Click here to view movie

The aforementioned experience may seem like a dream, and it surely is, but this dream flashed into reality as dublab voyaged up the west coast this past March to present Tonalism, an all-night ambient happening, at Reed Arts Week in Portland, Oregon. Along the way Golden Hits, Pharaohs and Suzanne Kraft played shows in Oakland, communed aloft in the branches of tree houses and enjoyed fun infused moments along the golden coast.

Matt Amato, Benjamin Kutsko and Grant Leuchtner of the the Masses documented the journey on a few super compact Digital Harinezumi cameras. Enjoy this film documenting the Tonalism 2010 west coast tour in saturated sights and sounds.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE MOVIE

“Everything we have created has been designed with children in mind. They are the pioneers and guardians of our future and armed with the truth, we know, they will certainly bring peace and harmony to our planet, forever. We see this happening in our lifetime.”

Take a look at Benjamin Kutsko’s masterpiece here: HUNTER’S HIDE.

CLICK HERE TO GO TO NOWNESS

CLICK HERE TO WATCH

Masses director Ben Barnes has finished another installment of his venerated Fish Out Of Water series. “Joyride” opened the 2010 Dublab Labrat Matinee with a wallop and features a dizzying mix of law-breaking, lie-spinning and stunt-puppetry. Check it out here!

Take a look at Devendra’s most risqué work to date right here: FOOLIN’,

On Monday (April 19th), Masses director Isaiah Seret debuted his S & M love story for Devendra Banhart’s “Foolin’”.  While initial concern over the ass cracks, whips and chains, and man-on-man loving action left us at The Masses headquarters uncertain how this would land with Banhart fans, the reviews are in and it seems people really like to watch the shaved ‘freak folk’ creator whipped by his greased up muscular lover.

Here’s some links to what the peeps are saying:  Stereogum | New York Magazine | Pitchfork | Fader | Filter | PreFix Mag | Logo TV | Time Out New York | VideoStatic | Myspace Music | Big Stereo | SF Weekly

Click here to view the video on FOOLIN‘ and you can also see Isaiah’s spots advertising the video here: FOOLIN’ TRAILERS

Director Matt Amato’s instinct for rhythm and cadence has turned out a series of kinetic live performance pieces and elevated the tradition of behind-the-scenes footage into a refreshingly intimate study of modern artistry at work.  Recently, he stepped into The Boat Studios with Broken Bells and (without treading on what was sacred) captured his quiet observation of an electrifying process, giving birth to a hand crafted series of in-studio sessions that pulls the veil back on one of the more buzzed about pairings in modern music: Danger Mouse and James Mercer.

Broken Bells is the latest edition in THE MASSES’ burgeoning Live Series, an endeavor in delivering creative, high quality content by utilizing digital media and a scaled back, artist friendly production team. The footage was captured on three cameras (2 Canon 5D Mark II’s and a Canon 7D) over the course of an afternoon, and edited on Final Cut Pro in THE MASSES Offices in Hancock Park.

Directed, Shot & Edited by Matt Amato
Produced by John Baker
Additional Editing by Alistair Legrand and John Baker
Production Co: THE MASSES
Label: Sony Records

Here is Isaiah’s mental health evaluation in this month’s Dazed and Confused Magazine.  It’s part of a larger piece on the Los Angeles phenomenon, Hecuba.

But then, that’s not surprising; he studied under legendary experimental film pioneer Stan Brakhage at the University of Colorado.  There, Benjamin learned the tedious technique of transforming celluloid squares into films, cutting and pasting individual Super 8 frames into 16 millimeter stock. The result, an otherworldly – and entirely handmade – experiment in beauty.

Years later, in Los Angeles, Ben found himself in the world of digital compositing after realizing that it allowed for unlimited creative possibilities.

