gear and recorded nearly everything and everyone I could. Okay, they knew I was coming, but this was a first-time experience for both of us.
The signature work — the art piece that was highlighted on all the promotional and marketing material, and the cover item for the auction book — was “Toric Knot”, a one-ton Cor-Ten steel sculpture by alumnus Hoss Haley. Early word was that Penland organizers and Haley himself would be delighted if the piece sold for its retail listing of $20,000.00.
You’ll have to watch (and listen) to the clip to find out what happens, but I believe the video captures a career-changing event in progress.
Haley sat down for an interview the day before the live auction, albeit somewhat reluctantly. He is a self-described taciturn Midwesterner, after all, and talking about himself isn’t on his Top 10 favorite things.
Still, he was a great interview subject — focused, insightful, honest and intelligent. The hardest part in editing his interview was simply cutting down and cutting out a lot of really good material — to let the truly great parts surface.
In terms of style, I also made a choice to reduce the level of polish. Most all of the transitions are simply cuts: direct and straightforward, just like Haley himself. There’s at least one dissolve, but it’s because the transition looked like a jump-cut on its own.
I also played with sweetening his audio, but the result was sterile. The interview itself took place next to a center of activity for the event, and I wanted to keep that energy and enthusiasm as a part of his discussion, even if it’s in the background.
As for the auction itself, it felt creatively “right” to stick to the opening, establishing scene and the closing/conclusion. The audio underneath the quotation cards also let viewers keep up with the progress, and build towards the final strike of the auctioneer’s gavel.
Ultimately, though, the piece is less about things — the sculpture, the selling price, the auction as event; and more about people — Haley, his wife, his real family and his Penland family.
And how on a magical weekend in August 2o1o in the mountains outside Asheville, NC, craft became art, and work became career.
I’m biased. I love “Garden & Gun” magazine, and have been a subscriber since their second issue. (And then, only because the first issue snuck past me and managed to sell out on newsstands). As a Southerner by birth and now by choice, I love how they blend a lot of different elements of Southern culture (high, low and all around) into an interesting mix, issue to issue.
The name’s also deceptive, since there’s usually incredibly little about gardening (breathes sign of relief), not so much about guns (awww…), but a lot about lifestyle — music, history, travel, food, drinking, etc. etc. etc.
The magazine also has a decent online presence, and the roots to really flourish from here.
This video is one example: Justin Townes Earle is Steve Earle’s son, and he now lives in Brooklyn, NY. He hasn’t yet been profiled in G&G’s print version (it’ll be the Dec/Jan issue), but this type of video profile is incredibly savvy for several reasons:
1. You can push content out far ahead of traditional print schedules. (Now, versus Dec/Jan issue delivery).
2. You can benefit from the work of other people (not just yourself or your staff). Earles obviously isn’t G&G’s in-house musician. And this piece was directed by Tim Sutton, who’s an art director in NYC — although he’s worked on a handful of G&G videos.
3. This external/different work (different aesthetics, different subjects and themes, etc) can bring in different, new, fresh audiences. You never want to be stagnant in terms of outreach, so a foray into music video can make great intuitive sense for a print publication — even though it may not make a great deal of short-term, direct-path business sense.
4. Your site needs a wide variety of content, period. Remember, your website is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. It’s like 7/11, always open. And that being the case, you want to offer a variety of content for a variety of content consumers, in a range of media types.
5. Sometimes, you just need to connect with bourbon-drinkin’, chain-smokin’, tattooed Southern musicians. Trust me. (Although you should red-flag any thoughts about a Ryan Adams profile. Again, trust me on this.)
All this said, you should now be thinking about what kind of video profiles might liven up your website.
— If you’re a college or university MarComm rep, you’ve got a wealth of alumni, donors, faculty, staff, students and community supporters out there. Why not go for some color?
— If you’re in the pop-culture/entertainment-media industry, you should be way ahead of this. If not, call me.
— Even for more traditional industries, there are a lot of great ideas that would be completely fun and help burnish your image while reaching into new demographics.
