Behind the Scenes - Marble music video

I am thrilled to direct another music video for Marble. Their self titled song is one of my favorite songs off of their debut album and it was real honor to be trusted with the visuals.

The song feels like it has such a clear identity, there was little doubt in my mind of how I wanted to adapt it. I wrote a script following a young woman on the day that she planned to leave her abusive husband. There needed to be obvious tension between the two, thick shadows and claustrophobic camera angles. I really visualized a noir film where everything that’s happening on screen is eery without being overly obvious. Chantel plays the lead character, fearing her husbands quick temper while also grieving the end of an era, slowly marching through the regular routine of the day while waiting for a cab to arrive and take her away for good. This simple premise also allowed us to make it a little retro on a small budget, using props from the 50’s to give it a different kind of overall feeling. A lot of my focus was on keeping the visuals interesting enough to stand on their own and hopefully good enough to compliment such a superb song.

Fortunately Marble once again gave me the green light to make it how I wanted to make it. They have always given so much creative freedom to the artists they collaborate with and I am so grateful for that amount of trust.

The actual filming of the music video went surprisingly smooth. The bulk of it happened over just two days and even though more time is always wanted when filming, it turned out to be just enough to get everything we planned for. The dark room scenes were all filmed at snap studio PDX. The space was just big enough to light without fear of accidentally lighting a wall or column. It still turned out to be a puzzle since there is a fine line between too dark and too light with an “infinite black” look. The first shot took us two of our precious ten hours to get right but once we figured out the space, everything picked up from there. Fortunately we had Mike Ghoul running camera’s around getting shots set up, Jaime Lastimosa tinkering with light bulbs, Carl Suby holding flashlights, poles, ladders and running blackout curtains like a champ, Vijay Ilankamban grabbing us pizza and heating up soup, Taylor Bailey telling me which shot I shot out of order is the shot I should have shot before shooting the wrong shot. It got hectic but I’m really happy with how it all looks from that day.

The second day I was locked in my apartment with blackout curtains taped to my ceiling pouring soup, throwing mugs and splashing water. Most of this footage is all the super close footage you see in the final film.

The third day was spent at the wonderful Joel and Mimi Hoyer’s house. They were kind enough to let us film the external scenes using their beautiful old home. The architecture of the place had the perfect sharp and pleasing lines I was hoping for. Charles Wicklander met us there to share his stunning car with us, he was also kind enough to be the driver. He drove up and down that driveway 20-30 times on a brutally hot day. Thanks to him we were able to use a real 50’s car as the final prop in the film. The only real difficult part of filming this day was dealing with my recently injured and very swollen foot. I hobbled along on the only day I needed to chase Chantel down the stairs with a camera and fortunately the extra bumps actually work to the films advantage.

A couple of fun little easter eggs about filming this short video. I forgot to try and make the soup taste good when preparing for the day.. so Chantel and Matthew ate full helpings of really shitty vegetable water, there were a lot of takes. We forgot the luggage on the final day of filming so Chantel is running to the car holding a baby’s booster seat that is colored the same as her luggage from the previous scenes. The kitchen we were going to use had a microwave that we couldn’t move so instead we filled an empty room with a few cooking tools to make it work. Carl Suby had to lay on his back on the concrete floor just out of frame holding a light more then once to get it looking bright enough. The backwards clock is actually backwards and it is genuinely from the 50’s.

Thanks for following my latest projects. Many more to come!