At the forefront of an in-demand craft, his vfx skills enabled him to straddle the divide of big budget Hollywood projects and the thriving underground art scene.  For the former, he spent two years working with director David Fincher on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, where he helped make Brad Pitt grow younger by the year.  He’s doctored Robert Downey, Jr. into Iron Man for the film of the same name.

Which is great, and we love hearing stories from the cash-heavy vfx world. But we’re excited to welcome Benjamin Kutsko as the newest Masses director because of the smaller, more handcrafted work he’s done.  For Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes and their “Desert Song”, Ben’s turned the aforementioned blood into rose petals, thrust singer Sharpe from desert to dream and back again, has painted the Magnetic Zeroes with colors that don’t seem to be of this planet.

His newest work, for Mexican duo Xiaha Troden, sees Ben carry the two on a mystic voyage through outer space, where they float through the cosmos like 16^th Century ocean explorers. It’s a seamless project, difficult to tell where reality begins and imagination ends.  Ben’s work lies somewhere in the middle… of this world, but only barely.

Click here to view Ben’s work

To help with the director’s ambitious postproduction concepts, Peter Sauvey joined in and created the visual effects in the video.  Meanwhile, the band was gaining massive buzz online.  Eventually the powers that be decided to make a separate video for their hit song “Sleepyhead”.  And so the original video sat shelved away collecting virtual dust…

Now years later, the video has finally surfaced in a major way.  “Sleepyhead” has been featured on Stereogum, Pitchfork, Kanye West’s Blog, Tokio Hotel’s blog, Video Static, Hipster Runoff, MOG, Prefix Mag and many more.

Here’s what people are saying -

“Intrigue over the age and origin of the new Passion Pit video for ‘Sleepyhead’ but it’s quality is not in question…cute and DIY, similar in spirit to how the song was created in the first place, in frontman Michael Angelakos’ bedroom…” – Abeano

“A much more OK GO-viral friendly/literal version of the Sleepy Head video…definitely more fun and less artsy – serious than the original.” – Afro Jacks

“DIY lesson on making a video.” – Melophobe

“We can only assume that this video was made by an earnest artistic videomaker whose concept ‘got the shaft’ after Passion Pit got ‘crazy budgets’ and didn’t need the pro bono work of video artist bros.”  – Hipster Runoff

CLICK HERE TO WATCH

WATCH IT HERE and for more on the campaign visit Alternativeapparel.com

]]> http://www.wearethemasses.com/news/masses-own-benjamin-kutsko-directs-alternative-apparels-fashion-week-taxi-cab-blitz/feed/ 0 http://www.wearethemasses.com/news/bowerbirds-northern-lights-2/ http://www.wearethemasses.com/news/bowerbirds-northern-lights-2/#comments Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:15:26 +0000 mattamato http://www.wearethemasses.com/?p=2570

Director Matt Amato’s new video for the Bowerbirds “Northern Lights” premiered on Pitchfork this week. The video was shot on Ten Mile Lake in Hackensack, MN over a 3 day period while Matt stayed in a small cabin with band members Phil Moore and Beth Tacular, as well as AC Grant Leuchtner. The setting can be felt in the way the camera moves through the forests and waters of the area, slowly taking in a fall day on the lake.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH

We are pleased to announce Masses director Ben Barnes‘ latest music video, WHY?’s These Hands / January Twenty Something has been selected to screen at the 2010 South By Southwest Film Festival in Austin. This is the third year in a row Barnes’ work has been selected by the festival; the previous two years his Fish Out Of Water series screened in their Midnight Shorts program.

Check out the video here.
View the South By Southwest screening schedule here.

He has directed commercials for Nike, Honda, Baileys and The Guardian along with music videos for Richard Ashcroft, Supergrass and Nine Black Alps. Börkur’s short film, Support, has gained global recognition at film festivals and is being distributed by Canal + in France.

Work in Progress unveils two ongoing projects.

Conditions is a series of poignant, sometimes unsettling, portraits. Borkur’s portraits reveal the physical, mental and emotional landscapes of an individual under the strain of addiction, fear and cultural alienation.

