Lance Drake Talks Acid Road Trips & CG Trickery in Retro-Futuristic Muse Promo

Watching the new music video for Muse's latest track Something Human, you could be forgiven for thinking you'd wandered into some weird space-time wormhole, where things are nostalgic but futuristic at the same time. A sort of 80s vision of the future, if you like. If that sounds trippy, add in a hyper-stylised aesthetic, a CG car chase and one man's mission to return a VHS tape before he turns into a werewolf... 

Following on the heels of two previous videos, Dig Down and Thought Contagion, Something Human is the third in a series of promos that Lance Drake has helmed for the band - so we thought it was time to catch up with the director and find out more about the CG-heavy spot.

Watch the video below and read on for our exclusive Q&A.

This is the third promo you’ve directed for Muse and you’ve described it as ‘continuing the journey’. Can you tell us a bit more about how you came up with the idea and your creative process?

What started out as a one-off video for the band's single Dig Down last year has now grown into a concept album based around the world of the videos we’re making. We’ve done three and have several more in the works through the fall. It’s been kind of a crazy, once in a lifetime situation because the style of videos I make require a certain kind of artist - [someone] that wants a very ambitious and cinematic feeling which pushes past a 'vibe' and into hardcore storytelling.

 Dig Down

A lot of my creative core goes back to when I was a kid first experiencing cinema. I yearn for that time before I understood how films were made. By sheer luck, the band is at a point where they are also looking back at that pivotal time in their adolescence, when pop culture really opened their creative floodgates.

For Something Human we wanted to continue the storyline where Thought Contagion ended, Matt with a werewolf hand driving off in a red Countach. From there we concepted a Cannonball Run anime-like car chase ending in a Teen Wolf-style werewolf transformation..

 Thought Contagion

I spent some time really milling over the idea, going back and forth whether or not to shoot this video practically in the desert or do it all on green screen. There was probably a two-week period of us going out and scouting comparing budgets and concepting what one or the other would look like and at the end of the day I’ve seen so many music videos and films that take place in a practical desert, and I feel like the best version of what that can be within a budget has been done and I hadn’t seen a video in a long time that was a fully CG car chase, so we ran with that idea. This decision also informed the overall look and feel of the video.

We were super-lucky our production partner Whitelist linked us up with an effects company called Frame 48 working out of Culver City. Tom Teller, their executive director, came aboard and with his confidence in creating this fully CG world we took the entire concept into a much more acid trippy, hyper-real video game style.

The video looks like it was really fun to make, especially for the band. Were they immediately on board with the concept? How much creative freedom did you have?

So the thing that’s really unique and special about this video for the band is that they haven’t really ever acted in their videos. I think they saw how fun our last two videos turned out and they wanted to get in on the action. It took a lot of trust on their part, especially because we were working on green screen the entire time. 

But I think they did an amazing job, and what really came across in the video is their brotherhood, their fun energy, and where they are right now as artists.  The video is a great reflection of the direction of this upcoming record which is a totally different Muse and is really exciting.

There are lots of nostalgic ‘00s references in the video, from the Blockbuster-esque video rental store to classic horror spoof Teen Wolf. What is it about this decade that appealed to you? 

Well, these films referenced in the video were basically ground zero for me in filmmaking. I'd say nearly every other shot in this video has some kind of geeky reference. A big part of my creative process is unconsciously and consciously chasing that feeling of being eight years old and adapting my favourite blockbusters, comic books, video games and cartoons with a home movie camera and some action figures.

So a lot of the films referenced in all these videos we’re doing have this very metamodern retro-nostalgic feeling. Tragically, the now extinct “video store” is the perfect representation and physical destination for all these references. And as absurd as a fully CG acid trip car chase is, it made perfect sense that the reason for this epic odyssey is just to return some late videotapes.  

The spot features some stunning VFX. How much was shot in-camera versus done in post? What were some of the most challenging shots/scenes to capture?

Frame 48 did an amazing job on the VFX. 95 percent of what is in the video is completely CG. We spent two days shooting everything of the band inside practical cars and holding hand props. Basically, anything the band wasn't touching is CG.

The biggest challenge was road-mapping the entire video prior to shooting. Our editor Jeremiah Mayhew and I made several cuts before shooting, starting with me acting out the entire video like a home movie, a storyboard animatic, and the CG animatic. All these cuts were critical in keeping good communication because on a giant greenscreen set, you can get lost. From beginning to end we did the entire video in a month, which is totally insane.

We knew going into such a heavy CG video the lighting gags on our subjects were crucial to make the live action and animation shots feel completely cohesive. Todd Banhazl, our DP and I had to map out every lighting gag in time with shots because there is so much dynamic timelapse and light gags happening all over the video. Looking back, the video had a book's worth of lighting diagrams, sky references and concept art. 

And what was the most rewarding aspect of the job?

Doing this video series with Muse has been so special. They’ve been awesome collaborators and been open to every crazy idea I’ve thrown their way. We’ve been able to add so many easter eggs in the videos and [Muse's] fans really pick up on everything - they've making memes, fan art, and dressing up like the characters in the videos. It's unbelievable. The amount of growth in terms of prep, communication and execution on this video has been the highlight of my career. My editor at the start of this job said he would believe in God if we delivered on this colossal concept. I just bought him a bible.