Idea Grave
Liam Titcomb
Liam Titcomb | Love Don’t Let Me Down
Director Jesse Yules www.jesseyules.com
Rejected May 25th, 2012. What they ended up making… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dPb2Zn6puU
Concept A summer walk through an unconventional cemetery, with portraits of the dead carved into trees.MoodWarm and sublime.Approach
We will shoot at magic hour at the Scarborough Bluffs in Toronto.Using carved foam and special effects painting, we will dress tree trunks in a rural area to appear as if portraits have been carved into them. Some of the portraits will look freshly carved, others will seem weathered, as if they were carved a decade ago. We follow Liam as he wanders through the park visiting each of the unique portraits.One of the carved faces has a dark mouth that opens into a hollow in the tree. It has been filled with bird seed. Birds and squirrels crawl in and out of the ancient wooden-head.As the video ends, Liam begins carving a tree.We see that Liam has carved the portraits of two figures facing one another. Cut to black.Delivery
Aprox. 4 weeks after receipt of the production funds.

Liam Titcomb

Liam Titcomb | Love Don’t Let Me Down

Director Jesse Yules www.jesseyules.com

Rejected May 25th, 2012. What they ended up making… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dPb2Zn6puU

Concept

A summer walk through an unconventional cemetery, with portraits of the dead carved into trees.

Mood

Warm and sublime.

Approach

We will shoot at magic hour at the Scarborough Bluffs in Toronto.

Using carved foam and special effects painting, we will dress tree trunks in a rural area to appear as if portraits have been carved into them. Some of the portraits will look freshly carved, others will seem weathered, as if they were carved a decade ago.

We follow Liam as he wanders through the park visiting each of the unique portraits.

One of the carved faces has a dark mouth that opens into a hollow in the tree. It has been filled with bird seed. Birds and squirrels crawl in and out of the ancient wooden-head.

As the video ends, Liam begins carving a tree.

We see that Liam has carved the portraits of two figures facing one another.

Cut to black.

Delivery

Aprox. 4 weeks after receipt of the production funds.

Metz
METZ | Wet Blanket (Version II: Initiation) Listen Here
Director Jesse Yules www.jesseyules.com
Rejected June 12th, 2012
Concept A continuous steadicam shot following a person through a bizarre initiation ritual.
Summery
We open with a shot of a blindfolded person tied to a filthy mattress, being dragged behind a vehicle on a rope in the middle of the night. The mattress is sliding around the asphalt surface of a basketball court. The mattress and blindfolded victim are illuminated with a spot light.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Umr-COAUWs4The vehicle stops. A crowd of people carrying torches, wearing burlap masks pull the blind-folded person off of the mattress. The blindfolded person begins to run, still partially bound in the ropes that held him to the mattress. The blindfolded person’s path is guarded on two sides by menacing people in ugly burlap masks and holding torches. Standing shoulder to shoulder in two lines, the torch carriers form a long tunnel, which the blindfolded person runs through. We follow the blindfolded man as he runs. The camera stays just ahead of him. As the blindfolded person advances, the torch carriers touch their torches together behind him, preventing him from turning back.
The blindfolded person trips and falls. Immediately, five stocky men carrying padded clubs swarm him, beating him. The blind folded man breaks free. There seems to be no end to the tunnel of torch carriers. Each time the blindfolded man falls, he’s beaten.Finally, the blindfolded man comes to a break in the line of torch carriers. He realizes that the torch carriers have been shoving him in a circle. He walks into the centre of the circle, looking disorientated. Suddenly the stocky men with the padded bats reappear. The men grab the blindfolded man and drag him towards the tall steal post used to support the basketball hoop. The men use bindings dangling from the blindfolded victim to hoist him into the air. They dangle the victim from the basketball hoop like a pinata.  As the video closes, the torch carriers close in around the victim. They lower their torches and touch the ground underneath the dangling, blindfolded victim. The ground erupts with sparks, fire and smoke. The blindfold falls away from the victim. We see a huge close up of his convulsing, terrified face.Cut to black.

Metz

METZ | Wet Blanket (Version II: Initiation) Listen Here

Director Jesse Yules www.jesseyules.com

Rejected June 12th, 2012


Concept

A continuous steadicam shot following a person through a bizarre initiation ritual.

Summery

We open with a shot of a blindfolded person tied to a filthy mattress, being dragged behind a vehicle on a rope in the middle of the night. The mattress is sliding around the asphalt surface of a basketball court. The mattress and blindfolded victim are illuminated with a spot light.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Umr-COAUWs4

The vehicle stops. A crowd of people carrying torches, wearing burlap masks pull the blind-folded person off of the mattress.

The blindfolded person begins to run, still partially bound in the ropes that held him to the mattress.

The blindfolded person’s path is guarded on two sides by menacing people in ugly burlap masks and holding torches. Standing shoulder to shoulder in two lines, the torch carriers form a long tunnel, which the blindfolded person runs through. We follow the blindfolded man as he runs. The camera stays just ahead of him. As the blindfolded person advances, the torch carriers touch their torches together behind him, preventing him from turning back.

The blindfolded person trips and falls. Immediately, five stocky men carrying padded clubs swarm him, beating him. The blind folded man breaks free.

There seems to be no end to the tunnel of torch carriers. Each time the blindfolded man falls, he’s beaten.

Finally, the blindfolded man comes to a break in the line of torch carriers. He realizes that the torch carriers have been shoving him in a circle. He walks into the centre of the circle, looking disorientated. Suddenly the stocky men with the padded bats reappear. The men grab the blindfolded man and drag him towards the tall steal post used to support the basketball hoop. The men use bindings dangling from the blindfolded victim to hoist him into the air. They dangle the victim from the basketball hoop like a pinata.  

As the video closes, the torch carriers close in around the victim. They lower their torches and touch the ground underneath the dangling, blindfolded victim. The ground erupts with sparks, fire and smoke. The blindfold falls away from the victim. We see a huge close up of his convulsing, terrified face.


Cut to black.
Hooded Fang
Hooded Fang | Tosta Mista
Director Jesse Ewles www.jesseewles.com
Rejected by MuchFact April 30th, 2012
Concept 
Hooded Fang party at a movie theatre walking on top of the seats and other guests as they perform. Behind them, on the big screen weird black and white science fiction footage is projected. By the end of the video, the whole crowd crawling over one another / moshing / dancing.
Art direction / Mood
Rambunctious, art punk party.
Approach
Step1 We will shoot weird black and white science fiction images similar to those in the Weekly World News. Examples may include the Fiji Mermaid, Batboy, cannibal zombies, alien heads, CIA agents, pirate gold, bigfoot ect.
Step2 Hooded Fang will perform at the Toronto Underground theatre. As they sing, the band will climb on top of the theatre seats, walking around on top of the audience members laps and shoulders. The weird black and white footage from step 1 will be projected on the movie screen behind them. By the end of the video, everyone in the theatre is climbing on top of one another, dancing / moshing.
Technical Treatment
Camera 7D Canon DSLR + Canon EF 24-105mm zoom lenses + Steadicam Pilot & Vest Arm Kit. Black and white sci-fi footage will be given a “super 8” look via Magic Bullet Suite.

