Our views on cinema seems to be changing, the once popular “shoot-em-up” style film seems a lot less entertaining after the recent events involving gun violence. With that said, there are still ways to find beauty within dark subject matter, like in the Carlos Lopez Estrada directed music video for “Waking World” by El Sportivo and The Blooz. We talked to Carlos about directing the video, casting fellow director Isaac Ravishankara as the lead, and about finding art in the darkness. 

Doug: What was behind the decision to cast director Isaac Ravishankara has the lead in this video?

Carlos: A couple of things. First, the people that I had been seeing from the Mexico casting sessions were not convincing me. There were some good actors but nothing that particularly stood out. The week of the shoot came up and we still didn't have an actor... so I opened up my Facebook and found this photo that Isaac had just posted. Call it fate but something about it felt very right. I sent the picture to the label and they all loved him. So I emailed him and asked if this would be something he could potentially be interested in. I honestly didn't think he would be (I had tried this before and asked Keith Schofield to play the lead in my Reptar video- but he respectfully declined). Isaac immediately said yes. I don't think he had ever acted before but he liked the concept and also got a free trip to Mexico out of it so I guess it made sense. I'm very glad that it worked out though. I feel like he brought a really fresh and subtle approach to the whole thing.

Isaac's inspirational Facebook photo

Doug: Did he contribute to the project at all outside of starring in it?

Carlos: We were planning on doing a 20-something hour shoot and I knew he had just done something similar for the Titus Andronicus video he directed, so I figured he would be into it. And he was. He walked under the hot sun covered in blood from sunrise to sunset and didn't complain once. His first question to me was: "Can I put rocks in my shoe so the limping looks real?"

Doug: Most of this video was shot in Morelos, Mexico, have you shot anything in Mexico before? Was there significance to this particular location?

Carlos: The first line in the treatment was: "We see a man walking through the desert." I guess desert videos became a trend in the last couple of years so the label was very particular about the location we shot in. They wanted to make sure that we stayed away from the California desert look so we explored options in Arizona, New Mexico and around Tijuana. Did you ever watch the movie Desperado? I think it was the first action movie I ever saw and possibly the biggest inspiration behind the aesthetic we were after. Actually, the blood on the wall shot is a direct steal- homage?- from Desperado, so I was really into the idea of shooting in a small, run-down Mexican town. The production company from Mexico had just shot a video there so everyone in the town was extremely helpful.

"Waking World" above, Desperado below

Doug: Did you use any local crew in Mexico?

Carlos: Sebastian my DP, Isaac, and I were the only people flying from LA. Everyone else we got from Mexico. It was a really small crew. Sebastian and I were paired up to work on a narrative project last summer that ended up falling through. We said we would try to jump at the first opportunity we got to work together again and this was it. It was a small video and I think it got awarded maybe a week before we shot down in Mexico so naturally, everything was rushed. He was shooting a commercial in Europe and was barely able to fly to Mexico City in time, scout for one day, shoot for 20-something hours, then fly back to his hometown in Denmark the next day.  We knew that we would have a really small production team so from day one we agreed on making things as simple as possible. Focusing more on the natural rawness of the locations instead of trying to pull off any intricate set ups. It was a long day but we survived. 

Doug: Was it always the plan to shoot some inserts and pickups in LA, or was that sometime you realized you needed while editing?

Carlos: The shoot was pretty tough. Sebastian had been Steadycam-ing for like 15 hours and we had 4 company moves. So by the time we got to the hotel to shoot the ending sequence, everyone was dead. We got the essential shots in there and decided to head back home before people started passing out. A couple of weeks later we put together a mini insert shoot up here in LA with some of my buddies to get more detailed string shots.

Doug: How did you guys achieve some of the effects? Like Isaac pulling the first bullet out of Isaac's leg, and the final wide shot of him laying on the bed? Did you do any test shooting or anything?

Carlos: Everything was accomplished through very low-fi, practical methods. So there are literally people standing at the edge of frame holding strings and whatnot. We didn't have much money so post FX weren't really an option. I think there are maybe 2 shots in the whole video that weren't achieved practically.

Doug: What about Isaac's makeup and overall condition, how did you guys pull that look off?

Carlos: I decided not to do the "rocks in the shoe" idea but practiced some dark psychological torture techniques to get Isaac in the right state of mind. I'm not sure if you know this but Isaac went to Harvard to study quantum physics. He is also the nicest and friendliest guy in the world so I thought this would be the only chance I would ever get to be really mean to him and get away with it. Also, being a Vegan is not really a thing down in Mexico... so the production company got everyone steak tacos and chicken broth for lunch. We were in the middle of a cactus field and couldn't get him anything else to eat...so starvation probably also contributed to the way he looks.

Doug: This video features a man covered in bullet holes, and also shows a young girl with a toy gun. I know you guys filmed this video in November, but since then there have been unfortunate circumstances that have caused a shift in our view of gun violence in entertainment. Based on there, was there a concern with how people would view these images?  

Carlos: I'm glad you asked this question. Yes, some images are graphic in nature but the intent of the piece is entirely innocent. I see it as an allegory about how beautiful things can sometimes come from dark places. There is a girl holding a toy rifle in it and I was honestly really concerned about the implications this image may create. At the time we shot it (early November), it seemed like we were making a harmless social commentary but the events on December shined a new, horrifying light on it. I was born and raised in a country that is undergoing a terrible wave of violence and think of the video as an artistic attempt to show there can still be some pretty things hidden in between all of the mess.

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.