Video Chats: Matthew Boman on 'Das Me' by Brooke Candy

Photo by Alyssa Shakur.

Brooke Candy first caught our attention a few months ago when she appeared in the music video for “Genesis” by Grimes. At that point, she was a pink-haired, sword-wielding mystery to us, but that all changed last week. On Tuesday, Brooke’s video for “Das Me” hit the internet and provided some insight into her world. But we still had questions, so we talked to Matthew Boman, Brooke’s co-director on the video, to learn even more. Matthew's experience with YouTube (he's part of the YouTube channel SourceFed) prepared him for both the production of, and response to, a video of this magnitude.  

Doug: I first saw Brooke in the Grimes “Genesis” video, but she didn’t just fall out of the sky before that. I was wondering, how did you get connected with her, and how did you get involved with this project?

Matthew: I’ve been following their whole crew since I moved here three years ago. I’m good friends with the kids that are in the band BLOK. One of the guys who’s actually not in the band any longer, Jesse St. John, is a good friend of mine. There’s so much going on, I don’t even know exactly how the initial contact was made. I think it happened on Twitter. I think I hit Brooke up and said, “Hey, you’re stuff’s really cool. Let me make a video for you.” I know at one point Jesse left a rough cut of the BLOK video up on his computer. She was just over at his house, kicking it, and just said, “What’s that?” clicked play and was like, “What the hell’s going on here?” Then she got more serious about wanting to work together. We just started vibing on ideas and everything and it just kind of came together and we said, “We’ve got this weekend. We’re both free. Let’s just make it happen.” That’s kind of the genesis of all that.

Doug: Brooke is listed as the co-editor and co-director and writer of this video. How did the division of labor break out between the two of you in those areas?

Matthew: It was really interesting, and kind of a new model. I’ve never really worked on that level. I’ve got to give it up to Brooke for just having such a clear vision for what she wants to be portrayed as, all the way down to the shots and angles she wanted to get. At first I was a little nervous. I’ve had experiences with artists where they just want to derail the project and just slap their face over the entire thing, disregarding the actual video. She had a lot of it planned out. We would just vibe together on set. A lot of her crew came through with the makeup and the crazy kids. They’re all in a group, I guess they’re just all friends, really. We were on set, and Jesse, who I mentioned before, would throw out ideas like, “What if we did this?” I’m like, “Sure, let’s do it.” Or Brooke would say, “Get a close up of my hands. We’ve got to show these nails off.” It was challenging, sharing like that. As a director you have this ego thing, but it was nice to break that wall down, though I did feel uncomfortable sometimes. Even in the editing, I gave her the raw footage, and I was like, “I don’t know what’s going to happen with this.” She came back a couple of days later with literally every shot. It was broken down, “one minute and six seconds to one minute fourteen seconds I want to use this shot.” I was like, “OK, That actually makes my job a little easier.” I would just pull that clip in to the timeline and take it from there. It was very organic, but very fun.

Matthew and Brooke, co-directin'. Photo by Alyssa Shakur.

Doug: But as far as on the technical side, you were the only one in the actual editing software?

Matthew: Yeah, that’s correct. I was manning the controls there. We had a couple sessions where she would come over and we would just watch the edit and go through the raw footage and see what was working and what wasn’t. I knew what shots she wanted to use, and I just tried to implement those as best as I could. I really think there was only like two or three that just physically wouldn’t fit into the edit that she wanted out of probably over a hundred. It’s a pretty fun way to work. I’ve never really done that before. Her having such a clear vision really helped. I think I grew a lot just working on that project.

Doug: I’m interested about that vision, and then how it translates into how you guys legalistically achieved some of these scenes. I wonder if we could just take a scene, like the ending party scene that’s in the hot tub and the bed. Could you walk us through the production of that scene? Was it more just like setting up the camera and telling everyone to go nuts, or was there some very specific imagery that you were after in those scenes?

Matthew: I would say even though it did look pretty chaotic, we definitely had a plan of the shots that we wanted to get. We didn’t use story boards. For music videos I generally don’t. That’s the one thing Ben Fee showed me. He’s like a music video mentor for me. Just to get your location set up, get it lit how you want and then just find that flow and when you see something that’s catching your eye you focus in on that. We had a handful of things we wanted to get, like them taking their medicine and all the girls in the hot tub, and then shots on the bed. She had a vision for Seth Pratt, the guy lifting the weights and who actually designs all her outfits, with him on the bed, and I was like, “OK, how can we stack everyone and make this work?” It was kind of a hybrid of just setting everything up and controlling it that way, but then being more freeform with what we were actually pointing the camera at. We shot three or four hours in there, at least.

Doug: What about that neighborhood scene? I assume you guys weren’t pulling permits and stuff. Did you just find a neighborhood with a quiet enough street that you thought you’d be able to shoot this video?