Hooded Fang

Hooded Fang | Tosta Mista

Director Jesse Ewles www.jesseewles.com

Rejected by MuchFact April 30th, 2012

Concept 

Hooded Fang party at a movie theatre walking on top of the seats and other guests as they perform. Behind them, on the big screen weird black and white science fiction footage is projected. By the end of the video, the whole crowd crawling over one another / moshing / dancing.

Art direction / Mood

Rambunctious, art punk party.

Approach

Step1 We will shoot weird black and white science fiction images similar to those in the Weekly World News. Examples may include the Fiji Mermaid, Batboy, cannibal zombies, alien heads, CIA agents, pirate gold, bigfoot ect.

Step2 Hooded Fang will perform at the Toronto Underground theatre. As they sing, the band will climb on top of the theatre seats, walking around on top of the audience members laps and shoulders. The weird black and white footage from step 1 will be projected on the movie screen behind them. By the end of the video, everyone in the theatre is climbing on top of one another, dancing / moshing.

Technical Treatment

Camera 7D Canon DSLR + Canon EF 24-105mm zoom lenses + Steadicam Pilot & Vest Arm Kit. Black and white sci-fi footage will be given a “super 8” look via Magic Bullet Suite.

The Elwins
The Elwins | Sittin’ Pretty
Director Jesse Ewles www.jesseewles.com
Listen to live version here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rw_0bq-1Ic Great video in it’s own right.
Rejected by MuchFact April 30th, 2012
Concept
The Elwins have a medieval joust wearing armor constructed entirely from 
balloons.
Art Direction / Mood
Fun, viral, pop psychedelic, stop motion.
Approach
Step 1 We will construct costumes using 2000 twisting balloons, similar to the those used by magicians to make balloon animals. The characters will include three knights wearing balloon suits of armor, three princesses wearing balloon-crafted dresses. The knights will ride stick ponies with large horse heads completely sculpted from balloons.
Step 2 We will act out a joust in stop-motion. Each time a knight makes contact on another knight with his balloon sword or balloon lance some of his armor will pop, and disappear. Once a knight has all of this armor popped, he will be eliminated from the tournament and run from the jousting area in only his underwear. At the end of the video champion is crowned and he receives the hand of the princess.
Technical Treatment
Camera Stop motion 5K stills. 7D Canon DSLR + Canon EF 24-105mm zoom lenses.
Studio We will be shooting in the large room at Silver Line Studios. 

The Elwins

The Elwins | Sittin’ Pretty

Director Jesse Ewles www.jesseewles.com

Listen to live version here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rw_0bq-1Ic Great video in it’s own right.

Rejected by MuchFact April 30th, 2012

Concept

The Elwins have a medieval joust wearing armor constructed entirely from 

balloons.

Art Direction / Mood

Fun, viral, pop psychedelic, stop motion.

Approach

Step 1 We will construct costumes using 2000 twisting balloons, similar to the those used by magicians to make balloon animals. The characters will include three knights wearing balloon suits of armor, three princesses wearing balloon-crafted dresses. The knights will ride stick ponies with large horse heads completely sculpted from balloons.

Step 2 We will act out a joust in stop-motion. Each time a knight makes contact on another knight with his balloon sword or balloon lance some of his armor will pop, and disappear. Once a knight has all of this armor popped, he will be eliminated from the tournament and run from the jousting area in only his underwear. At the end of the video champion is crowned and he receives the hand of the princess.

Technical Treatment

Camera Stop motion 5K stills. 7D Canon DSLR + Canon EF 24-105mm zoom lenses.

Studio We will be shooting in the large room at Silver Line Studios. 


Zeds Dead
Zeds Dead | Living DeadDirector Jesse Yules www.jesseyules.com
Rejected May 17th, 2012 | What they made instead.
Concept Post-apocalyptic beach party. ApproachIntro 0:00 - 1:00 Using a series of slow motion tableaus, we show a group of horribly disfigured, zombie-like people posing in 50s style beach-party scenes. Behind the zombies, a rear projection screen plays looping footage of an idyllic beach with waves breaking on the shore line. The beach scenes will be lit with a moody red lighting, as if to suggest the events are taking place under a giant heat-lamp. The scenes will feel “staged” as if the beach set has been constructed in a bomb shelter miles bellow the surface. Middle 1:00 - 3:35 As the pace of the track speeds up, we will cut more quickly to various other beach activities shot in slow motion. Activities include volleyball, hula hooping, crushing sand castles and fake water skiing in front of the projection screen.Exit 3:35 - 4:30 We cut to face of a dreary-looking lab tech(s) with a thousand-mile stare. The lab tech is sitting in front of a large monitoring station lined with hundreds of colourful lights. A monitor in font of the lab tech displays the beach scenes. Looking bored, the lab tech turns a dial marked “ambient radiation”. We cut to an image of the sun projected on the rear-projection screen. It glows noticeably brighter. The beach zombies gaze at the burning sun reverently. They lean their heads back as if enjoying the added heat. Slowly their skin begins to melt from their bodies. We see the lab tech once more, looking desensitized. He turns up the heat further.To close, we repeat the slow motion tableau pans from the opening of the video. The zombies are still posing enthusiastically, but by now, they have been fried to skeletons by the heat of the room.Cut to blackBand InvolvementDepending on Zack and Dylan’s comfort level, they can participate in the zombie sequences or simply act as the lab techs.CompletionAprx. 4 weeks from the date the productions funds are received.

Zeds Dead

Zeds Dead | Living Dead
Director Jesse Yules www.jesseyules.com

Rejected May 17th, 2012 | What they made instead.

Concept

Post-apocalyptic beach party.

Approach

Intro 0:00 - 1:00 Using a series of slow motion tableaus, we show a group of horribly disfigured, zombie-like people posing in 50s style beach-party scenes. Behind the zombies, a rear projection screen plays looping footage of an idyllic beach with waves breaking on the shore line. The beach scenes will be lit with a moody red lighting, as if to suggest the events are taking place under a giant heat-lamp. The scenes will feel “staged” as if the beach set has been constructed in a bomb shelter miles bellow the surface.

Middle 1:00 - 3:35 As the pace of the track speeds up, we will cut more quickly to various other beach activities shot in slow motion. Activities include volleyball, hula hooping, crushing sand castles and fake water skiing in front of the projection screen.

Exit 3:35 - 4:30 We cut to face of a dreary-looking lab tech(s) with a thousand-mile stare. The lab tech is sitting in front of a large monitoring station lined with hundreds of colourful lights. A monitor in font of the lab tech displays the beach scenes. Looking bored, the lab tech turns a dial marked “ambient radiation”.

We cut to an image of the sun projected on the rear-projection screen. It glows noticeably brighter. The beach zombies gaze at the burning sun reverently. They lean their heads back as if enjoying the added heat. Slowly their skin begins to melt from their bodies.

We see the lab tech once more, looking desensitized. He turns up the heat further.

To close, we repeat the slow motion tableau pans from the opening of the video. The zombies are still posing enthusiastically, but by now, they have been fried to skeletons by the heat of the room.

Cut to black

Band Involvement

Depending on Zack and Dylan’s comfort level, they can participate in the zombie sequences or simply act as the lab techs.

