Crystal Castles have a new single ‘Not In Love’, a Platinum Blonde cover featuring Robert Smith of The Cure. It is their highest charting single ever.
I recently spoke to Nic Brown of Video Marsh, director, cinematographer and editor of Not In Love.
On the origin of ‘Not In Love’
This video came about after over a year of working with the footage, filming and processing new footage to accompany the primary imagery (the shots with girls). The primary imagery was footage I shot about 10 years ago when I met and documented these girls in a remote small town. Originally Ethan of Crystal Castles had asked me to do the video for violent dreams, but then more recently he asked to shift it to Not In Love, which I initially rejected, but then after some playing around, I decided to re-edit to Not In Love – it just connected way better and made me really excited about it again. But there was some miscommunication about the release, and Alice and Robert still haven’t seen it, so its not technically official until they approve, but it was made in collaboration with Ethan for sure, he even had some input in the early stages.
Above: Alice Glass and Ethan Kath of Crystal Castles
On the visual style of ‘Not In Love’
It was sort of thematic – just that particular video / Super-8 / VHS look. I came across it a little while ago, and have been playing around with it ever since, culminating in the Crystal Castles video and a few others (Hidden Words / Goodbye Cruel World and also a video for ‘Take Me Home’ by Solvent). But now I’m moving on to other things, I feel like I’ve explored that look enough… next up is Jamelia for Caribou, and so far its all just normal 720p HD… I’m going to see if i can rely on straight-up cinematography and minimal editing…. sometimes I wonder if I’m using complex editing as a crutch, so I guess i’m attempting to find out.
On instinct
EOSHD: When producing the Not In Love video is it a instinctual process or are you drawing on past experience, drawing out the thread of an idea?
Nic Brown: I think a large part of it is instinctual, but even the best editor has imperfect instincts, so I think it’s also important to step back some times and question what you’re naturally doing. I have the tendency of becoming obsessed, and little details become matter of life or death (in my head), so I find myself having internal battles on a pretty regular basis.
EOSHD: Interesting on the internal battles. My friend is a electronic music guy here in Berlin, he can often spend hours on end trying to perfect the sound of an electronic snare drum or something. I find that when I come back to my videos after several months, I think a lot more of them than when I’ve finished. When I get the footage off the camera and watch back a draft edit thrown together quickly, I get a buzz. The buzz dies off after re-watching it again and again as I judge each micro-edit. Then it begins to effect my judgement, then it just pisses me off altogether and I end up hating what I’ve created but something in my head says ‘remember that first buzz, this is the same just cleaner and sharper’. And that seems to work for me, although at that point my instincts are dead completely and I feel a bit lost. Do you watch your work much after you’ve finished it and how does it feel?
Nic Brown: I can relate to what you’re saying. I think that I try to be careful about how and when I watch the footage. There’s a sort of invisible world going on when you’re editing. Another video maker that I talk to about this stuff, Michael Robinson, he recently compared editing to meditation, which I can understand, to some extent. It’s true, I seem to inevitably grow bored with my edit, over and over again – but there’s a cure for that, which I often turn to – going out and getting fresh images.
I do watch my work after I release it, but in different ways. The day after I released Not In Love, I decided that there were two edits that I couldn’t live with, so I re-edited, and replaced the video… the first version is still floating around on YouTube actually. Calling a video ‘finished’ seems to be the hardest thing for me.
Sometimes it’s agonizing if I notice flaws, but it can also be nice. Keep in mind, these are some of my favorite songs of all time. Irene (the song) is an absolute masterpiece in my opinion. I’d say it’s on par with Boards of Canada. So that certainly helps make the videos stay enjoyable to me. There’s also just so many personal stories and memories behind each scene, so there’s an element of nostalgia and emotion tied to some of the things in these videos.
[vimeo]1880041[/vimeo]On working with Crystal Castles
I got involved back in 2008. David (from Video Marsh) had discovered them and sent me a few songs. I remember being temporarily obsessed with one track… one of their instrumental tracks, I don’t remember what it was called. Anyhow, I sent them an email seeing if they’d be interested in working with us, and that was how Magic Spells began. Ethan actually had a lot of input with that video.
