The Making of "Take on Me" for Shiny and the Spoon

Presenting Amber Nash, Matt Frazier, Pete Brown and Jordan Neff.

How did we ever get involved with Shiny and the Spoon? Excellent question. I believe I was looking for good local music in the Cincinnati scene and stumbled upon their fun Kickstarter video.

Their music was incredible and they seemed really cool. Eunice and I contacted Jordan and Amber of Shiny and they were very excited to work with us. We chose to make a music video for their song "Bread and Butter." It was a fun shoot and we enjoyed the process so much that we could not wait to make another music video for them. "Could not wait" translating to 10 months.


The next song of theirs I wanted to add some video accompaniment to was their cover of A-Ha's "Take on Me." My only real idea at first was to keep it as fun as their kickstarter video. We eventually set a date to shoot a month in advance, but it was not till the day before we were to film that I got inspired as to what we would do. Robots. We needed robots.

And I should know. Zzzt

My late inspiration luckily had a partner in good fortune as Anastasia Haas stepped up to help us craft our "metal" friends and Greg Nicholson said yes to my last minute phone call to be our cinematographer. I was once told that I could make a movie out of a cardboard box and an hour, well I had two cardboard boxes and a day but eventually I'll get there.

Anastasia, hard at work.

Greg, getting the shot.

It was a lot of fun helping Anastasia spray paint robots late during a rainy night. While trying to think of a possible shooting location we spotted the alley right behind Eunice's loft. Besides the great greens and reds, what made this alley even better was the sign left there by the American Sign Museum.

Eunice and Greg unaware of me testing my new iPhone app.

It was unusually cold and overcast that Saturday. It had rained the night before (which made robot painting even more difficult) and the rain had soaked into our "set" giving an even more interesting and saturated look.  Lucky, again. The next day we all died to even things out.  We didn't want anyone to think karma had gotten lazy.

Amber in the eyeball guillotine.

The band arrived and we began the process of pretending to play and sing.

So...we are going to start, right?

The most memorable part of the experience for me was Eunice yelling "be happy" to Amber constantly. I am glad she did as her smile really sells it. You could never tell what a cold, wet day it was from Amber and Jordan's expressions.
The next day we somehow convinced Victoria Baker and Sam Auvil to wear cardboard boxes and walk around fountain square.

On the way to the fun.

I replaced one of Sam's robot eyes with a GoPro (not knowing if it would even work) which obscured his vision. Sam had it easy though compared to Victoria as I put a light in her robot's head in front of her face. You can barely tell it is glowing but you can definitely tell this made her completely blind. Oops. It felt less like a music video shoot and more like a psychological sensory experiment.

Smile while you can Victoria and Sam. Smile while you can.

Victoria was the biggest trooper of the whole shoot. Not only did she have to be blind and mainly deaf in a cardboard/bucket suit but it was a windy day so occasionally she was hit with streams of water from the fountain. Kind of like a water park without the sun, rides or fun.  Luckily she got in free. Free admission anytime Victoria, anytime!

Who needs rides?

We had handlers to protect the robots and the equipment in the form of Chuck Beatty (famous film festival director) and Andrew Brown (one of the coolest dudes in the Cincinnati area). Their biggest contribution was making sure no one got hit by a bus while crossing the street. Oh, did I mention we made Victoria cross a street, blind and in a cardboard prison? Please visit again soon, Victoria!

You'll be fine. Just cross the street and try to walk straight.

We were pleasantly surprised at the great response we got from the public. We had no idea what would happen. With a little paint and glue we seemed to brighten the days of everyone that came up to meet our creations. It was as if they were really machines and the film crew was not even there. It was amazing. I was not expecting the robots to be embraced (literally and figuratively) that well.

But who doesn't like robots?

All in all it was an incredible shoot and we hope you will enjoy our combined efforts. We look forward to working with Shiny and the Spoon again as soon as possible! What a great group of people and also a great group of musicians. I can't wait till next time and I mean it. -Josh Flowers


Enjoy!

Yeah, we're with the band.