Completion

Aprx. 4 weeks from the date the productions funds are received.

We Have Band
We Have Band | Love What You’re Doing Listen Here
Director: Jesse Ewles | www.jesseewles.com
Rejected September 3rd 2010
Concept
A video featuring three ancient Tai Chi masters shot in slow motion. The eyes of the masters will flash red and blue to the beat of the song. The movements of the masters will be inter-cut energetically with pop psychedelic animations of Chinese dragons. The band will not appear in the video. The art direction for the dragons will be similar to this:

Technical Treatment 
The video will be inter-cut between two scenarios.  Scenario one will feature three Tai Chi masters performing on a set of ruined over grown steps.  The Tai Chi routines will be performed and filmed at twice normal speed, then converted to slow motion in post.  This will give the movement of the performance added intensity and make the footage ominously beautiful.
Scenario two will be an animation based on a Chinese dragon.  The dragon will be an elaborate stop-motion puppet decorated with jewels, metallic textiles and silky fibers.  The animation will feature the dragon snaking through a natural environment with fantasy / pop-psychelic elements (ie rivers of jewels ect)  The dragon peruses the tail of a second dragon.  Eventually he catches it, and in the final shot we see that there are dozens of identical dragons all connected together mouth to tail into a giant psychedelic chain.

We Have Band

We Have Band | Love What You’re Doing Listen Here

Director: Jesse Ewles | www.jesseewles.com

Rejected September 3rd 2010

Concept

A video featuring three ancient Tai Chi masters shot in slow motion. The eyes of the masters will flash red and blue to the beat of the song. The movements of the masters will be inter-cut energetically with pop psychedelic animations of Chinese dragons. The band will not appear in the video. The art direction for the dragons will be similar to this:

Technical Treatment

The video will be inter-cut between two scenarios.  Scenario one will feature three Tai Chi masters performing on a set of ruined over grown steps.  The Tai Chi routines will be performed and filmed at twice normal speed, then converted to slow motion in post.  This will give the movement of the performance added intensity and make the footage ominously beautiful.

Scenario two will be an animation based on a Chinese dragon.  The dragon will be an elaborate stop-motion puppet decorated with jewels, metallic textiles and silky fibers.  The animation will feature the dragon snaking through a natural environment with fantasy / pop-psychelic elements (ie rivers of jewels ect)  The dragon peruses the tail of a second dragon.  Eventually he catches it, and in the final shot we see that there are dozens of identical dragons all connected together mouth to tail into a giant psychedelic chain.

????? | ????
Rejected May 14, 2012
Concept
An animation following a stunt bike, as it drives through various colourful L.A backyards. Approach
The video will be one continuous tracking shot of the stunt rider driving through a variety of Los Angeles backyards. The characters in the backyards will be looping animations. Mood
The vibe will be similar to the NES classic PaperBoy, except the images will all be hand painted in the style of David Hockney, and the images will move from left to right instead of diagonally. The overall mood of the video will be warm, relaxing and cheeky. The video equivalent of melting neapolitan ice cream. Shot ListA) An Evel Knievel-style stunt man stands on top of a dirt hill surrounded by colourful streamers, palm trees and a few photographers. The stuntman drives down the ramp picking up speed and charges into a huge loop to loop. He then hits a second ramp and flies over some wrecked cars. The stunt man completes the jump but fails to stop at the victory circle. The bike flies off the course and breaks through a safety barrier into the neighbouring backyards.B) The motorcycle crashes through multiple backyards inhabited by the following…A sexy pool party. People are sunbathing and diving. The motorcycle goes over the diving board, lands on the other side of the pool. The motorcycle passes a steel drum band.It passes a man scuba diving in his pool.Girls in a hottub. A vacant house filled with stray cats.A homeless man with a barbecue built into a shopping cart, cooking weiners. A flock of seagulls take.Two 70’s wrestlers, wrestling on a trampoline. A movie crew filming muppets. A collection of colourful billboards.A pornography shoot.70’s bodybuilders weightlifting. A group of people rollerskating with a dog.A ferris wheel. A fry truck. Classic cars.An LA gang, harvesting marijuana.A graffiti artist painting a mural.A robot dinosaur eating cars. A garage band.A helicopter taking off.A group of cheerleaders stacked into a human pyramid. Two Dogtown skateboarders, skating in an empty pool.C) The motorcycle drives down into the empty pool with the skate kids. The bike flies up the opposite side of the pool into the air. We see the motorbike fly out of the backyards and zoom off of a cliff face towards the ocean. We watch the motorbike fall. A rainbow parachute pops out from the stuntman’s back. He glides slowly into the Pacific, being cheered on by some surfers and some curious dolphins.Fade to black.
*image by David Hockney

????? | ????

Rejected May 14, 2012

Concept

An animation following a stunt bike, as it drives through various colourful L.A backyards.

Approach

The video will be one continuous tracking shot of the stunt rider driving through a variety of Los Angeles backyards. The characters in the backyards will be looping animations.

Mood

The vibe will be similar to the NES classic PaperBoy, except the images will all be hand painted in the style of David Hockney, and the images will move from left to right instead of diagonally. The overall mood of the video will be warm, relaxing and cheeky. The video equivalent of melting neapolitan ice cream.

Shot List

A) An Evel Knievel-style stunt man stands on top of a dirt hill surrounded by colourful streamers, palm trees and a few photographers. The stuntman drives down the ramp picking up speed and charges into a huge loop to loop. He then hits a second ramp and flies over some wrecked cars. The stunt man completes the jump but fails to stop at the victory circle. The bike flies off the course and breaks through a safety barrier into the neighbouring backyards.

B) The motorcycle crashes through multiple backyards inhabited by the following…

A sexy pool party. People are sunbathing and diving. The motorcycle goes over the diving board, lands on the other side of the pool.

The motorcycle passes a steel drum band.

It passes a man scuba diving in his pool.

Girls in a hottub.

A vacant house filled with stray cats.

A homeless man with a barbecue built into a shopping cart, cooking weiners. A flock of seagulls take.

Two 70’s wrestlers, wrestling on a trampoline.

A movie crew filming muppets.

A collection of colourful billboards.

A pornography shoot.

70’s bodybuilders weightlifting.

A group of people rollerskating with a dog.

A ferris wheel.

A fry truck.

Classic cars.

An LA gang, harvesting marijuana.

A graffiti artist painting a mural.

A robot dinosaur eating cars.

A garage band.

A helicopter taking off.

A group of cheerleaders stacked into a human pyramid.

Two Dogtown skateboarders, skating in an empty pool.

C) The motorcycle drives down into the empty pool with the skate kids. The bike flies up the opposite side of the pool into the air. We see the motorbike fly out of the backyards and zoom off of a cliff face towards the ocean. We watch the motorbike fall. A rainbow parachute pops out from the stuntman’s back. He glides slowly into the Pacific, being cheered on by some surfers and some curious dolphins.

Fade to black.