Matthew: That was actually quite a bit more free formed. The neighborhood is literally right outside of the hotel that we filmed in. We were there the week before, and Brooke was dressed so ridiculously that they wouldn’t rent us a room. We had to come back to shoot the interior the next week. That first weekend, yeah, we got the limo. He showed up and we got inside the car, did some driving shots, and they we were just, “Let’s hop out and shoot it.” One thing I wanted to mention that I’ve kind of been working on this thing. It’s kind of a like a no money model, where I feel like the economy’s bad, and a budget for a music video five or six years ago that was $25,000.00 is like a $3,000.00 video today. I do a lot of just run and gun. You get a little nervous, but you get out there, and as long as you’re cordial, if someone tries to ask you to leave, generally you’ll be okay as long as you don’t cop a crazy attitude. But yeah, the shots out on the street we just did them. We saw an ice cream truck and we just ran up to it and got ice cream. Insanity ensued. The stuff on Rodeo Drive, we just hopped out of the car. We had no other plan other than Brookes’ going to be with her crew looking fabulous and we’re just going to get reactions of people seeing this motley crew. It was kind of unplanned as well.

Brooke and her crew of kids who were lucky enough to see this live. Photo by Alyssa Shakur.

Doug: You mentioned they wouldn’t even rent you a room because of how Brooke was dressed. Her and her crew, if nothing else, are definitely attention getting. Is that’s essentially how, in your experience, how she has been throughout? She essentially doesn’t turn it off.

Matthew: No, that’s the real deal you’re getting with Brooke Candy. She may not be covered in a gold bodysuit, but when she comes over to watch an edit it’s not Doris Day coming over, for sure. She might have sweatpants and a huge sweatshirt with Mickey Mouse and a big pot leaf on it, but her hair’s all in crazy braids, it’s the real deal. I don’t think there’s much acting going on there. Sure, she’s enhancing things for the camera, but I still think she’s the baddest bitch, that’s what I think.

Doug: You mentioned that her crew comes along with her, and the casting and the wardrobe, that all comes from her primarily? You’re just responsible for capturing everything she comes along with?

Matthew: Yeah, that’s true. We wanted to keep it real with her whole style. It’s like a slice of her life, just maybe a little bit amplified. Seth does all of her costumes. He’s one of her best friends. They hang out together. Jesse helps her out with her song writing. Their whole crew, they’re all really talented. I feel it’s something I can relate to, I just don’t wear a gold bodysuit, we ended up calling Brooke's C3Hoe, I just don’t wear a C3Hoe outfit. I do feel like maybe they were almost picked on when they were younger for being so smart and different. I kind of felt the same way. Then you get older and you realize you can embrace who you are, your weirdness and your quirkiness and use it as a tool as opposed to something that’s holding you down. I think that’s why I gravitated towards them. But yeah, that’s how they are. I think they might have had one person who was more of an acquaintance do maybe some makeup. Everything else you see in that video was made by friends.

Yolanda, Brooke, and Matthew unintentionally stir things up. Photo by Alyssa Shakur.

Doug: What’s been the feedback of the video, because I saw that on Twitter you mentioned that it’s been causing some controversy?

Matthew: That’s right. I’ve just been looking through the comments on YouTube, I work for a big YouTube channel, they’re called SourceFed. We do news, we put up five videos a day as soon as news happens, really exciting stuff, so I’m kind of well versed with YouTube comments. People can say some really hateful things on there. I was scanning through it and people were mentioning the racial factors and the feminism, or anti-feminism that’s going on. Specifically they’re saying, “Oh, look how minorities are treated in this video. The only minorities are this Asian kid who’s on a leash and the black guy and she’s like helping him wash his car. I think the black lady is pushing her in a wheelchair.” It was interesting. I wasn’t expecting it. There is validity to that, but the place that all of that came from was definitely, ”Oh, there’s a kid on a leash? Can we get that kid in our shot?” Not, “Oh, let’s find an Asian kid and let’s set this shot up.” As far as the folks pushing her in the wheelchair, they were all dancing and laughing and joking, having a good old time. The lady who was actually pushing her, Yolanda, I believe was her name, she was just very powerful and beautiful. I don’t think anything in there comes from playing toward stereotypes; it just went down that way.

Doug: I assumed with a video like this, that people would react in a variety of different ways to it, but I didn’t draw any racial conclusions to that. I think that that can be more of a result of people on YouTube just trying to find stuff to complain about.

Matthew: I agree. You get a lot of people sitting behind a user name and they feel invincible. I take it all with a grain of salt. I’m proud of the video. I know it’s pretty wacky, and I know it’s very racy. So, I was expecting a little of that, just not so much racial stuff.