Music Video

All of a sudden, I started getting emails from production companies who were all competing to get the job to shoot a music video for The Bravery’s “Time Won’t Let Me Go.”  They all wanted to know how we could build a set out of cards, what it would involve, and how long it would take—and a thousand other questions.  About two days later, Island Records awarded the project to a production company and then my phone started ringing.  They had to be ready to shoot this project in about three days.  Much of the project would need to be glued so the band could interact with it.  So, I used some cards to create samples of how you might glue cards onto a flat surface in an effort to make it look like it was actually stacked, not glued.  The whole thing was a rush job, and getting as many cards as we needed that quickly was impossible. Except, yours truly always has a stash on standby.  That same day, I loaded about 100 pounds of cards into my truck, drove them to Fed Ex, and overnighted them to New York City, where an army of people glued them into place per my specifications in a mere 24 hours.  The script also called for a rather shaggy looking guy to play the lead in the video.  At this point in life, I was a little bit more shaggy than usual, and they thought I looked perfect for the part.  So they said, “Don’t cut your hair, and we will see you in NYC tomorrow.”  On set, I spent a few days building the freestanding portions of the card set on camera.  One of those was built in a cafe in Brooklyn.  The catch was that about every ten minutes the subway would rattle the cafe, including my cards.  The crew was very intent on getting everything just right; it was taking forever, and with each passing of the subway a few more cards would flake off what I had built.  I even had to crawl through what I had stacked several times for several takes—each time almost knocking it down.  In the end, it was a success and a very fun project, and I must say The Bravery is a great bunch of guys who had not let fame go to their heads. The project aired on MTV within a few days after completion.