Come to Harm, a short film written by Stuart Beattie (Pirates of the Caribbean, G.I. Joe, Australia), is set in a society fueled by fear and suspicion. It is a stylish, kinetic thriller that sparks paranoia and culminates in a very unexpected finale.

Blythe Projects will present raw footage of Come to Harm currently being shot in Iceland.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW BÖRKUR’S GALLERY

Click here for more info

Apparently the folks at Apple feel that Masses director, Isaiah Seret’s, new Edward Sharpe video is a good example of filmmaking in modern times.
Along with a snazzy article on all the tech that went into it, the people at Apple have done their compression magic to the video and posted it in full HD.

Check it out on the QuickTime site.

So to finally make it official is to breathe a happy sigh of relief, because Ben has done some beautiful, emotionally rich work. Take his most recent video, a two-parter for the great Bay Area band Why?. Shot for the songs “These Hands” and “January Twenty Something,” Ben’s creation moves from surreal tragedy to stoic honesty in a single bound. In the first half, we watch a man pin-cushioned with arrows as he wobbles toward the scene of a car accident. We see him, with pain but also grace, help a wounded child make his way to safety. The second half features Why? main-man Yoni Wolf and band giving a straight-up, no-nonsense performance on a Hollywood rooftop. No bells and whistles needed: just great framing and editing to go with an excellent song.

Ben first started working with frames as a cartoonist in high school and college and directed his way through film school at The University of Miami. Armed with a few award-winning shorts, he landed in Los Angeles in the early ’00s, got a job at the great Amoeba Music as an expert on experimental electronic music — and fell in with like-minded souls in the LA IDM crowd. His club night, Forestry Service, debuted in 2003 and drew lots of creative types, including our friends and collaborators at Dublab. Through that connection, Ben has created a number of striking Dublab Vision Version shorts for, among others, Stevie Jackson of Belle & Sebastian, Kyp Malone (TV on the Radio), Why?, and Langhorne Slim.

His series of promos for Busdriver, created for Anti-, might best showcase the breadth of Ben’s work. In six distinctive clips, he and the ace LA rapper offer short video snapshots of the artist. We see Busdriver as birthday boy, tennis player, self-serious artiste, head-crammed lyrical machine, budding acoustic guitarist, and baffled editorialist. Combined, we see an artist overflowing with ideas.

Equally inspired are Ben’s five promo videos for heavy metal conceptualists Coheed & Cambria, which pose curious, menacing questions about the band’s ongoing narrative. His funny promo for Peter, Bjorn & John featured a bunch of people trying, with varying degrees of success, to replicate the whistling in their hit “Young Folks.” These works, both for Sony, squeeze massive amounts of information into very small windows.

Outside of his music video work, Ben is co-creator of the comedy series “Fish Out of Water,” which features as its star a two-foot-eleven fish in a sweater; the shorts were official selections at the 2008 and 2009 SXSW Film Festivals and the 2009 Montreal Just For Laughs Comedy festival. He also just finished a short film called God Damn King Kong, a freewheeling letter to an ex-love from a man with a tenuous hold on his faculties.

Check out Ben’s work and see why we are so thrilled to have him aboard. The Masses are happy to help bring his visions to life with the same generosity of spirit that he’s always offered us.

Click here to view Ben’s work

The band Beach House released a compilation dvd to go with their recently released album, TEEN DREAM. One of the videos entitled, SILVER SOUL, features the cinematography of Alistair Legrand. It was directed by Beach House’s singer Victoria Legrand. Shot during the humid month of June in an old church in Baltimore, the video features a dream like world of silver humans, smoke and hula hooping. Recently the video has been featured on blogs including:

Technorati: “It’s a strange, enigmatic music video, but the gauzy aesthetic suits the band perfectly. And I would expect no less, given that it was directed by band member Victoria Legrand (and shot by her brother Alistair, who has directed videos for the band in the past).”

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