We Are The Masses » Director’s Journal

Crystal Antlers “Knee Deep”

vanessa — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 21:30:13 +0000

I wanted to create a video that reﬂected the mood of Knee Deep and the feeling that Crystal Antlers‘ newest album Two Way Mirror in a really magical town just south of Ensenada, Mexico, and we visited there again shortly before the albums release. To direct a video for this song was a culmination of sorts of watching the album come into being.

Check out some photos of Crystal Antlers’ time in Mexico here

Two Way Mirror is undeniably an amazing summer album, but it has a melancholy and desperation lurking under the surface. In “Knee Deep,” tension between the dreamy fuzzed out music and the vocal delivery and lyrics had always intrigued me and I wanted to play with that visually. I wanted to take the bright, archetypal sun-drenched imagery of SoCal summer in a bucolic suburbia and turn it into a video that had a definite sadness to it.

This is what led me to the idea of a depressive anti-hero–what could be more depressing than cleaning other people’s pools on a sweltering day? On the other side of the street, the band hangs out and practices. I wanted the two different experiences happening simultaneously to be tied together by a very palpable sense of environment.

We shot the video with no budget on one long summer day in Westminster at Kevin and Jonny’s houses respectively. Crystal Antlers, as always, were incredible to work with. James Kirkland, a good friend of the band’s and an incredible actor, played the part of the pool cleaner. Amazingly he was able to simultaneously sink, hold his breath, and emote underwater with directions like “reach for the invisible jellyﬁsh and smile.”

Special thanks to Michael Reich for his camera work, and Van in the role of young “James” who was an incredibly enthusiastic participant and expert jellyﬁsh smasher. (No actual jellyﬁsh were harmed in the making of this video.)

Oh, and if you’re in Europe go see Crystal Antlers on tour in the coming weeks!

-June Zandona

CLICK HERE TO WATCH “KNEE DEEP”

Making “Mercy”

mattamato — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 23:48:31 +0000

My good friend Nicki Nevlin, the bassist in Light FM, asked me if I could put together a video in less than two weeks on a super limited budget in preparation for their show at SXSW. She also said the band members didn’t really move around all that much, so a performance video probably wouldn’t be that exciting. Given that we only had one day to shoot, and that I’d just spent four intensive months on a video that involved two types of animation and live action, all I could think of doing was a performance video, but the trick was making it interesting.

The song was so kinetic that I figured the best way to balance the band’s um…”stasis ” in the performance arena was to have a lot of movement in the camera. Given the jerky way the song moved, still photographs kept coming to mind. Stills could be slowed down, sped up, and shifted around in order, while providing the frantic, electrified movement the song needed.

We filmed it all in about four hours at a friend’s empty loft downtown. At its inception, the idea seemed pretty straight forward and easy, something I could knock out in a day, but dealing with thousands of still photographs and no musical accompaniment turned the simple idea into something nearer to a complex math equation.

-Chris Coats

WATCH LIGHT FM’S “MERCY” HERE

Making “I’m Still The Same Person”

mattamato — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 21:22:38 +0000

From the first time I heard Sister Crayon’s “I’m Still The Same Person” I knew I wanted to create a visual experience for it. There was something about the chilling dark tones and Terra’s angelic voice that dug a crater deep inside me. When I started brainstorming ideas for the piece, the first strong visual that came to my mind was of white sheets swaying in a desolate field, each band member silhouetted as they played their instruments. Their bodies rising and sinking like a high tide.

I wanted to create a new way to blend performance with narrative. I started listening to what it was I felt the band was trying to say with their piece and how, as an outsider, I could enter their world and paint on the canvas they had created. I have always been a firm believer in complimenting a piece rather then overwhelming it for the sake of visual tricks or gimmicks. Therefore I felt it necessary to not draw directly from what they were “saying” but what they were showing, in an emotional sense.

After the band approved the project I was fortunate enough to build a strong team that helped me to create the vision that had entered my mind. My cinematographer Chris Saul did an expert job of capturing the precise tones I wanted to progress the video. I felt that the location for this piece was essential to creating the atmospheric moods I wanted. We shot at Zorthian Ranch which rests high above Los Angeles in the mountains of Altadena. For me, I feel that a shoot needs to be premeditated but also accepting of improvisation, and the location allowed for this to happen. My gaffer Axel Lanzenberg threw a random piece of corrugated metal in front of one of the lights during the performance and created the wonderful honeycomb effect. My entire crew was allowing their creative juices to flow and that’s what I think filmmaking is all about, combining great minds and being able to move an audience.

