Satie by Japanther — I filmed this video for a music video class I took in school. To me, the song has a feeling of anticipation. I wanted to express that by showing situations where you are waiting for something to happen, but then cutting at the instant before anything actually does happen.
We filmed the performance part of the video in the Brooklyn Terminal Warehouse, the one that burned down in a huge fire a while back. Devin Flynn did an amazing job on painting the amps, which really saved my ass because I didn’t really have any direction for the look of the performance. I didn’t have much direction at all for the whole video. I didn’t realize how much of a problem that was at the time. I was used to working on projects by myself or with someone like Dan who provided direction.
Once the performance was shot, I spent a lot of time recording Max X episodes and working on a video effect that simulated a digital tape being fast-forwarded. I also filmed Japanther shows, interviews with fans, tall bike jousting at Bike Kill, and riding bikes with Ian. I wound up having so much material and so little vision of what I wanted the video to actually look like, that I became overwhelmed. I put together 2 rough edits, one that was really fast paced that I intended to apply the digital tape effect to, and another split screen edit that I just made so I’d have something to show the teacher of the music video class. I wasn’t happy with either one, and I just avoided the project indefinitely.
It was a year before I showed these edits to Ian. He liked the split-screen edit, we added some of the Max X clips into it, and finished the video that night. I like the way the video turned out, and feel like I learned a lot about working with other people and being a director. I’m still a total amateur, but I’m making a conscious effort to improve.
Recently, I got an email from a woman named Liz who wants to show the video at a festival in Chile. I’m pretty psyched.