*image by David Hockney

Odonis Odonis
Odonis Odonis | Busted Lip Listen Here
Director Jesse Ewles
REJECTED by Much Fact April 13th 2012
Concept
Dark imagery projected on a stretching latex screen.
Mood & Art Direction
Dark 90’s feel. Seamless blend of sex and horror and humour.
Approach
Step 1: We will create a montage of 90’s inspired images. These will include plates of the band under gloomy daylight, running through a dead forest. Portraits of people with Hypertrichosis (werewolf syndrome). Images of women’s mouths chewing.
Step2: We will construct a large latex screen. The montage footage will be projected onto the screen. 
Step 3. A nude actor will be placed behind the latex screen. The actor will stretch the latex to the beat of the song distorting the projections in time to the music. Periodically, a light behind the screen will illuminate the actor, revealing their form to the camera.
Technical Treatment
Camera: 7D Canon DSLR + Canon EF 24-105mm zoom lenses.
Screen: The screen will be constructed from .45mm thick white latex rubber sheet.

Odonis Odonis

Odonis Odonis | Busted Lip Listen Here

Director Jesse Ewles

REJECTED by Much Fact April 13th 2012

Concept

Dark imagery projected on a stretching latex screen.

Mood & Art Direction

Dark 90’s feel. Seamless blend of sex and horror and humour.

Approach

Step 1: We will create a montage of 90’s inspired images. These will include plates of the band under gloomy daylight, running through a dead forest. Portraits of people with Hypertrichosis (werewolf syndrome). Images of women’s mouths chewing.

Step2: We will construct a large latex screen. The montage footage will be projected onto the screen. 

Step 3. A nude actor will be placed behind the latex screen. The actor will stretch the latex to the beat of the song distorting the projections in time to the music. Periodically, a light behind the screen will illuminate the actor, revealing their form to the camera.

Technical Treatment

Camera: 7D Canon DSLR + Canon EF 24-105mm zoom lenses.

Screen: The screen will be constructed from .45mm thick white latex rubber sheet.

Portable.tv
Portable.tv Interview (unabridged)
This week I did an interview with Portable.tv regarding my video for Of Montreal. I decided to publish the unedited article here —You can view the original by clicking “Portable.tv” above, in case that’s unclear. :)
So Spiteful Intervention is a very mixed media, did you create the artwork as well? How did they come together like they have?Yes, I painted the majority of the work. My good friends Lee Stringle and Cameron Tomsett came in to help with the final push so we would hit the deadline. Our approach was to take hand-painted characters and animate them by mapping them to a 3D meshes in Autodesk Maya. The imagery or idea behind it seems a little dark, what general mood/feeling did you want to generate with it?Originally I had wanted to do a 3D video in a similar style to artist Jeff Koons collages. That idea was rejected. Treatment one was too pop-arty for track. The first few times I listened to the song, I was focusing on the poppy rhythm of the piano and the change at 1:39. Both reminded me of the Beatles White Album for some reason… anyways, I completely missed how dark the lyrics actually were. The song’s all about self-loathing and battling dark thoughts, so I felt having Kevin’s head morph into various creatures would be the simplest, and most fun way to illustrate that idea. I think the colours, the loose painting and the bounciness of the images, combined with how sad all of the drawings look, matched the song pretty well.You’ve done quite a few film clips, how do you approach each one with a different mindset and originality?I’m  curious. I like taking things apart and rebuilding them in different ways. In art school we were always encouraged to find one distinctive way of working, and to put all projects through that filter. There’s the Alex McLeod filter, and the Martin Wittfooth  filter, the Jessica Rae Gordon filter. They each build little worlds, with their own sets of rules. It’s a great approach for business as Milton Glaser would say. The main thing I took away from illustration was the mechanics of world building.I think my filter is influenced by the internet I think. My work is filled with the mutts that are created when when the world’s culture begins to have sex with itself and spawn mutants. My videos are experiments, never intended for mass production. If I was writing this for an council grant, I’d say it’s about metamorphosis and the images that live in the crossover between the analog and digital world. What general process do you go through when coming up for an idea for something like this and how do you develop it?I like to use the music as a seed, and imagine a world growing out of it. This leads to experimentation by necessity. I’ll listen to a track and think, this song reminds me of a Saturday morning cartoons, or this song reminds me of Voyager Space probe, or troll under a bridge… the songs take you a lot of different places. Especially if you have a mind that’s so full of rubbish absorbed from the internet.For Spiteful Intervention, I knew I wanted to make images that were dark and creepy, to match the lyrics, but also had a pretty silliness to them, to match the song. I started to think of various images that had that vibe, I could use as influences. Black velvet clowns, the 16th century paintings of fruit arranged to look like faces by Giuseppe Arcimboldo. I also riffed off artist William Blake’s images from the Divine Comedy.You work with a lot of different media and mediums, do you have one thing you like more than all the others?My favourite aspect of making videos is that they can be experimentations in storytelling. I chose to make videos in the first place as an alternative to film school, so trying new things and learning the best approaches for setting a certain mood is the whole point. Moving forward, I’d like to work towards becoming a good multimedia storyteller. So for me, it’s not so much about doing more animation, or more live action, but instead developing a long form style where each of those worlds coexist. Not in a Roger Rabbit kind of way. More like how fantasy and naturalistic ideas coexist in our imaginations. For feature film, I’d like to direct meta stories like Slaughterhouse Five (the book, not the crappy movie) or Alan Moore’s  the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (the comic, not the crappy movie) or the scifi book Snow Crash. Stories that leave room for absurd cartoons amidst violent and pornographic worlds. :)

Portable.tv

Portable.tv Interview (unabridged)

This week I did an interview with Portable.tv regarding my video for Of Montreal. I decided to publish the unedited article here —You can view the original by clicking “Portable.tv” above, in case that’s unclear. :)


So Spiteful Intervention is a very mixed media, did you create the artwork as well? How did they come together like they have?

Yes, I painted the majority of the work. My good friends Lee Stringle and Cameron Tomsett came in to help with the final push so we would hit the deadline.

Our approach was to take hand-painted characters and animate them by mapping them to a 3D meshes in Autodesk Maya.

The imagery or idea behind it seems a little dark, what general mood/feeling did you want to generate with it?

Originally I had wanted to do a 3D video in a similar style to artist Jeff Koons collages. That idea was rejected. Treatment one was too pop-arty for track. The first few times I listened to the song, I was focusing on the poppy rhythm of the piano and the change at 1:39. Both reminded me of the Beatles White Album for some reason… anyways, I completely missed how dark the lyrics actually were. The song’s all about self-loathing and battling dark thoughts, so I felt having Kevin’s head morph into various creatures would be the simplest, and most fun way to illustrate that idea. I think the colours, the loose painting and the bounciness of the images, combined with how sad all of the drawings look, matched the song pretty well.

You’ve done quite a few film clips, how do you approach each one with a different mindset and originality?

I’m  curious. I like taking things apart and rebuilding them in different ways.
In art school we were always encouraged to find one distinctive way of working, and to put all projects through that filter. There’s the Alex McLeod filter, and the Martin Wittfooth  filter, the Jessica Rae Gordon filter. They each build little worlds, with their own sets of rules. It’s a great approach for business as Milton Glaser would say. The main thing I took away from illustration was the mechanics of world building.

