AIEEE, NYT

The second day of shooting the music video also went really well, we did many shots of the band jumping in (at least partial) unison in various locations around Montreal.  Arthur edited this week as well, and the cut he showed us looked amazing (can't show you all yet).  He's waiting on a shot of the builders standing around the finished octopus, which apparently requires the use of TV McGill's new crane (!).

We played a show at Martin's place last night.  He's being filmed for a documentary on online poker, and the crew was in filming him and his band.  Our set went well, even considering that I broke a couple of strings and Mott broke one.  We ended it with Dan Mangan's "Robots"; Mott playing Justin's guitar, me croaking into the mic, and Justin in the crowd somewhere.

Here's a pic Carter took at the show.  It's dark but captures the essential oddness of most of what was going on.  Also Laura has posted her behind-the-scenes pics of filming the music video on her flickr account.  Check it out!

Brad Paisley, Semiotician

We shot the bulk of the music video on Saturday, on the roof at 914 Mont Royal and across the street in Kassel's room at 927.  It went really well, a lot of friends came over to simulate a party (which subsequently turned into a real party) and severely flattened the octopus by dancing all over it.  Arthur showed me a few clips and it looks very good.  The night shots of the octopus being 'built' also turned out great, thanks to the exceptionally wide aperture of the lens he was using on the DSLR.  We're shooting the synchronized jumping shots this afternoon (weather permitting), and hopefully we'll have it ready for whenever we finally release the CD.

Here's a shot from the setup, with Kassel adjusting the drums, Ryan warming up, and Mott wandering aimlessly.  And there's the octopus!

Here's a bit later, some more people hanging out, preparing.  We jammed a little after we were done shooting, but got everything down just before the police showed up to stare confusedly up at the roof.

I am yr host

I forgot, we've been working on a music video.  Last Thursday we got together in Laurier park to talk about it.  Arthur, who has been nice enough to lend his talent and equipment to this venture, also showed up and gave some constructive criticism.

Before he showed up, we threw around a few songs, including "Perseus" and "Mixtapes".  I had an idea for the former involving a black-and-white cowboy retelling of the greek legend, which amazingly failed to win a positive consensus.  We finally settled on "Headfull", reasoning that it was an energetic, mid-length song which represented our sound well.  We also felt we could give the video a narrative that wasn't chained (or even necessarily connected) to the lyrics, in a way that some of the 'story' songs like "Red Plaid Shirt" would probably end up being.

We knew we wanted to have a few things going on at once, including the shot of the band playing.  I wanted to have the band on the roof of 914 Mt. Royal, where there is (for reasons unknown) a giant metal octopus.  I had the idea that the narrative of the video would be a few of our friends deciding to build this octopus, drawing up plans, constructing it, and then celebrating its completion with us.  Justin thought that instead of building it, they should summon the octopus by magic, or they should at least be building it as a defence for an alien invasion.  I couldn't see how to show either of those clearly.  I am definitely no visionary.  Arthur said that the story lacked conflict, and so we decided that a landlord would attempt to stop them from building it, and they would have to proceed under the cover of darkness.

The chorus of the song (which, incidentally, you can now stream on grooveshark) has these breaks where, when we play it live, we all jump.  I think Mott (or was it Kassel) had the idea that we could film the band jumping in unison during these parts, so we came up with a list of iconic (to us) places in Montreal to film these parts, including the St. Christophe alley, the line at Romados, and the McLennan Library computers.

We're getting together to storyboard some time this weekend, and hopefully filming next weekend.  I forgot to take pictures when we were planning at the park, so here's a video I took while we were still at their apartment.  Somewhat unsurprisingly (considering his apparel), Kassel didn't make it to the park.