[With ‘Not In Love’] It was mostly an emotional process for me, moving things around, introducing new elements, sculpting the edit, etc. All of these things are being manipulated in order to strike some sort of emotional chord. So I’ll make some change, then watch it and try to register how I feel. It’s very unscientific. There are other factors as well. I tried to make the images cohesive, because although the video is fairly abstract, it still tells a story, if you look hard enough. So there are factors like that having an influence as well. Past experience is also part of it – every video I work on seems to teach me new things, and better define what looks / feels good to me.
On directing
In my opinion, what makes a great director really has to do with how they work with their people, especially the actors. working as a team, getting the crew to buy into your vision… making them aware of their impact on the film, and having them feel like it’s their project as much as it’s yours… pretty vital stuff.
I think working well with actors is so vital because… its such a primary thing, and is also extremely difficult and complicated (or can be). i also think writing your own scripts is important in being a real visionary, but there’s a ton of exceptions to that.
EOSHD: What makes a good cinematographer?
Nic Brown: Well technical expertise is a must, but there’s some inherent thing that makes certain people great. Just an eye for what looks good, I guess – and really understanding the director’s vision. I don’t think i’ve ever directed something that I didn’t shoot myself, and I can’t recall shooting something that I wasn’t directing, so I’m really not very familiar with the director-cinematographer relationship, outside of books and theory… and I’ve only read a few books about cinema.
On the fusion of sound and images
I think I do kind of associate sounds and images, but it’s usually the other way around – I’ll film something (often intentionally for the song, but not always) and then i’ll get an impluse or just decide that that scene might work with a particular part of the song, and then try it out.
It usually happens somewhat along those lines. Odessa is the only video I’ve made where I’ve actually followed a script / storyboard.
[vimeo]9556679[/vimeo]Everything else was kind of randomly shot, and then put together through experimentation. The footage from Irene and Hummingbird was originally intended to be part of ‘The Marsh’, for example.
But I agree that it’s important to have a certain intuitation about how sounds relate to images – but I often find that the least obvious pairings are the most interesting.
The Crystal Castles video has a realy ‘thump thump thump’ running through it, and the obvious choice would have been harsher cuts, timing stuff to the beat – but that looked like shit to me, so I edited it almost in opposition to the beat.
So, I think that awareness of natural connections between sound and image can potentially lead to defiance, and therefore to new discoveries. Which is exciting for me.
On Tarkovsky
His books had a huge influence on me, and the films as well, of course. Watching ‘Stalker‘ for the first time was kind of a turning point for me.
On other directors
Favorite living director right now is Michael Haneke or Terrence Malick, I guess. but there’s so many… Gaspar Noe, Harmony Korine… if we’re talking about all time, Andrei Tarkovsky. If we’re talking about music video directors, I think Michael Robinson’s videos are amazing (check out his new Bibio video, and and his early video called Agamemnon Counterpart) and I like this collective called Salazar.
I also like the new James Blake video. It’s really nice, and i also really like this. I’ve enjoyed some hollywood films lately too… Buried, The Town, Never Let Me Go… I also liked Animal Kingdom. There’s too many.
On future directions
Things are headed in several directions. I recently collaborated with two different artists outside of Video Marsh – the first is Brandon Blommaert, an animator. We made this video called Black Moon and the second is Solvent. In 2011 the three of us will be joining forces on something, but I can’t talk about it yet.
And then we’re going to finally be releasing The Marsh which was sort of the genesis of Video Marsh. There’s another thing we want to do at some point later as well.
And then, maybe we’ll do some more videos, but I don’t know of any in particular yet, aside from Jamelia for Caribou, which is what I’m working on right now. I’d like to do a video for Vondelpark, actually… but I think I need to take a break, 2010 was intense.
[vimeo]3422456[/vimeo] Above: The Marsh (Trailer)