I’m also willing to hear the counter-argument, from those who might want to play it safer or more traditionally. So let’s hear what you have to say…
It took my good friend (and fellow bandmate & awesome drummer) Jeff Arthur years to get me into Massive Attack. I don’t know why I resisted for so long, but the album that did it for me was “Mezzanine” (1998). Probably because it featured more guitar; but damn, that album has some great songs on it. I know there may be purists that scream “Blue Lines!”, but it didn’t take with me back then. (And if “Blue Lines” didn’t cut it for me, “Any Love” and “Protection” had no chance.)
But “Mezzanine”. Damn. I’d basically forgotten how great this is until someone reminded me that “Teardrop” is the House television show’s theme song (basically, kinda, mostly). Which got me to go play “Teardop” again.
The song features lyrics and vocals by Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins. And the story has long been she wrote it in memory of her incredibly close friend and fellow musician, Jeff Buckley, who died a year before the album’s release. (So, probably, about the time the album was being created).The two had even recorded a song, “All Flowers In Time Bend Towards The Sun”, but it’s not commercially available…
Even without that backstory, the song is great, truly touching. The video carries the mood, and is equally enigmatic, and was directed by Walter Stern.
Fraser’s no longer participating in Cocteau Twins. She’s been doing a lot of other musical collaborations, and released a solo single in 2009. Word is she and husband Damon Reese may be working on an album.
Director Stern continues to make music videos as well as TV commercials.
And Massive Attack? They released the “Heligoland” album this year, and there’s talk of another studio album next year.
Another week, another new music video. This one is definitely a labor of love on many fronts, but first:
As you can see, this combines a lot of different visual and video styles (from regular taping to stills, to animation, stock footage, and other variations). But that variety serves to push forward a specific vision, based on a specific (and haunting) song by Future Islands, masterfully voiced by Samuel Herring.
Here’s what director Jerry Stifelman has to say:
“I’d been thinking about how all relationships in life — from human lovers to the way gravity holds us to the planet — are all about push and pull. I think this push and pull is at the root of all ecstasy and misery. And the sweet spot between this, is intimacy. This is what I feel when I hear Samuel Herring of Future Islands sing ‘so far away’ in the song, An Apology. It’s what I feel when I hear him sing ‘Here, in my chest where you burst, I keep the crush and the weight of the world.'”
“The moment where we connect with each other against ‘the weight of the world’ is the essence of this video. To get at this, we focused on people being, uh, facially intimate. Most of our subjects were real couples we found. In one case, we used an actor. And in three cases, we paired people together who had not kissed before. A big part of the video wasn’t just this interpretation of the meaning of the song, but its sound, which feels less like the conscious creation of a group of musicians than something they teased out of the world. It’s like a song found in the ruins of an ancient amusement park where lovers once walked together. To play to this feeling with the imagery, we used a lot of grain and visual noise, actually having images break apart into static, almost like the way nothing lasts in the world. Even the camera angles, were chosen to feel almost impersonal. I kept pretending the camera was actually an alien probe trying to figure human beings out. The distance between what the camera’s not feeling and what the people are adds to both the tension and the sweetness. To help universalize the emotions, we included the stop-motion footage of the wooden figures, along with the dolphins, the pigeons, and the goats. Because, you know, we’re all in this together.”
But the REAL story is we shot this in North Carolina, late one January evening, hoping we’d get some great nighttime footage, illuminated by just hand-held lights, lanterns, candles, etc.
Our first set-up was around 6pm. It started snowing about 6:30. And not just “North Carolina snowing” — these were real, fat, heavy flakes coming down in a hurry.
So we thought about that, and discussed it for a while. Our options were to either stop, because there’d be NO WAY to match any snow scene on any other day or night in North Carolina; or keep going that night until we had everything in the can. Yes, continue shooting in a snowstorm.
…So we went for it, with the full support of the band. I believe we wrapped up about 11pm that night; wet, shivering and frozen. But heck, Ari did most of the shoot without a jacket (he wasn’t wearing one during the first scene, so…) , a lot of the band members had to keep holding their instruments (including a very large, cold, snow-covered tuba), and people had to keep running up and down a very dark trail just to keep up with the set-ups. In the snow. Did I mention that?
