Director Saman Kesh is no stranger to telling multilayered stories in his music videos. His ability to incorporate complex narrative elements in his work, while maintaining the organic and open structure that make music videos so unique, makes for some of the best, most compelling videos out there right now. One area he hasn’t explored much, however, is comedy. But, thanks to some help from John Ennis (from Mr. Show with Bob and David), that is no longer true. His video for Vitalic’s “Stamina” is so darkly hilarious and surprisingly realistic that I had to talk to him about it. 

Doug: The video is pretty big, like many of your videos are, but also super hilarious. There is something about dead fat people that’s always funny, and that’s coming from someone who’s relatively overweight so I’m allowed to say that.

Saman: It’s funny, because some of the higer-ups at Pulse were very opposed to the video. They pretty much straight up didn’t want it to get made. I think it’s because some people can be sensitive to it and might consider it “fatploitation.” I never really thought of it that way. If you remember that first time you and I met at OMG! Cameras Everywhere, I was like 198lbs, and since have lost over 50lbs. So, if I had something like that where someone who is 200lbs loses 50lbs, it’s not as hilarious. So, I went extreme with it. But, I’ve always wanted to do something about weight loss and just didn’t want to go the quaint video route where I shoot it with the ALEXA, use the c-log, keep it flat, and shoot some weird little story that’s about just anyone losing weight. It was one of those times where the track came in, I was a fan, and I didn’t just want to throw my ideas on it. The song changes the mood, and to me the song sounded like a fuckin' demented workout video. So, I thought “OK, what’s demented?”

Doug: Do you think the casting also helps to solidify that comedy element?

Saman: I think so. When we were casting, I gave specifics, but it was weird. This was the first time I had worked with Sarah Park, who is an excellent producer and definitely a keeper for me. A lot of people I don’t keep because I think that I’m really hard to work with and have a lot of bad first experiences with people. But, Sarah was doing a lot of things for me to alleviate some of the stuff, for instance she posted the casting. And when she did, she wrote “overweight,” and everything she used was really polite. But, I needed to make it clear that these people were going to be doing some not-fun stuff. So, she gave me the account info and I rewrote specifically “Hey, 320+.” Because the thing is, the difference between like 250 and 320 is massive. I needed people to naturally look round to the point where, yeah it is comedic, but it should look unhealthy. And, a lot of people at 250, 260, 270 can pull of looking OK, just large. I needed people to look almost scary. But, what I found really worked out was the quality of the actors. For instance Piper, the actress who plays the first girl who you see actually die, she’s brilliant. She’s a great actress, she’s funny, and a lot of larger people know that that’s the roles that they play so they don’t get shy. They don’t fuck around. They give you want you want, when you go into casting they just make they boobs jiggle, their bellies jiggle, they just know what you want and they’re just fucking sweethearts. So, I didn’t have to bullshit and try and play nice. Sarah was having a hard time, she said “wow, you’re not being mean, but really straight forward.” But, in reality, A) I don’t want to waste my time and B) these people are coming in because they’re fat.

Doug: They responded to the post that you put up, after all.

Saman: Exactly. The second guy was a bit unsure, the guy with his pants down. I felt a little worried for him because he came in and said he was OK with it, and he was a trooper, but on the day of he was really nervous. So, I had to calm him down. It was really awkward because people like to gawk on set. And it wasn’t like a nude scene with a hot chick or a sex scene, people really wanted to just look at his butt. And we didn’t know he had that butt mole, so that was just the universe giving us that. So, he was weird, saying “you’re not going to like it, it’s not pretty.” And I’m all, “awesome! That’s why I think it’s going to be pretty.”

Doug: And that concept, him thinking it’s not pretty and it actually being exactly what you want. Was that the goal? Because I’ve showed the video to someone who almost couldn’t make it through some of it because of what is going on in the video with the examination of the dead bodies. Was a gag reaction something you were going for?

