What came first – the title of the track or the film?
For this one, the storyline is what came absolutely first. It’s been on the table for five years. But since it’s a somewhat tricky thing to shoot, requiring a somewhat decent budget, it kept being postponed. Music and video were done pretty simultaneously. That sounds like a dream but it’s quite exhausting. When things are open they never stop producing anxiety.
Please tell us about the creative process with Salvatore Ganacci – were there other ideas before you landed on the Boycycle narrative?
We planned on doing this one for quite some time. But we have a “list of ideas” that we’d want to do. Salvatore is great to work with because he is an insanely creative person. He also values videos and film on a totally different level. I wouldn’t be surprised if he started doing great cinema, like feature films.
Vedran Rupic
Was everything nailed down to minute details in pre-production? And how did you go about the VFX?
We had to nail everything down as much as we could. And since this narrative is even more classical (structure wise) then Horse, it was really challenging. We had to shoot to get enough coverage and that just takes time. The motorcycle rig was very painful to deal with. It was a real motorcycle coated in latex skin. We had stripped the motorcycle of its engine and mechanical parts, but it was still super heavy.
Then in post we had a huge compositing job, creating the seam, and putting it all together.
We always do animatics, which is usually great, but an animatic really showed its limitations when it comes to portraying what characters feel and just the general tonality. Horse was alive in the animatic. This felt like an instructional video in the animatic.
What were the main challenges of the production?
I think the fact that there were so many shots combined with a really bulky and heavy motorcycle rig. For Salvatore, when he was in it, he was stuck for 8 hours. There was no getting out until we had the shots.
And was your brother, the accountant, on hand to help with logistics?
Haha yes! He was there! We didn’t have any carpentry done on this one, so he was there to take care of the rig and keep morale up on Salvatore.
Anything else you’d like to share?
When watching the video, one would think it was summer. But it wasn’t. It was the beginning of fall in Sweden and we had to use heat guns to warm Salvatore between takes. It was freezing.
I’d like to shoot exclusively during summer from now on!
Links:
Vedran Rupic is signed to Riff Raff’s Nursery of Evil as well.
