Dent de Cuir Help Darwin Deez To 'Kill Your Attitude'
Darwin Deez plays out if relationship issues in a hilarious videogame-referencing music video. We chatted to the brains behind the promo - Dent de Cuir - about how it was made.
Darwin Deez seems like a shrewd talent spotter. In his hit-filled indie career so far he's utilised the awesome likes of Ninian Doff and Keith Schofield, so it's hardly surprising that for his latest video – 'Kill Your Attitude' – he's handed the baton of creativity to the mega-talented Dent de Cuir collective… and they've nailed it.
Teaming up with Caviar London, the group have created a film inspired by the song's lyrical theme of 'love is war', immersing our hero (Darwin) in a universe inspired by first person shooter videogames. Finding himself being hunted down by his better half, angered by the small indiscretions that become big battles in a relationship – hogging the duvet cover, emptying the fridge and leaving the washing up.
To achieve this Dent De Cuir and Ruffian Post constructed a whole new video game world for Darwin to be dropped into, rather than mashing it up with existing game footage. Using the game engine Unity to make the environment, Ruffian also took help from Leap Motion Control / Leap Motion SDK in order to create a first person perspective and capture motion.
We were fascinated with the project and it's seemingly complex gestation, so caught up with Dent de Cuir to shoot the Deez.
How did you get involved with the project?
Lucky Number Music sent us the new Darwin Deez material to see if we were interested to work on it. The theme of the song tickled our fancy and we quickly came up with the video game idea. The label & the artist liked it so we went for it!
Did you guys always have the idea to shoot a video-game-inspired music video, or did it come from hearing the track?
Not at all. Lately, we've seen narrative films build from video game animatics sequences which we appreciated but it's only when we gave 'Kill Your Attitude' it's first spins that we came up with the idea of using the first person shooter view mode as a narrative canvas to make an analogy on relationships and war.
Darwin Deez has a history of awesome music videos. Was he good to collaborate with? Did he chip in any ideas or just went with the flow?
It was a very smooth dynamic. After reading our concept, Darwin threw in a few valuable thoughts and ideas, with some of them being incorporated in the film. He even did the rough 3D model of the girl, with the help of Amanda Jones from Ruffian Post.
What were the first stages of production? How did you set about tackling it?
Since none of us really play video games, the first step was to do some research to update our knowledge on gaming world. Then we wrote the core script, but before too long we had to validate the feasibility of our ideas and figure out the best way to achieve the concept. Luckily, that's where Ruffian Post jumped in.
They suggest using the game engine UNITY, which allows you to create video games from element libraries or from scratch. After a few hours we had the software up and running and were able to do location scouting, props browsing, camera/framing tests directly in the 3D world. It's where almost everything happens.
Where did you get the visual style for the piece? It reminded us of older 'virtual reality' games, albeit with higher production values!
That's right!, for intial workflow purposes we were aimed for a N64 'Golden Eye' aesthetic with minimal animation. When the guys from Ruffian Post jumped in they quickly raised the bar, proposing solutions to make it look awesome!
What were the video-games you guys used as a reference? There's the obvious Call Of Duty FPS nods, but we're sure we saw a bit of Batman and Fallout in there too.
Yeah it's an happy mash-up of iconic FPS games such as Rainbow Six, Call Of Duty, Medal Of Honor, Golden Eye and Splinter Cell. Some scenes and environments have been designed to accommodate some historical, movie and pop-culture references.
What was the actual shoot? Did it have to be entirely pre-visualised beforehand or was there space for improvisation?
We had the luxury of having rough versions of the 3D environments which we could use to sit Darwin in and make sure the composition was working. With that setup, even if the storyboard was tightly built, we had room to take on-set direction decisions as we feel it.
You collaborated with Ruffian Post for the film. What did they bring to the project?
A lot. It was a privilege to work with such passionate and talented folk. All along the project, the guys at Ruffian chipped in ideas and solutions to make it happen. The collaborative workflow helped a lot to keep the concept development very organic.
We understand you used the Leap Motion technology to help build the film. Can you explain how they got involved and what the process was?
The Leap was used mostly to achieve all of the hands and gestures, so it was pretty much a team member of Ruffian doing hand-karaoke over the sensor base for our shots / actions.
How much freedom did you guys have in terms of scale? Could you chuck in extra helicopters wherever you wanted?
We had pretty much total freedom regarding props and environment models. Actually, the challenge was to stay in the narrative-relevant zone and control our desire to throw explosions and manly stuff everywhere.
Are you happy with the results? Was there anything you wish you'd been able to add?
Since the project was time sensitive, a portion of the writing phase had to be done alongside creation of the 3D models, which did limit the flexibility to change and enhance narrative elements. After the shoot, with the actual footage over the 3D plate, we realized there was too much going on, so we had to rework the edit and adapt some shots. Everything came out great, and we are happy with how the film looks, but with a bit of distance we wish we could have gone back to the writing process to shape the story differently.
Membership