I think my filter is influenced by the internet I think. My work is filled with the mutts that are created when when the world’s culture begins to have sex with itself and spawn mutants. My videos are experiments, never intended for mass production. If I was writing this for an council grant, I’d say it’s about metamorphosis and the images that live in the crossover between the analog and digital world.

What general process do you go through when coming up for an idea for something like this and how do you develop it?

I like to use the music as a seed, and imagine a world growing out of it. This leads to experimentation by necessity. I’ll listen to a track and think, this song reminds me of a Saturday morning cartoons, or this song reminds me of Voyager Space probe, or troll under a bridge… the songs take you a lot of different places. Especially if you have a mind that’s so full of rubbish absorbed from the internet.

For Spiteful Intervention, I knew I wanted to make images that were dark and creepy, to match the lyrics, but also had a pretty silliness to them, to match the song. I started to think of various images that had that vibe, I could use as influences. Black velvet clowns, the 16th century paintings of fruit arranged to look like faces by Giuseppe Arcimboldo. I also riffed off artist William Blake’s images from the Divine Comedy.


You work with a lot of different media and mediums, do you have one thing you like more than all the others?

My favourite aspect of making videos is that they can be experimentations in storytelling. I chose to make videos in the first place as an alternative to film school, so trying new things and learning the best approaches for setting a certain mood is the whole point. Moving forward, I’d like to work towards becoming a good multimedia storyteller. So for me, it’s not so much about doing more animation, or more live action, but instead developing a long form style where each of those worlds coexist. Not in a Roger Rabbit kind of way. More like how fantasy and naturalistic ideas coexist in our imaginations. For feature film, I’d like to direct meta stories like Slaughterhouse Five (the book, not the crappy movie) or Alan Moore’s  the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (the comic, not the crappy movie) or the scifi book Snow Crash. Stories that leave room for absurd cartoons amidst violent and pornographic worlds. :)

Orphan Gifs
Of Montreal | Spiteful Intervention OrphansCompleted April 16th, 2011   I had the opportunity to do a second video Of Montreal this spring. Unfortunately, among the dozen or so creatures I painted for the video, several didn’t make the cut… I’ve decided to give the orphan animations a home on this blog.

Orphan Gifs

Of Montreal | Spiteful Intervention Orphans
Completed April 16th, 2011 

I had the opportunity to do a second video Of Montreal this spring. Unfortunately, among the dozen or so creatures I painted for the video, several didn’t make the cut… I’ve decided to give the orphan animations a home on this blog.





Kathryn Calder | Who Are You (Making Of)
*This is a successful music video post. I’m collapsing the now deduct HiddenItems.org into this blog. My failed projects will now be occasionally interrupted by a successful project, along with insights on what ideas worked and what ideas did not. Enjoy!* JE
Successfully Completed July 24th 2011
In case missed this video, and have little time to watch it in it’s entirety, here is a gif image that acts as a summery.
For those of you with time to kill, you can watch the full version here, and read a review of some of the tricks we used to pull it off below. 
May - July 2011
In the summer of 2011 Cameron Tomsett, Dean Tzenos and I began throwing around concepts for our friend Kathryn Calder’s new track “Who Are You?”. She had requested a “weird, fun dance video”. We threw around several ideas: Belly dancing video? Break dancing C3P0? A Sesame Street parody… Finally we decided on a stream of animated, colourful shapes with sexy lady legs, similar to the “lets go out to the lobby” cartoons at old movie theatres. 
We came up with rough ideas for the costumes. We knew we wanted the designs to evolve and become more complex as the song progressed.

Eventually we decided it would be interesting to focus on animal evolution. We would start from basic shapes and as we added more geometry to the costumes, we would move up the evolutionary tree — Worm, fish, octopus, crab, gator, dinosaur, bird, pony, monkey and finally a human which would be played by Kathryn Calder herself.
Our friend, painter and designer Lee Stringle helped us design the “evolving” costumes. Each costume in the sequence has one or more extra geometric planes, or polygons, than the design that proceeded it. 


Once we had the designs, we had to think about how to best build the costumes. We crafted a 1 meter diameter buckyball out of paper mache as a test, but the prototype was both too heavy and too rough-looking to work for the concept. 
After consulting local builder Melissa Fisher, we decided to build the costumes from large sheets of foamcore. To create the blue prints for the costumes, we built 3D CGI versions of the animal designs in Maya. Using a program called pepakura we “unwrapped” the CGI models and converted them into 2d blue prints.

We then projected the patterns onto 48 x 72 inch foamcore boards and traced the images with pencil. Afterwords, we used box cutters to trim the designs and duct tape to assemble the pieces into the final costumes.
During our construction marathon, I managed to slice the pad off of my index finger with a box cutter. It was 12:30 at night on a Tuesday, and all the stores were closed. Cameron, along with my roommate Brendan, ran around the neighbourhood looking for bandages while I sat pinching my finger in the fetal position. I figured I could fuse the severed skin back onto my body if I applied enough pressure. I had a rotten sleep that night. For some reason, because I have never had a pain in my finger before, I thought finger pain would be mild and easily ignored. It was not.
16 hrs and a few Tylenol liquid jells later, we were back at full capacity. Incidentally, a couple weeks later, the whole end of my injured finger turned brown and hard and eventually peeled off like a leather thimble. Underneath was a brand new finger, soft and pink like a baby’s… 
On shoot day, our friend Chris Chapman set us up in a beautiful room at this awesome photography space Silverline Studios which basically took the project to a whole new level. It came with a small refrigerator full of coca-cola, which I think, Cameron and the dancer Peng Cherry are still dreaming of. 



Later, Cameron and I rented a moving van and drove the fully constructed costumes to the shoot space in the dead of night to avoid Toronto traffic. We blasted Classic Rock Q107 all the way there, since there was no iPod jack in the van’s stereo. Here is one of the songs… 
Here is a video from our dress rehearsal starring Peng Cherry and Cameron Tomsett.

The shoot day was a long 12 hour slog. The wonderfully talented Greg Bliskep worked as our DP. We shot one costume at a time, and used a HD video projector to add colourful animations by Toronto Designer Emma O’Neil, on to the while costumes. 
The day after the shoot, faced with the fact that we had no place to store the huge costumes, Dean, Cameron and I ninja kicked them to pieces. Failing to capture video of this event, is probably the greatest regret of my career….
JJE

Kathryn Calder | Who Are You (Making Of)

*This is a successful music video post. I’m collapsing the now deduct HiddenItems.org into this blog. My failed projects will now be occasionally interrupted by a successful project, along with insights on what ideas worked and what ideas did not. Enjoy!* JE

Successfully Completed July 24th 2011

In case missed this video, and have little time to watch it in it’s entirety, here is a gif image that acts as a summery.

For those of you with time to kill, you can watch the full version here, and read a review of some of the tricks we used to pull it off below. 

May - July 2011

In the summer of 2011 Cameron Tomsett, Dean Tzenos and I began throwing around concepts for our friend Kathryn Calder’s new track “Who Are You?”. She had requested a “weird, fun dance video”. We threw around several ideas: Belly dancing video? Break dancing C3P0? A Sesame Street parody… Finally we decided on a stream of animated, colourful shapes with sexy lady legs, similar to the “lets go out to the lobby” cartoons at old movie theatres. 