Saman: I don’t think I was going for a gag reaction, no. That kind of makes me feel strange. What I really love about David Fincher are these strange details that he has, but I’m also fascinated by death and the art of lying a body down. The way I designed this piece was very different from what I normally do. I’m a lot more evolutionary, that sounds a bit epic but what I mean is I don’t plan a lot from the start I let it evolve. But, I’ve learned that doesn’t work well in music videos because you don’t have the time, or the money, or the luxury. I’ve found that just being as Fincher as possible, as far as making a huge production bible, shot by shot, lighting by lighting, every scene map it out, that you have way more time to indulge in the pre-pro phase. So, with this video I literally researched death and crime photos, and I wanted people to be in awkward, memorable positions. Because, for me, the thing about Stanley Kubrick, and Roman Pola?ski, and a lot of directors like that is these images get burned in your brain because they know how to make something memorable. Sometimes it doesn’t work, sometimes it does, and I know that fat dude on the toilet is one of those images that’s burned in people’s brains after watching the video. I worked very hard to achieve that. Where as the other deaths, maybe not as extreme, but the situations are. I was really into the idea that people shit themselves after they die and I’ve never seen that in a movie, or in anything else. So, I wanted this guy to have runny, fuckin’ bloody shit coming out of his super happy shorts. And those combinations, they are funny, but they’re just juxtapositions to make you feel uncomfortable. It’s like Quentin Tarantino playing pop songs while somebody is dying, that’s why it feels freaky.

Doug: You mentioned the song sounded to you like a demented workout video. Is that where the idea for the narrative came from, it stated with the workout video?

Saman: I think my creative process has been evolving. In 2011 and 2012, I’ve been figuring out how to go through the creative process because usually I just have loose ideas and I just made them, that’s how I worked in film school and on my first few videos. The idea of “here’s a treatment, you have this much time” fucked with me a lot because I don’t work that way, so recently what I’ve learned to do is to have a unique philosophy for every video. Really just let the song speak to you and if it doesn’t speak you don’t do the video, just plain and simple. That’s why videos fail a lot, because they’re uninspired. Including some of mine that I felt like could have been better if they came from a more honest, natural place. I think that’s the problem with music videos is that people try to force ideas into songs. This was one of those songs where at first it was like “I don’t have anything.” And then sometimes what I like to do is Google the word of the song, or an element within the songs that sticks out to me and I Google it, and when I Google Imaged “Stamina,” there were just so many strange images. And, you know, you just let your ADD run. I just started clicking on sites and I got to really weird muscle blogs with people showing off their muscles and I thought it could be kind of interesting. But I had seen workout videos, so I keep going, attacking my brain from my first idea and what eventually I ended up realizing that I like mystery, and I like the idea of somebody losing weight, but I didn’t know how to do it. Then you take your ideas and the dots connect eventually and you create a through-line. But, it started out with just “workout” and I knew the tone of the song was sarcastic. Vitalic songs have this mean-spirited, almost playful vibe. All his stuff has this demented quality to it, and this song especially is not reserved in any way. So, it’s just what I went for and it felt right. I didn’t feel like it was being forced. It was probably one of the most honest videos that I made in the sense that it came from the track. There was no preexisting idea other than losing weight.

Doug: The actor who plays the workout guy in the video is John Ennis, who people may recognize from Mr. Show with Bob and David. Was he specifically picked for that role?

