Saman Kesh Talks Twerking and Puppetry

Earlier this week, shots.net featured a quirky music video inspired by Japanese sex toys and dance. Produced by SKUNK, the risqué film is set to the song Never Say Never by electronic dance duo Basement Jaxx.

Intrigued by the video’s star performer (a set of twerking robotic buttocks), below we have a chat with director Saman Kesh to find out more about the project.

How did the idea for the video come about? The Twerkbot story is very unique!

Thank you. It's that organic process where you just let your mouse click you to different worlds while you got something cooking in the kitchen. And even when that kitchen is nearly catching on fire from your neglect to keep the special dish from over cooking, you can't leave your post where the inspiration and magic is kicking in. That moment was essentially me listening to the track while viewing YouTube videos covering a sex robot convention held in Japan every year. Various things included prostitute bots, fellatio faces, and mechanical buttocks that were designed to be slapped. Pretty creepy stuff that made me want to be five years old again so I could avoid such post pubescent atrocities and return to my Sega Genesis.

What made Basement Jaxx the right band and their song the right song for the video?

My brother threw raves back in the early 2000s. At one of these parties, my first CD sampler from Astralwerks had various bands like Phoenix, Air, Stewart Price and of course Basement Jaxx. The latter quickly became one of my favourite artists of my teens. So, you can imagine that I jumped at an opportunity to be involved when John Moule, label commissioner, sent me the track.

At a glance the track, and the video feel like two different entities. However, I have grown accustomed to challenging myself to merge contradictory elements to build a unique (and sometimes 'off kilter') sense of harmony. The track on the surface is smooth, sexy and a little retro. However, the passionate vocals spell somebody that's so romantically blind, that they are almost borderline delusional (which is often the case in these kinds of tracks). So for the video, I thought it would be nice to have these qualities translate to our main characters, but the passion would be expressed in a very ‘introverted’ manner.

Also, Basement Jaxx always had this synthetic meets organic quality to me that I always liked since I was a teen. However to visually realise this was rather strange. The scientists’ relationship (the organic) mixed with the sterile environment/synthetic robot (the synthetic) hopefully did the trick.

My idea was far-fetched and even the band had a hard time with the idea for a couple meetings...but once I told them more and that the robot would hump at a whopping 124 Twerks per minute I sold them like Renee Zelweiger in Jerry MacGuire. I had them at hump.

What were your favourite moments from working on the video?

Going to the restroom to cry by myself.

What were the biggest challenges in the directing process?

Building an entire corporation office in one day. Getting the Twerkbot to animate. Not crying in front of my crew. Avoiding nervous Skittle binging at the snack bar.

Tell me about the Twerkbot. How was this creation made? Was this mainly in post production or did you make a model?

The Build: My dear friends at Alterian Inc. kicked ass. I brought the idea and a document of a rough mock-up of what I was looking for and what it needed to do as well as the features.  They went off and kind of made a little more of a concrete sketch. We then tweaked and adjusted as we went along. After visiting the shop almost every day and having our daily pow-wow of evolution, the robot was ready to show its stuff.

The Twerking: I always knew that I didn't want to do CG, but I also didn't want to do full-on robotics. Mostly those two would have been impossible. Instead, I pitched the idea of puppeting the robot and adjusting in post. Alterian bought in and that's what we did. There were three puppeteers – one for the ass pump (the booty shakes), another for the humping/thrusts (this was a professional Twerker) and finally another animator that worked the legs and knee joints. We later adjusted the "jittery" amount accordingly in post.

Where did you film and how long did you shoot for?

One day on a sound stage in Hollywood.

What feeling do you want viewers to come away with after watching the video?

I'm happy if viewers walk away with any of the following feelings: Confused, angered, delighted, happy, disgusted, disturbed, shocked. I'm fine with any one or more of those.

Do you think the Twerkbot would be popular if manufactured and sold today?

If the Twerkbot were manufactured and popular today I would:

1. Commit suicide (unlikely)

2. Shake my head in disappointment

3. Return to the age of five and play my Sega Genesis.

With that being said...No, it probably would not be popular. Don't buy a Twerkbot. Make love and continue to dance.