We came up with rough ideas for the costumes. We knew we wanted the designs to evolve and become more complex as the song progressed.

rough ideas

Eventually we decided it would be interesting to focus on animal evolution. We would start from basic shapes and as we added more geometry to the costumes, we would move up the evolutionary tree — Worm, fish, octopus, crab, gator, dinosaur, bird, pony, monkey and finally a human which would be played by Kathryn Calder herself.

Our friend, painter and designer Lee Stringle helped us design the “evolving” costumes. Each costume in the sequence has one or more extra geometric planes, or polygons, than the design that proceeded it. 

Once we had the designs, we had to think about how to best build the costumes. We crafted a 1 meter diameter buckyball out of paper mache as a test, but the prototype was both too heavy and too rough-looking to work for the concept. 

After consulting local builder Melissa Fisher, we decided to build the costumes from large sheets of foamcore. To create the blue prints for the costumes, we built 3D CGI versions of the animal designs in Maya. Using a program called pepakura we “unwrapped” the CGI models and converted them into 2d blue prints.

We then projected the patterns onto 48 x 72 inch foamcore boards and traced the images with pencil. Afterwords, we used box cutters to trim the designs and duct tape to assemble the pieces into the final costumes.

During our construction marathon, I managed to slice the pad off of my index finger with a box cutter. It was 12:30 at night on a Tuesday, and all the stores were closed. Cameron, along with my roommate Brendan, ran around the neighbourhood looking for bandages while I sat pinching my finger in the fetal position. I figured I could fuse the severed skin back onto my body if I applied enough pressure. I had a rotten sleep that night. For some reason, because I have never had a pain in my finger before, I thought finger pain would be mild and easily ignored. It was not.

16 hrs and a few Tylenol liquid jells later, we were back at full capacity. Incidentally, a couple weeks later, the whole end of my injured finger turned brown and hard and eventually peeled off like a leather thimble. Underneath was a brand new finger, soft and pink like a baby’s… 

On shoot day, our friend Chris Chapman set us up in a beautiful room at this awesome photography space Silverline Studios which basically took the project to a whole new level. It came with a small refrigerator full of coca-cola, which I think, Cameron and the dancer Peng Cherry are still dreaming of. 

Later, Cameron and I rented a moving van and drove the fully constructed costumes to the shoot space in the dead of night to avoid Toronto traffic. We blasted Classic Rock Q107 all the way there, since there was no iPod jack in the van’s stereo. Here is one of the songs… 

Here is a video from our dress rehearsal starring Peng Cherry and Cameron Tomsett.

The shoot day was a long 12 hour slog. The wonderfully talented Greg Bliskep worked as our DP. We shot one costume at a time, and used a HD video projector to add colourful animations by Toronto Designer Emma O’Neil, on to the while costumes. 

The day after the shoot, faced with the fact that we had no place to store the huge costumes, Dean, Cameron and I ninja kicked them to pieces. Failing to capture video of this event, is probably the greatest regret of my career….

JJE

Ten Kens
TEN KENS~ Refined
Dir: Jesse Ewles
Rejected 9/19/07
For ‘Refined’ I want to a make an early 90’s video that complements the early 90’s vibe on the album. What I have in mind is similar in aesthetic to David Lynch’s Eraserhead, except mixed with the old Louis Carrol poem ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’. My pop-psych stop-motion work will be prevalent. Everyone in the band will appear in the video. *note* though this video is primarily focused on oyster eating very few actual oysters will be eaten (which is too bad because they’re delicious!). We’ll be faking the shots with empty sterilized oyster shells and corn syrup.
JE
Breakdown
0:00
We open with a slow moving pan through the graffiti alleys of Queen West.
http://static.flickr.com/52/121662761_5d60009ba6.jpg
It’s evening and the lighting is harsh with deep shadows.
As we continue down the alley we come across Dean, sitting on a picnic blanket on the ground beside two women. The three have their heads against the wall and are blowing large puffs of cigar smoke into the
sky in time with the music. They look stuffed. Surrounding the group are a number of party accessories. There’s a small t.v tray, some empty bottles and a metal bucket heaping with chilled oysters.
0:12
The camera pans right and finds Lee with his own heap of oysters and lady-friend. We have a super close-up of him splitting one of the shell fish with a shucking knife.
http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/olympic/recreation-nu/images/oysteropened_sealrockbeachjun04.JPG
He then delicately licks the center. To his right, his companion is eating much more aggressively. We get a strong, silhouetted profile shot of the girl throwing back the oysters. The clear slime runs down her neck and chest.
0:35
We continue down the alley. To the left we pass Ryan. He’s passed out, lying like a rag-doll with his head buried in shells. We continue on. We find Dan loading up a miniature wheel barrow with ice. He’s wearing a pair of industrial rubber gloves. Beside him is a huge fat man - cropped so we can only see his belly. The fat man hands another sack of oysters to Dan. Dan, halfhearted, splits the sack open with a knife and dumps the shells into the barrow (barely paying attention). As he casts the sack aside and heads back to refill his band mates’ platters, we notice a label on the side of the bag marked “EXPIRED”.
0:55
We jump cut to Dan shoving the oysters out of the barrow with a scoop. He tosses a few more Ryan’s way even though he hasn’t moved an inch. Quickly we cut between Dean, Lee and the girls all chowing down.
1:10
Suddenly everyone begins to feel ill. As we examine Dean, who is slouching and slack-jawed, we notice that
the girl beside him (who’s blurred by the depth of field) seems to have been mutated. Dean turns his head to look at her; as he moves the girl comes into focus and immediately returns to normal. He shifts his attention to the second girl on his other side. The same effect is repeated.
1:17
Meanwhile, on the other side of the ally, Lee continues to eat but with more craziness in his eyes. We see a wide shot of Dean looking back and forth at his slouching, sickly women, before cutting to Lee again.
1:32
Next we see a first-person view of what Lee is hallucinating. His companion’s head has been completely replaced by a giant oyster shell. Lee stares intensely. Her huge shell parts in the centre. A litter of clear slime pours out along with a thick tentacle.
2:00
We cut back to Dean’s terrified eyes, then cut to his girl friends. The top half of their faces have been replaced by oyster shells. They’re looking at one another, stroking each other’s arms. It looks as if they are about to lean into one another for a kiss. Just as they come close enough, the shells on their faces pop open, dumping slime and exposing their fat oyster tongues. The two begin French kissing with the oyster tongues. Dean does his “metal” scream.
2:15
As the build in the song begins, the fat man from earlier arrives on the scene, flanked by Dan. We pan up and see that he’s a huge walrus man. He licks his lips as he surveys all the tasty oyster heads in the ally. He begins to stomp down the alley. Dean looks terrified and hides behind the kissing oyster girls. Lee looks excited, Dan is unamused and Ryan is still passed out.
2:28
The walrus reaches Lee’s former companion first. He thrusts his head into her shell and begins to eat her. Slime pours everywhere. We cut frantically between everyone in the scene. Dan continues to walk around serving more and more oysters, oblivious to the goings on.
2:45
The walrus makes his way over to Dean’s oyster twins and separates them. As Dean recoils in horror, the walrus takes a girl in each arm and begins thrusting his head at each of them, biting them in turns. We cut between everyone once again. Dean is in the fetal position, covered in slime, Lee is spooning his shell-head girlfriend (stroking her shell) and Dan’s still tossing oysters at everyone. The walrus goes back and forth, biting the twins rapidly as the song peaks.
3:03
We end with a fall away shot of Dean screaming. Everyone around him appears to be human and passed out. Lee is stroking the head of his girl who’s lying on the ground. Dan is heading away with his wheel barrow.
Cut to black
What they made instead: Nothing