Saman: He’s good friends of all of ours, mainly my buddy Nick Widner who became friends with John in film school. Nick’s done a short film with him and a ton of other stuff. A lot of people at Caviar know him, so he was kind of enveloped in my life through a lot of different people. Him and Nick are such good buddies that, and I said to Nick “John lost weight recently, and I want him to be this workout dude.” And he was like “OK, I’ll tell him to do it.” And I said, “what do you mean? Do you mean ask him?” And he said, “no, I’ll tell him to do it. I’ll tell him to do anything and he’ll do it.” And so he did it, he didn’t even read anything. He just came to Starbucks and we just talked about it. I probably spent like five minutes talking to him about the character. The thing about comedians is it’s just easier to let them roll and you just correct them and adjust them. It’s funny when you meet someone who has a lot more experience playing vignettes of characters, and archetypes of characters, sometimes you just stay out of it. It was one of those things where he let his character play, and you need to find those unique ways to get him to change. Sometimes he’d play it super sweet, and sometimes he’d be play it super mean, and you just have to bounce him around with words. But, I definitely had him in mind pretty early on. It was actually my co-writer Nate who originally thought about him, and I thought it was perfect and that’s when I called Nick. I find that he’s actually the funniest part of the video. I actually want to make a little short of the whole workout video with his dialogue. And I have all the footage, I could totally do the video, and people seem to like it a lot. I think it would be a welcome bonus to people who care. Also, John, he’s the real magic. It’s funny, he’s the most creepy in the video, but he’s only creepy because he’s funny and he’s sounding these dead people. But, he’s a genius, he’s just great.

Doug: And the video premiered on Noisey, who is part of Vice, is there a benefit in premiering a video there? Or are you completely uninvolved with that type of thing?

Saman: Usually directors are out of that shit. Sometime you have say, but I try to stay out of it. I’ve gotten too into the logic of trying to premiere and sell it around that it bothers me and hurts my flow, so I just stay out of it. Sometimes I know from the start that they’re not going to waste a premiere. For instance, for this video the budget doubled because we were holding our ground on the idea and they just gave us twice as much money. I knew they weren’t going to waste the premiere and it was really important to them. They’re going kind of crazy now where they want to create an app for him and have him play the app while he’s performing live - Just all this shit that shows you that they care enough to not waste the premiere. And Vice is a good crowd, they like that half offensive kind of shit and I think it was probable a smart choice. Obviously, the front page of Vimeo is still better than a fucking side channel of Vice. But, Vimeo is still a video crowd, the cool thing about Vice is that it’s music, too. It’s right for them, but for me the front page of Vimeo is always more valuable, or a Rolling Stones premiere. But, Rolling Stones are snobs, they’re only going to put organic music, Duck Sauce is the closes you’ll get to electronic music.

Doug: Or something like Bob Dylan.

Saman: Exactly. Or like Jack White, or something. I respect that a lot, it’s just the problem with dance music. Also, Vitalic has not really broken is the states. He’s huge in Europe in the electronic scene, and in Asia, but he’s not giant here. I also think it’s because they don’t care; I really don’t think they push him much out here, I think Chicago is the only place he’s playing here.

Doug: I noticed in video credits that you thank both Keith Schofield and Ryan Reichenfeld. What did those guys do to help with the project? 

Saman: Oh, they were actually the fat dudes and we put big fat suits on them (laughs). They basically, because I edited the video myself, it was the first video that I’ve edited all myself pretty much, I lose objectivity really fast so what I like to do is either work at Starbucks or at my editors place. But in this case, I just worked at Caviar, pretty much just went in there, grabbed a display, sat in the bungalow, and just edited. Ryan would be working on the treatment for his video, Keith would be working on a treatment or writing, and I would just bug them and have them come over and give me notes. A lot of those guys’ notes really helped. Bobby Styles, who also works at Caviar, had a lot of interesting stuff to say. Most of the time it’s not a lot of stuff, it’s just the fact that they take their time to give me their input, and I trust them a lot. But, it’s cool because I never really showed them the full video, I would just show them little snippets because I didn’t want them to tell me where they think it should go. I just want them to tell me what’s not working in the scene for them. It’s just a nice way to stay objective and to see what’s working because I can get really negative on myself, and really hate on my shit, and immediately want to destroy it. And sometimes when people come in and say it’s totally working, it makes me feel a little bit more reassured, because I’m just a negative asshole. 

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.