The Making of Procedure Club's "Rather"

I was really pleased when Procedure Club asked me to make a music video for a single from their debut album, "Doomed Forever" (Slumberland). I've known them for a long time and I'm really proud that they are succeeding with their music. It was really cool of them to give me an opportunity to showcase my work, and I knew working with them would give me some great exposure.

Anyway, the video premiered on Bastille Day at MBV and it's getting lots of hits, so that feels great.

For those of you who are interested in the process, I'll go into more detail about the it below, but for now I'll just say that what I really wanted to do for this song was capture some of the many facets of Procedure Club's outrageous sound. It's melodic but dark, nostalgic but morbid, fuzzed out and explosive. I think the video captures all of those aspects of their music, what do you think?

Procedure Club-Rather from Lizzie Boredom on Vimeo.

To be honest, when I went into this project, I wasn't sure whether or not I'd be able to pull it off, but I'm also the type of person who will make something work one way or another. I'm extremely proud of this video, and I'm so grateful to Adam and Andrea for their patience while working on a something that I'd never done before, as it was ultimately a trial-and-error process.

Upon the first few listens to the song, I kept visualizing blindingly bright flashes of color. I knew it would be a little too obvious and hackneyed for me to pull out the dusty old VHS camera and do an over-saturated whimsical indie rock joyride, and I also know that neither I nor the band wanted to look like we were taking ourselves too seriously. Additionally, I wanted to be able to capture Procedure Club's dry sense of humor.

To be honest, one of the most awesome lessons I am taking away from this project is that sometimes, the biggest challenges are blessings in disguise. I was having trouble figuring out how to show the band, because Adam really wanted to be featured playing music, while Andrea was a bit camera shy. This is what led me to the silhouette idea. It allowed me a compromise between these two wants. All I had to do is figure out how I could make a visually stunning story in silhouette. This was very difficult for me because my work is sometimes way too literal, and to place limitations on my devices forced me to come up with a new way to tell a story.

When we were first talking about making a video, Andrea and I joked a lot about how we should make it completely "bright and gay." So I kept thinking about making an over-the-top love story between some woodland creatures. Andrea's lyrics are hard to hear the first several times you hear Procedure Club, and some of them are completely indecipherable, but after hearing "Rather" many many times and requesting the lyrics from Andrea, I knew it was a song about a selfish lover and her careless infidelity. I wanted to trick the audience, like one might trick a lover, into believing in a happy courtship and happily-ever-after, but then shock them with betrayal and revenge. Since it's a recurring symbol in my work, I knew the axe would make a great silhouette and gory murder.

So, as is typical of me, I of course concluded on all I was doing when I was running out of time, as we'd reserved the studio at The New School in order to shoot. I had tons of props to make and buy, and I only got a few hours of sleep the day of the shoot because I was up until the wee hours painting green and blue props.

So we actually shot three different times, because it wasn't until I started the editing process that I realized we needed some better footage, specifically of the band performing and of the murder scenes at the end. I have to hand it to Adam and Andrea because I really didn't know what we were getting into, and when I was making their masks I didn't realize how hot they would be wearing them under lights, and how little they'd be able to see.

Photo by Quico Sierra

With the footage, I used three layers of chroma keying, one for the green and one for the blue. I inverted the green key in order to make black silhouettes which I then colorized, and then added another green key to get rid of the green screen background and place a color background. I added FCP's "Bloom" effect to both the blue key areas and the silhouettes to give that glowing look. I wanted all the performance scenes to be strobing and any moment where the two animal characters touch to strobe as well to give an electrifying feeling. Finally, I animated some blood for the murder scene in Adobe After Effects. I thought white blood would be totally badass.

So yeah, that's about it. I am not one to keep my secrets up my sleeves. I think it's great to share techniques so that fellow filmmakers can improve upon them--or even fuck them up.

It's Like 60 Minutes on Acid

I'm taking a video class to improve my knowledge of higher-end cameras. Having gone to a liberal arts school for my undergraduate degree, I essentially had to teach myself how to use the few cameras we had, and since then I've only been teaching on consumer equipment.

Anyway, I have been working on a project for this class. The assignment was to do a basic Charlie Rose style interview using only one camera. Since I've probably taught that same assignment about 20 times to my middle school students, I asked the professor if I could do something more challenging (and essentially more self-serving).

Considering the nature of my work deals with narcissism and scopophilia, I asked if I could do a self-interview.

After committing to this project, someone reminded me of this great self-interview that David Byrne did. I saw it years ago, but had forgotten about it. Since being reintroduced to it, I've probably watched it about 25 times. It's incredibly quotable.




As it turns out, I've taken on more than just a technical challenge, I've forced myself to take a risk in terms of illustrating my own identity construction.

Those who know me have seen some of my past work, where I've inserted myself into my videos. For example:





However, when I first started putting myself into my work, I vowed that I would never speak in any of my films. I know it was probably because I couldn't deal with the idea of watching my face move while hearing my voice at the same time. We all get disgusted by the sound of our own voice when we're not used to hearing it without our bodily vibrations attached. It's even more horrifying to watch your face move along with it. Does my mouth really look like that?

Anyway, I figured if I'm ever going to execute my secret backup career plan of being a television comedienne, I would have to start getting used to watching my big dumb mug on screen. I churned out a few versions of script in a couple hours.

I kept pushing off and pushing off filming this. It's just very hard to put yourself into a character that is essentially a caricature of yourself. Of course, once I was ready to shoot, I completely lost my voice, so I had to postpone it an extra day. By the time I started shooting, it had come down very close to the line and I couldn't really do any practice takes.

So now, I have to edit this piece. That means I have to look at myself for hours and hours and hours, hearing my still-hoarse voice squawk these awkward lines over and over again. Then, THEN, I have to show this video to my class. It's so hard to look at your face with a group of people who are also looking at your face. It was difficult with the video i posted above, especially the last 10 seconds of the video. It was like sitting in a room full of people watching you masturbate on camera. I usually close my eyes when I show it to anyone.

I can't imagine how I'm going to endure sitting in a room full of people watching me interview myself about my creative work, which is all about narcissism and how we project ourselves into the world. Will they get it? Will I hate it? Will they be totally freaked out? I guess we'll find out.

If I am satisfied with it, you will all see it in a couple days, if I hate it, I'm going to have to rewrite and reshoot it at a later date, because I still think it's something I need to do.

In the next few days I will also be posting more in-depth and academic musings about narcissism, scopophila and the artistic process.