Ten Kens

TEN KENS~ Refined

Dir: Jesse Ewles

Rejected 9/19/07

For ‘Refined’ I want to a make an early 90’s video that complements the early 90’s vibe on the album. What I have in mind is similar in aesthetic to David Lynch’s Eraserhead, except mixed with the old Louis Carrol poem ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’. My pop-psych stop-motion work will be prevalent. Everyone in the band will appear in the video. *note* though this video is primarily focused on oyster eating very few actual oysters will be eaten (which is too bad because they’re delicious!). We’ll be faking the shots with empty sterilized oyster shells and corn syrup.

JE

Breakdown

0:00

We open with a slow moving pan through the graffiti alleys of Queen West.

http://static.flickr.com/52/121662761_5d60009ba6.jpg

It’s evening and the lighting is harsh with deep shadows.

As we continue down the alley we come across Dean, sitting on a picnic blanket on the ground beside two women. The three have their heads against the wall and are blowing large puffs of cigar smoke into the

sky in time with the music. They look stuffed. Surrounding the group are a number of party accessories. There’s a small t.v tray, some empty bottles and a metal bucket heaping with chilled oysters.

0:12

The camera pans right and finds Lee with his own heap of oysters and lady-friend. We have a super close-up of him splitting one of the shell fish with a shucking knife.

http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/olympic/recreation-nu/images/oysteropened_sealrockbeachjun04.JPG

He then delicately licks the center. To his right, his companion is eating much more aggressively. We get a strong, silhouetted profile shot of the girl throwing back the oysters. The clear slime runs down her neck and chest.

0:35

We continue down the alley. To the left we pass Ryan. He’s passed out, lying like a rag-doll with his head buried in shells. We continue on. We find Dan loading up a miniature wheel barrow with ice. He’s wearing a pair of industrial rubber gloves. Beside him is a huge fat man - cropped so we can only see his belly. The fat man hands another sack of oysters to Dan. Dan, halfhearted, splits the sack open with a knife and dumps the shells into the barrow (barely paying attention). As he casts the sack aside and heads back to refill his band mates’ platters, we notice a label on the side of the bag marked “EXPIRED”.

0:55

We jump cut to Dan shoving the oysters out of the barrow with a scoop. He tosses a few more Ryan’s way even though he hasn’t moved an inch. Quickly we cut between Dean, Lee and the girls all chowing down.

1:10

Suddenly everyone begins to feel ill. As we examine Dean, who is slouching and slack-jawed, we notice that

the girl beside him (who’s blurred by the depth of field) seems to have been mutated. Dean turns his head to look at her; as he moves the girl comes into focus and immediately returns to normal. He shifts his attention to the second girl on his other side. The same effect is repeated.

1:17

Meanwhile, on the other side of the ally, Lee continues to eat but with more craziness in his eyes. We see a wide shot of Dean looking back and forth at his slouching, sickly women, before cutting to Lee again.

1:32

Next we see a first-person view of what Lee is hallucinating. His companion’s head has been completely replaced by a giant oyster shell. Lee stares intensely. Her huge shell parts in the centre. A litter of clear slime pours out along with a thick tentacle.

2:00

We cut back to Dean’s terrified eyes, then cut to his girl friends. The top half of their faces have been replaced by oyster shells. They’re looking at one another, stroking each other’s arms. It looks as if they are about to lean into one another for a kiss. Just as they come close enough, the shells on their faces pop open, dumping slime and exposing their fat oyster tongues. The two begin French kissing with the oyster tongues. Dean does his “metal” scream.

2:15

As the build in the song begins, the fat man from earlier arrives on the scene, flanked by Dan. We pan up and see that he’s a huge walrus man. He licks his lips as he surveys all the tasty oyster heads in the ally. He begins to stomp down the alley. Dean looks terrified and hides behind the kissing oyster girls. Lee looks excited, Dan is unamused and Ryan is still passed out.

2:28

The walrus reaches Lee’s former companion first. He thrusts his head into her shell and begins to eat her. Slime pours everywhere. We cut frantically between everyone in the scene. Dan continues to walk around serving more and more oysters, oblivious to the goings on.

2:45

The walrus makes his way over to Dean’s oyster twins and separates them. As Dean recoils in horror, the walrus takes a girl in each arm and begins thrusting his head at each of them, biting them in turns. We cut between everyone once again. Dean is in the fetal position, covered in slime, Lee is spooning his shell-head girlfriend (stroking her shell) and Dan’s still tossing oysters at everyone. The walrus goes back and forth, biting the twins rapidly as the song peaks.

3:03

We end with a fall away shot of Dean screaming. Everyone around him appears to be human and passed out. Lee is stroking the head of his girl who’s lying on the ground. Dan is heading away with his wheel barrow.

Cut to black

What they made instead: Nothing

Buy Now
Buy Now | Body Crash Listen HereDirector: Jesse Ewles www.jesseewles.com
Rejected 04/14/2008Treatment
For “Body Crash”  I would like to make a montage of cliches from the classic Role Playing Games of the late 80’s and early 90’s. The final video will be realized in two separate animation styles which will be intercut with one another.  50% of the video will be animated using 15 inch tall stop-motion puppets shot in real life outdoor settings (ie. woodlands, marshes ect) The other half will be comprised of enlarged pixel-art animations reminiscent of the classic games.  All of the characters will share a distored, bug-eyed anime influence .
The cast of characters includes a crotchety but banal warrior toting a sword of ever-increasing size, a holistic magic-mushroom eating mage and a feisty thief who’s attacks foes with the cursed disembodied skin of his face. This party will venture through various forest settings bantering, fighting scorpions, building up their levels, buying items and preparing for a boss fight at the climax of the video. The final battle will feature a giant man-eating flytrap.  During the stopmotion versions of these scenes, each of the cartoon impact explosions, as well as the spells the mage casts will be built out of paper and composited into the scene.
J
What they made: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYBhbMj16VM

Buy Now

Buy Now | Body Crash Listen Here
Director: Jesse Ewles www.jesseewles.com

Rejected 04/14/2008

Treatment

For “Body Crash”  I would like to make a montage of cliches from the classic Role Playing Games of the late 80’s and early 90’s. The final video will be realized in two separate animation styles which will be intercut with one another.  50% of the video will be animated using 15 inch tall stop-motion puppets shot in real life outdoor settings (ie. woodlands, marshes ect) The other half will be comprised of enlarged pixel-art animations reminiscent of the classic games.  All of the characters will share a distored, bug-eyed anime influence .

