The Masses describe themselves as a “collaboration of directors and artists united by a passion for music and driven by unique and diverse cinematic visions.” So, it is no surprise that director Chris Coats, who started in The Masses Lab and is now on The Masses roster, would describe his latest music video, “627” by the band ESP, as a passion project. In addition to directing the video, Chris took on everything from writing, to editing, to sewing, and he talked to me about it all in today's Video Chats.  

Doug: How did you get involved with this project? Was it personal relationship with the band or was it a bidding process?

Chris: I've known Aska [Matsumiya], who's the lead singer, for probably three or four years. I was just kind of looking around for bands that I would vibe with and music that I would like, just kind of looking for my own project, really. I always kept track of Aska, so I saw that she had this new project and I work Alex Pelly who does visuals for their show. So, I knew about them. Then, I just went to their Facebook page and heard that song and and I contacted her immediately and was like, "Let me make a video for this."

Doug: So, the song choice was your choice?

Chris: Yeah, it was actually almost a year ago that we talked about making the video. I think it was exactly a year ago because they had released this song and I basically fell in love with it the second I heard it and contacted her right away and just stared discussing ideas about it.

Doug: It’s a pretty long track, which then makes for a long video. Was there something about the length of the video that was appealing to you as well, or did you just fall in love with this song so much that you want to just do a video for it?

Chris: The length was more exciting because it gives you a long time to breathe. You can really tell a story and pace it like a film is paced. You don't have to rush from one segment to the next, so that definitely appealed to me. I’m also kind of a glutton for punishment. For some reason I always pick really long songs. I’ve done a lot of long videos and for some reason they just appeal to me because they just feel epic, and you can really do something cinematic with it. It wasn’t a daunting thing to me like "Oh God, this song is so long." I didn't do that until I started editing.

Doug: What about the theory that, like all these Squidoo pages and eHow.com pages would suggest, if you want to make successful video on the internet it has got to be two minutes or shorter or nobody’s going to watch it. Does that kind of thought ever come into your head or is it more of just an artistic project that you’re not really concerned with how many people are watching it or not?

Chris: I definitely thought about that. Obviously, I want people to see the video because I love it and I think it’s fun to watch. But, I definitely felt some people are just going to see the eight-minute marker when they open the video and will just hit close right away. My own goal is, with any video I make, to make it feel a lot shorter than it actually is. I think I achieved that on this one, everyone said that it felt like five minutes when it was actually eight minutes. They were all kind of surprised when I said it was eight minutes. But yeah, that was definitely a worry, that no one was going to watch the whole thing all the way through. But, it didn’t matter enough to me to want to shorten it, or not want to do it. It's more of just I was so in love with the idea and the visuals that I just wanted to make it happen.

Doug: You talked about how you approached ESP, and you mentioned you just wanted to do a video for the song. How involved were they in coming up with the idea? They seem like a band that is really in tuned with what you’re looking at when you experience their music, in addition to just what you hear. How involved were they in that overall process?

Chris: They gave me a lot of references. I came to my first meeting with Aska, I had already had a bunch of visuals and techniques and things that I wanted to do. I didn’t have the narrative really yet. I just knew “I want to use these kinds of lights. And a water effect, and maybe these creatures.” I came with this set of visuals that came to me when I was listening to the song, and she was just down with all of it. She just likes out there, sort of psychedelic, just really colorful stuff. Then, it took a while for the video to get off the ground, so I just had it in my head for six months or so, and that’s where the narrative came from. They sent me references but a lot of the concepts and the visual ideas were mine. I just find a lot of times, even if it’s a very visual band like they are with the projections that they do on stage and stuff, a lot of times when it comes to realizing the form of the video they like to leave it up to somebody else to do that interpretation.

Doug: You mentioned you came to them with a lot of the visuals in mind. Were you also involved with the execution of those creature costumes? Were you involved in physically putting those together, or did you just plot out what you wanted and then kind of subbed that out?

Chris: It was, definitely, as far as that stuff goes. It was a passion project. I was working with Simon [Haas], the production designer, every night sewing the costumes together and making the masks. It was sort of co-designing between the two of us just trying to figure out what it’s going to look like because we didn’t had the manpower to really hire people to make it all. It was just the two of us and a couple other assistants that put all of it together. It was exhausting, but definitely fun.

Doug: I noticed that director Ben Fee was cast as one of the creatures in the video. Was there something specific about Ben that you thought would make for a great creature, or was that just one of those things where you were in a bind and needed someone to play that creature and Ben did it for you?

Chris: We were in a bind, yes. But, also that’s just kind of his energy. He’s a very great friend of mine. He was totally down. He’s like "Yeah, of course." He just embodied it very well. He’s the one with the golden horns, and we just totally had a character.

Doug: For a little bit of a background of yourself, you came up through the Masses Lab, and now you’re officially on The Masses roster. Whenever we talk to anyone who's part of the Masses, they always talk about this kind of collaborative environment that goes on there. Have you kind of found that to be true coming up from the beginning through the Masses lab all the way up through into The Masses?

Chris: Yeah, definitely. I met Matt Amato before I was even involved in the Masses, about three year or four years ago. I really liked the whole vibe of the place when I first met him. I had moved to LA and I was thinking it would be so great to meet an artist collective, or a bunch of people that were all making films and working together and helping each other out. I met Matt and I came into the office and I was like, “Whoa, this is exactly what I’ve been looking for.” So, I’ve always felt we’re kind of like family. There is an openness and a lot of encouragement and everyone’s really interested in what everyone else is doing, and then helping each other out. It’s just something where you feel if you ever get into a bind you could always call someone and they will be there to help you. We all take ourselves very seriously, but there is there a definite sort of casual and open atmosphere to it. I just feel it was very serendipitous that I met Matt and got involve with The Masses. It just seems like the right thing.

Doug Klinger is the co-founder/content director of IMVDb and watches more music videos than anyone on earth. You can find him on twitter at @doug_klinger.