dose.ca video spotlight
Somewhat Hedley related. Dose.ca speaks with the director of FTNICR, so there's some ramblings about the boys.
Leah Collins
Wednesday, June 11, 2008 @ dose.ca
Best Video Nominee: Hedley's "For the Nights I Can't Remember"
Director: Kevin De Freitas
Notable Credits: Hedley's "Gunnin," Keshia Chante's "Unpredictable," Kardinal Offishall's "Bakardi Slang"
Video He Wishes He Directed: Squarepusher's "Come On My Selector" (directed by Chris Cunningham). "It's just visually stunning, striking, compelling, all of those things ... and it looks like the director really had the budget to do it."
The Video: Hedley frontman Jacob Hoggard plays a rough-around-the-edges thug with two shiners, a criminal record and girl trouble. While he gets himself thrown out of dives and fools around with bar skanks, his teary-eyed lady love pines at home. Will she walk out on him? Lucky for Hoggard, he has a Michael Buble makeover and this schmaltzy ready-for-Canadian-Idol ballad to win her back.
Where the concept came from: When director Kevin De Freitas got the call to work on Hedley ballad "For the Nights I Can't Remember," he already had two clips with the radio-ready rockers notched on his C.V. "We have a pretty good relationship, there's trust there," he says. While discussing the treatment with the band, they all decided the video had to do two things. The first: the band wanted to do a Rat Pack throwback - suits, slicked hair, smoky jazz joints and all. "They felt the song, that's the way the mood of the song was," De Freitas explains.
The second essential element: they didn't want a straight-up performance video. "The song, written by Jacob, was really personal for him," says De Freitas. "He essentially told me, 'I want to tell a story and I want it to be a rough and tumble story about someone dealing with problems, and not getting their stuff together.'"
"The rest of it fell in place lyrically," De Frietas explains of the video's tale of a no-good guy trying to make things right with his girl. The director will, however, cop to contributing the clip's little narrative touches: bar fights, mugshots and hussies on-the-side.
The budget: approx. $60,000
Biggest challenge in making the video: De Freitas was in marathon mode during the making of the video, diving straight into Hedley's 18-hour Toronto shoot after wrapping a clip for another artist the day before. That the Hedley shoot was split between two downtown locations didn't ease the toll.
"The videos we've done in the past - it's always been one location," De Freitas notes. "We had two locations and so we had to travel from one location to the next. It was really always playing catch up - we were always behind. ... We didn't even really get all the shots we wanted to do because we were just so far behind because of the time of transferring from one location to the next."
Why he'll always remember this shoot: "It was lo-o-ong," De Freitas replies - but don't get the wrong impression. Working with Hedley, he says, is never a drag. "The guys always keep your spirits up. You never see it on them. ... Jacob's very much that way, just up and ready to go. Never has an off switch, you know?"
We know, we know - and anyone who's seen their hot-cops and sex-doll-assisted shenanigans at past MMVAs knows, too. But De Freitas insists that on set, the band keeps the hooliganism to a minimum.
"They're always excited and enthused and interested in what's going to happen next and how it's going to be done. It's always a good experience. They really care about what their videos are and what they're going to look like, what they're going to be. Not a lot of artists show that much interest."
Leah Collins
Wednesday, June 11, 2008 @ dose.ca
Best Video Nominee: Hedley's "For the Nights I Can't Remember"
Director: Kevin De Freitas
Notable Credits: Hedley's "Gunnin," Keshia Chante's "Unpredictable," Kardinal Offishall's "Bakardi Slang"
Video He Wishes He Directed: Squarepusher's "Come On My Selector" (directed by Chris Cunningham). "It's just visually stunning, striking, compelling, all of those things ... and it looks like the director really had the budget to do it."
The Video: Hedley frontman Jacob Hoggard plays a rough-around-the-edges thug with two shiners, a criminal record and girl trouble. While he gets himself thrown out of dives and fools around with bar skanks, his teary-eyed lady love pines at home. Will she walk out on him? Lucky for Hoggard, he has a Michael Buble makeover and this schmaltzy ready-for-Canadian-Idol ballad to win her back.
Where the concept came from: When director Kevin De Freitas got the call to work on Hedley ballad "For the Nights I Can't Remember," he already had two clips with the radio-ready rockers notched on his C.V. "We have a pretty good relationship, there's trust there," he says. While discussing the treatment with the band, they all decided the video had to do two things. The first: the band wanted to do a Rat Pack throwback - suits, slicked hair, smoky jazz joints and all. "They felt the song, that's the way the mood of the song was," De Freitas explains.
The second essential element: they didn't want a straight-up performance video. "The song, written by Jacob, was really personal for him," says De Freitas. "He essentially told me, 'I want to tell a story and I want it to be a rough and tumble story about someone dealing with problems, and not getting their stuff together.'"
"The rest of it fell in place lyrically," De Frietas explains of the video's tale of a no-good guy trying to make things right with his girl. The director will, however, cop to contributing the clip's little narrative touches: bar fights, mugshots and hussies on-the-side.
The budget: approx. $60,000
Biggest challenge in making the video: De Freitas was in marathon mode during the making of the video, diving straight into Hedley's 18-hour Toronto shoot after wrapping a clip for another artist the day before. That the Hedley shoot was split between two downtown locations didn't ease the toll.
"The videos we've done in the past - it's always been one location," De Freitas notes. "We had two locations and so we had to travel from one location to the next. It was really always playing catch up - we were always behind. ... We didn't even really get all the shots we wanted to do because we were just so far behind because of the time of transferring from one location to the next."
Why he'll always remember this shoot: "It was lo-o-ong," De Freitas replies - but don't get the wrong impression. Working with Hedley, he says, is never a drag. "The guys always keep your spirits up. You never see it on them. ... Jacob's very much that way, just up and ready to go. Never has an off switch, you know?"
We know, we know - and anyone who's seen their hot-cops and sex-doll-assisted shenanigans at past MMVAs knows, too. But De Freitas insists that on set, the band keeps the hooliganism to a minimum.
"They're always excited and enthused and interested in what's going to happen next and how it's going to be done. It's always a good experience. They really care about what their videos are and what they're going to look like, what they're going to be. Not a lot of artists show that much interest."