And personally, I think it looks great. The snowfall looks fantastic and has production values we couldn’t have bought with Jay-Z’s platinum card.
Hats off to Jerry and Ari for making that call and sticking with it, and for the creative vision we now have with this music video.
For even more background, here’s Jerry’s description:
“The concept of is simple — Ari leaves his cabin in the night, walking through the forest, picking up members of the band along the way. Unlike many music videos, this one was as much about mood as concept. We wanted to convey a vibe that was appropriate to the song and the band. There is a feeling of timelessness to Lost In The Trees’ music. We wanted to be true to this by shooting under the light of the full moon supplemented only with candles — and by keeping the band dressed in simple vintage clothing. The idea was to make the “walk” to feel like it could have taken place 100 years ago. This made things hard for band members, many of who had to carry both their instruments and a candles while walking in the freezing snowfall. (This was especially hard for Mark, since he had a tuba to carry around). Another aspect of Lost In The Trees that makes them special is the genuine sense of family. Filming the whole group singing the song was an important part of this, and it turned out so special that we added the live audio of the band singing to backing track of the final video. If you listen, you can hear Ari laughing as he sings. The extreme cold and snowfall made even the most simplest things, like turning cameras on and off, became a challenge, but everyone hung together. Originally, we were going to film Ari actually walking into the lake, but it was so cold, we were afraid he might not come out alive. But ultimately we think the video’s open-ended finish is better leaving it up to the imagination of the viewer.”
I’d posted a link to this music video a while back, along with a brief story about the team behind it (Creato-Destructo Imagery, which is rolling with a number of projects).
Given the nature of the video’s “story”, we’ve received some interesting and thought-provoking feedback over the last few weeks. (Full disclosure, I officially served as the 1st AD on this, although everyone performed multiple duties — driving, to animal-wrangling, to prop mastery, to traffic coordination; among a few of the more interesting tasks).
To add some perspective, I got the director, Jerry Stifelman, to reveal some of his thoughts and artistic insights:
“‘Working Women/Lazy Demons’ is a catchy, bouncy song with a dark side. It is an ode to working woman, yet it’s also an insight into the singer’s dark side. It’s almost like he’s a vampire, sucking energy from working women to enable his torpor.
“We came up with the idea of the protagonist (who we named ‘Cal’ in honor of James Dean’s character in ‘East of Eden’) living inside his car and watching the world at a distance as a way to symbolize this. So on one side, the video depicts working women, yet always from the at-a-distance perspective of Cal.
“To cut against the upbeat theatricality of the song, we kept the imagery very naturalistic and documentary-feeling — while still doing things with slow-motion and camera angles to idealize the women, since we’re seeing them from Cal’s perspective. Unlike pop songs, films work best when there is some type of narrative arc, so we decided to bring the video to a resolution, when Cal actually breaks his lazy bubble and engages the worker at the gas station.
“To keep the ending from being too sentimental, we kept this shot very wide. This shot breaks from the rest of the video, which either focuses solely on Cal or sees via his perspective. The last shot is the film equivalent of breaking into third-person narration. Personally, to me the song has always felt a bit like one of those songs that used to open 70’s TV shows like ‘Mary Tyler Moore’, the freeze frame montage was a nod to those shows, which used freeze frames to celebrate characters.”
Who doesn’t love them some David Mamet? No one, that’s whom.
This famous “Coffee is for closers” scene from “Glengarry Glen Ross” has been a hit at least three times I know of: when the film version first came out; when the film version came out on DVD, and when the scene made it onto YouTube.
Note that I didn’t say anything about the buzz when the play first premiered.
That’s because the scene doesn’t exist in the original play script — it was written specifically for the movie version, and Alec Freaking Baldwin absolutely nails it.
So, why not take those words, strip them of cultural, historical, and social context, screw with the time period and setting, and see if it holds up? Why not indeed…
Ladies and gentlemen, the Confederacy of Awesome Players present their homage to David Mamet’s most famous scene:
For our first foray into animation, and specifically using the really neat Xtranormal service, we present a brief discussion of Apple’s recent communications regarding the new phone, and their iPhone OS update.
Also, it’s Friday, so we wanted to lighten things up.
James Hyatt 