The cast of characters includes a crotchety but banal warrior toting a sword of ever-increasing size, a holistic magic-mushroom eating mage and a feisty thief who’s attacks foes with the cursed disembodied skin of his face. This party will venture through various forest settings bantering, fighting scorpions, building up their levels, buying items and preparing for a boss fight at the climax of the video. The final battle will feature a giant man-eating flytrap.  During the stopmotion versions of these scenes, each of the cartoon impact explosions, as well as the spells the mage casts will be built out of paper and composited into the scene.

J

What they made: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYBhbMj16VM

Bamboleo
Remix Video
Directors: Jesse Ewles and Cameron Tomsett
Cencept: Run Away school bus viral video
Summery: The majority of the video will be a low frame rate (stopmotion-stye) dance sequence viewed from a locked-down camera at the front of the bus.  As the bus travels, it will pick up various strange characters and surreal characters (children, old people, ghosts, dogs, alien blobs ect) who each perform unique dance moves aboard the bus.  Similar to Daft Punk’s “Around the world”, the video will start with one character popping up from behind different seats based on the music. As the song progresses and the bus travels to different destinations different characters will begin appearing from behind the seats. By the end of the video there will be a full variety of characters appearing from behind each seat synchronized to beats and hits of the song. We will also create wide shots of the bus speeding around the world give the video variety.  We would like to animate these wide shots, using a miniature bus.   The bus will drive crazily through unexpected off-road environments such as a swamp, a dump and a disco.  Also, the bus will make a dare-devil style ramp-jump through a flaming hoop.
Shot List
Overhead shot of a stop-motion bus rocketing down an empty highway.
Locked down shot of a school bus, one character appears from behind the seat popping up and down to the beat. 
Bus passes through a farm.
People dressed as pigs, cows and chickens appear from behind the seats.
Wide of shot of the bus driving through a river.
Everyone on board does the “wave” in their seats as new characters begin to appear. Fish people, Alligator people etc…  The pond water will be bed-sheets painted to look like water.  The swamp plants will be pieces of foam covered in real weeds.
Close-up shot of one of the bus’ fuel gages.  It’s marked “fun” and the needle is steadily rising. 
Wide shot of the bus driving through a graveyard.
Ghosts (people in sheets), vampires, warewolves characters etc…appear from behind the seats.
Wide shot of the bus driving through a discotheque.
Silver disco balls flood the bus. Balloons pop up from behind the seats as well as sweaty disco dancers.
At this point the once empty bus is packed full of different characters all bouncing up and down the music. The bus is a full out celebration with disco balls coloured lights and a whole lot of characters. bus can fly through the flaming hoop at the end and explode in mid air.
Delivery Format:  PAL Beta SP
J

Bamboleo

Remix Video

Directors: Jesse Ewles and Cameron Tomsett

Cencept: Run Away school bus viral video

Summery: The majority of the video will be a low frame rate (stopmotion-stye) dance sequence viewed from a locked-down camera at the front of the bus.  As the bus travels, it will pick up various strange characters and surreal characters (children, old people, ghosts, dogs, alien blobs ect) who each perform unique dance moves aboard the bus.  Similar to Daft Punk’s “Around the world”, the video will start with one character popping up from behind different seats based on the music. As the song progresses and the bus travels to different destinations different characters will begin appearing from behind the seats. By the end of the video there will be a full variety of characters appearing from behind each seat synchronized to beats and hits of the song. We will also create wide shots of the bus speeding around the world give the video variety.  We would like to animate these wide shots, using a miniature bus.   The bus will drive crazily through unexpected off-road environments such as a swamp, a dump and a disco.  Also, the bus will make a dare-devil style ramp-jump through a flaming hoop.

Shot List

Overhead shot of a stop-motion bus rocketing down an empty highway.

Locked down shot of a school bus, one character appears from behind the seat popping up and down to the beat. 

Bus passes through a farm.

People dressed as pigs, cows and chickens appear from behind the seats.

Wide of shot of the bus driving through a river.

Everyone on board does the “wave” in their seats as new characters begin to appear. Fish people, Alligator people etc…  The pond water will be bed-sheets painted to look like water.  The swamp plants will be pieces of foam covered in real weeds.

Close-up shot of one of the bus’ fuel gages.  It’s marked “fun” and the needle is steadily rising. 

Wide shot of the bus driving through a graveyard.

Ghosts (people in sheets), vampires, warewolves characters etc…appear from behind the seats.

Wide shot of the bus driving through a discotheque.

Silver disco balls flood the bus. Balloons pop up from behind the seats as well as sweaty disco dancers.

At this point the once empty bus is packed full of different characters all bouncing up and down the music. The bus is a full out celebration with disco balls coloured lights and a whole lot of characters. bus can fly through the flaming hoop at the end and explode in mid air.

Delivery Format:  PAL Beta SP

J

Jesse Yules CV (aka Jesse Ewles)

Adam and the Amethysts ~ Prophecy (postponed)
Ohbijou (Stage Visuals) Metal Meets Tour 2011
Ohbijou, Stage Visuals, 2011 tour
Kathry Calder ~ Who Are You? (File Under Music)
We Have Band ~ Love What You’re Doing (Naive Records)
Anarbor ~ Gypsy Woman (Hopeless Records)
Aesop: Kingdom of Frogs, short film (BravoTV)
Reverie Sound Revue ~ You Don’t Exist
In Case of Fire ~ Enemies (RCA/Jive)
Of Montreal ~ An Eluardian Instance (Polyvinyl)
Michael Zapruder ~ Ads for Feelings (Sidecho)
Ten Kens ~ Worthless (Fat Cat)
Moros Eros ~ On My Side (Victory)
“My Toronto” ad spot (Spacing Magazine)
Evans Blue ~ The Pursuit Begins (Hollywood Records)
Grizzly Bear ~ Central and Remote (Warp Records)
Final Fantasy ~ He Poos Clouds (Tom Lab)
Wax Mannequin ~ The Price (Infinite Heat)
“Terraform” Student Film April 2004

Screenwriting

Meme Dump (in development)Genre: Vonnegut, mundane scifi.
Old Smith Rupe (in development) Genre: Western, survival horror.


Producer Filmography

Dinosaur Bones ~ NYE (Dine Alone Records)
 

Exhibits


Animator / Compositor

Great Lake Swimmers, Director Scott Cuddmore
Ohbijou “New Years” Director: Exploding Motor Car
Milo (2004) Director: Cameron Tomsett
Modest Mouse “Off the Deep End” Director: Christopher Mills
Rush “Far Cry” Director: Christopher Mills


Screenings

Phase3 Videoart TV (Germany), February 2012
Short and Sweet, Showcase, June 2011
Hamilton Film Festival, November 2010
Contra Vision Film Festival (Germany), September 2010
Portable Film Festival, August 2009
Director’s Notes Showcase, UK, July 2008 
49th Krakow Film Festival, 2009
Museek Film Festival, St. Petersburg 2009
Gay and Lesbian Film Fest 2007
Canadian Youth Film Fest 2006


Awards

Much Music Indie Video of the Year 2011 (nominated): Tokyo Police Club - Wait Up
Hamilton International Film Festival: Best Experimental Film 2010
videos.antville.org “Best Unsigned Director” 2008
Spacing Magazine “My TO” 2005 People’s Choice Award
Canadian Youth Film Fest 2004, First Runner-up

Collaborators

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