Q&A With George V.K.: Perplexity Pictures works with One Flew West to produce “Had It All” music video
In the past few years, One Flew West has had continued popularity and success in Fort Collins. The Denver-based band has headlined some of Fort Collins’ most popular venues, such as The Aggie and Hodi’s Half Note. In January, they released their music video for their song, “Had It All.”
The music video was written and produced by Perplexity Pictures, a Colorado-based production company made up of George V.K., Sinjin Jones and Bryan Smith.
The video features the band portraying a family in a 70’s-esque setting, who at first seem like a typical American family, but with a few quirks. With each band member portraying a different character in the family, the term “dysfunctional family” takes on a whole new meaning. But to call the family on One Flew West’s music video for “Had It All,” dysfunctional, would be an understatement. Check out the music video below:
Creating a music video may sound simple, but a project like this took more than just props and cameras. I sat down with the Director of Photography, George V.K., to talk about the video production process and what it was like working with the band.
Sabio: How did Perplexity Pictures get in touch with the band?
V.K.: Andy Rok is a music professor at CU Denver. We did our first music video with him for his band Bop Skizzum. They’re split up now. He started his own solo thing and just assembled a new band — Andy Rok & The Real Deal. But it’s basically the same thing. He’s the president of CAM Records at the school. At CU Denver, CAM Records is sort of like their music label. So this year they picked One Flew West to film “Had It All.” We worked with Andy quite a lot so he decided to use us for this year’s video.
Sabio: I heard that his students were part of the production team.
V.K.: Yeah, that’s right. He really emphasized using his class. That was what this project was basically for so the class had experience in production and what all goes into producing a song, managing a band and then you know producing a music video, putting it out and doing a distribution where they send out press releases. It got published in the Westword and in another publication where they did a special article on it.
Sabio: Does Andy do this project every year?
V.K.: Every year they sponsor a band in that class. A lot of the students helped out in the pre-production, where they would help gather a lot of the props or location scout and then during the shoot itself, a lot of them helped with makeup, costume, wardrobe and just kind of being extras. There were a few shots where we needed someone, like a body laying down on the floor. They were quite involved in that.
Sabio: What was your role in this project?
V.K.: I catered the food. I was the Director of Photography — DP. And obviously, as part of Perplexity, the three of us — Bryan, Sinjin and myself — we basically produced the project in terms of you know, wearing all the hats that you would need to. If we had a larger crew, you know we wouldn’t have to be doing those things. With only three people, we kind of had to pick locations, scout them ourselves, do the shot list, story board, write the script, get it approved by the client, work with Andy to make sure that he’s happy with the content. There was a certain scene that we wanted to include. It was gonna be really funny but ended up to be too inappropriate for the college setting so we had to nix that.
Sabio: Tell me about the video-making process
V.K.: This was an interesting project because it involved a lot of production design and art production. We ended up hiring our good friend Jessica Paddock who did a lot of the production design for the music video with props and costumes. There were a lot of costume changes when we had certain scenes that were supposed to be on one day and we’d shoot the next scene to be the next day so we had to switch costumes. She was really kind of taking care of all that for us. So that allowed Sinjin and myself and Bryan to really focus on the lighting and the camera and the direction. Sinjin was directing. Bryan was doing lighting and I was doing camera… It was kind of like this fluid collaborative process, which doesn’t happen often with sort of indie film sets. A lot of times it can get chaotic and disorganized but I felt like this set — despite having students that are inexperienced and probably have never been on a film set — seemed to flow pretty fluid.
Sabio: How was it like working with One Flew West?
V.K.: They were all for the goofy ideas that we brought forth which allowed us to be really creative. And so we saw that they were really down with a lot of our kooky, crazy, out of this world concepts. So we kind of were able to push that even further and some of those jokes probably ended up being a lot more inappropriate in the end, which we had to really tone down in post production. They were cool guys. It seemed like we spoke the same language. We were able to coach them easily. They really got into their characters and had a good time. One of the guys, the lead vocalist, had to dress up as the “mom” character so he wore dresses. I think he had a good time with it. I don’t think the band has ever really done anything like that where they’ve been on a set of that scale so I think they really were just having a good time, not being concerned with the chaos that was happening with the production of the actual music video.
Sabio: How were you guys able to work with what the band wanted and what you guys wanted in terms of the vision for the music video? Were there things that clashed?
V.K.: That’s a good question! That happens all the time. And we’ve had some really bad experiences with artists that want one thing at one point and then change their opinion throughout the process. It becomes frustrating and difficult because at some point you need to set on a decision and go forward, otherwise the production can’t get finished. We made sure to have preliminary meetings with the band and with Andy, so that we were on the same page about the concept, about all of the content that was gonna be shown in the music video — all of our concepts, all of our artistic direction. So we first met to sort of brainstorm and get all of the ideas out. And then the second time we met was really where us as Perplexity Pictures presented and sort of pitched this full script and we brought in visuals and we had Jessica, our art director, sort of talk about her vision for how the art direction is actually gonna look like with the costumes they were gonna be wearing, what’s gonna be the background, so on so forth. So yeah, we made sure to really have those preliminary planned meetings for that convenience so that when it came time to actually shoot it, that you know, any kind of quirks, we could work out quickly because we had those discussions before.
Sabio: Were there anything you guys wish you had done differently?
V.K.: There are probably plenty of things. There’s always missed opportunities on a production that I see because I never seem to be satisfied with my work completely. I think that’s part of what makes me always want to grow and never you know, stop improving or stop growing. One thing that happened was that Sinjin got really sick right before we started production so it was kind of on Bryan and I to really carry the whole production because we were the only two there, besides Jessica, that had extensive film set experience. It was kind of on Bryan and I to talk with the actors as well where it would’ve been just Sinjin’s job. So perhaps in hindsight, if we had another person that was knowledgeable in that area that we could trust, that could come on set and fill that role, maybe there would’ve been certain things that could’ve been different.
Sabio: Do you think that held you guys back a little bit or were you able to figure out a way around it?
V.K.: I think initially, it was a little bit worrisome, like it freaked me out because I was like “whoa, ok now I have to do this as well.” On a big set with a bunch of students, Andy, people coming in, like a lot people getting paid, there’s money involved in this, you can’t just turn back and cancel, especially on that small scope of a music video. I think more of that Sinjn really prepared us. He made sure that we were ready and that he was gonna be available by phone, he was gonna be really drugged up and probably delirious but he was gonna try his best. He kind of gave us the confidence to go forward with it and take care of everything that he would’ve been able to.
Sabio: What did you think of the experience overall?
V.K.: It was great! I look at every project as an opportunity to learn something, despite any disagreements or conflicts that might happen throughout the process so I strongly believe in always looking for the silver lining and seeing the best out of any project. There are definitely missed opportunities on this one but I think that the whole process felt so collaborative despite the mishap of Sinjin not being able to be there, Bryan and I had to really step it up and we collaborated the heck out of that project. Everybody was really aware of the situation so everyone really gave it 150,000 percent because they knew a lot of things were at stake. For a lot of the students, their grade was at stake so they had to do a good job. For Bryan and I, it was upholding the name and our integrity and sort of our image as a professional company. So I think at the end of the day, everyone was really satisfied with the project and seeing it get so much attention that it did was really humbling. I just hope that we continue doing the same thing — always growing, always pushing.