-Abram Pineda-Fischer

WATCH ABRAM’S VIDEO FOR SISTER CRAYON’S “I’M STILL THE SAME PERSON” HERE

Scoring “40 Day Dream”

mattamato — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 02:30:58 +0000

In an apartment tucked away in Koreatown, composer Miguel Atwood-Ferguson and sound engineer Benjamin Tierney score the opening and closing music cues to 40 Day Dream. With Miguel as the one-man orchestra and Benjamin’s wizardry at his laptop, a lush soundtrack effortlessly emerges. The third episode of the Edward Sharpe saga is meant to be enveloping in its warmth and the sweep of the music perfectly sets up these emotions. Following the strains of Ennio Morricone set forth in Miguel’s prelude to the Kisses Over Babylon chapter, Miguel moves to a lighter pitch that is no less stirring. Miguel’s vibrant score is a proper sendoff to the magnificent sound of 40 Day Dream.

-Matt

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE CLIP

Making Trolls

vanessa — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 21:26:20 +0000

I knew while brainstorming for Oy’s video that I wanted to echo the childish and bizarre vibes of “Trolls.” I broke a few film commandments and worked with kids and animals, enlisting the help of an amazing crew who were able to climb mountains and lie to park rangers to make this dreamy adventure come alive. Every step of the process from auditioning the actors down to the crafting of their performances in post was one big game of extended make believe, and I was lucky to have found my two partners in crime- young actresses Sabrina Fernandez and Catherine Zhao. Catherine is currently acting alongside Jason Statham in Boaz Yakin’s Safe, set for release this August on Lionsgate. Working with kids, especially Sabrina and Catherine, has huge advantages, especially when it comes to the endless enthusiasm they contribute to every task. The girls were relentlessly dedicated to the moment, whether helping production design with colorful goo or keeping an eye on the animal talent while the camera geared up to go. They kept the positive energy flowing, motivating me all the way to the final cut. I hope you enjoy watching!

Love,
Air

CLICK HERE TO WATCH “TROLLS”

Raúl Shoots Grant in 3D

mattamato — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 00:10:48 +0000

Earlier in the year, I was asked by the creators of the Channel101.com show “Everything” to create a 45 second clip of awesome. No other parameters. I thought of an idea based on a live music performance where every member of a band was the same person, seemingly shot all in one moving shot. I was able to get access to a motion control rig and had plans to make it really slick on a RED camera, yadda yadda.

In a random meeting at The Masses, I overheard that Grant Leuchtner had dozens of songs that he had written all the instrument parts for himself which made him the perfect fit for the project. In one day, Grant wrote and recorded an entirely original piece for the video.

Then, a few weeks before the project was due, I was told that they wanted all of their submissions to be in 3D. Having never shot in this format, I initially freaked out a bit. After loads of research, and bringing on my good friend Chris Cantey to man the special effects, we realized that in order to stay in the budget ($0) and pull off the effect we wanted, we’d have to embrace a low-fi capture format (not to mention we could not get two Canon 7D’s close enough to produce a clean 3D image.)

We created a super simple, super janky, do-it-yourself rig, lined up two “flip” style cameras side by side and finished through a workflow that was completely foreign to all of us. The cameras had no manual controls and often shut down without warning. Good times.

Find some red/ cyan glasses and have a ball with our little slice of 3D fun.

Click here to view.

For behind the scenes clip, click here.

Making tUnE-YaRdS by Eli Stonberg

developer — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 05:32:38 +0000

Filming two dublab Vision Version videos for tUnE – YaRdS was a true test of time. With only five days to prep the shoot and three hours to film both videos, things could have easily gone array. But luckily, we picked the one location where time is no obstacle… The Echo Park Time Travel Mart. Every time we felt like time was running out, Merrill would hop in the time machine and come back a few hours earlier.

In all seriousness though, I think Merrill Garbus has magic powers. Bigtime thanks go out to Merrill, dublab, 826 LA and my excellent crew.

“Hatari” Part I: Pastport Office

“Fiya” Part II: The Time Machine

Making "Something Golden" by Matt Amato

developer — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 05:34:53 +0000

Emma, Mia and Malin, Joona, and Jonas came all the way over from Finland to make a music video with us. They were a jolt of pure energy for this office. We filmed the majority of the video here and the rest on the streets of Los Angeles. Little flecs of their glitter makeup so artfully applied by Julie Rea appear every time we sweep the floor. The stylish wardrobe complete with feathers and headbands was courtesy of Becky Fink . To top it all off, Masses VFX guru Norris Houk III made it all shine. The girls danced in front of the camera for days before killling it at Spaceland, their first LA gig. The nightride through downtown LA made us feel free and invincible. To add to the excitement, the LAPD tried to pull us over from time to time. All told, the week was a proper whirlwind and we hope there are more such fun times on the horizon with our friends from Finland. And, gratefully, they left us the super cool JOPO bikes.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO

Making “Smirnoff” by Eli Stonberg

vanessa — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 02:44:41 +0000

For my first commercial effort, I once again teamed up with Daedelus to create a party for Smirnoff’s new ‘Be There’ campaign. Set to the blissful beats of “Fairweather Friends” we transformed a mundane downtown location into a unique pool party. The weather in LA was scorching this summer so these truck pools provided relief from the heat. And as you will see, even our cameramen were able to join in on the fun.