One of the first things to cross our mind after watching director Nicolas Heller’s “Look Real High” by Adrian Lau was, “Man, that’s a lot of weed!” We also started to wonder whose job is it to get all of that weed, and where they got that awesome sword. Then we started to wonder what it's like to smoke weed in a cartoon bear mask. We had a lot of questions. Luckily, we got to talk to Nicolas about all of that (except the cartoon bear mask thing), as well as about his collaboration with Adrian Lau and editor Ben Guzman. (Photos by Gregston Hurdle)

Doug: A lot of what’s going on in this video, the smoking, the hanging out, the graffiti, do you and Adrian Lau decide on that stuff together?

Nicolas: Whenever I am doing a low/no budget music video, the first question I will ask the artist is what they have at their immediate disposal that could potentially increase the production value. Adrian gave me a list of 25 people/places/things he had access to ranging from “mad kicks and hats” to “graffiti writers” to “a man who will majestically release doves into the air for $75.” I took this list and formulated a pretty elaborate treatment that would require almost everything he named including a pack of about 25 people. He could lock down the props (except for the doves) but was concerned about getting all of his people to actually show up. Because we were not paying the talent to show up on time, we both realized that a lot of the detail in the treatment would inevitably be lost, but that I would make the best out of characters he did manage to wrangle and incorporate the props accordigly.

Doug: As far as how the footage is cut together, do you basically just give Ben Guzman the footage and say go for it? Or is it more collaborative?

Nicolas: Benny and I will work very closely together on the post-production of every video. He is hardly ever a part of the filming itself, so as soon as I am ready to give him the footage, we will sit and discuss the structure of the treatment. From there, we will decide what needs to be changed. Then I will let him go crazy and give the very specific notes after he has finished the first cut. Benny and I have collaborated on about ten videos by now, so I no longer need to give him pages of edits. He knows what I like to see and is talented enough to implement certain effects and cuts without me having to mention it. When I have a low post production budget, I will do a very clean-cut rough assembly and then get Benny to go in and add what I refer to as “Guzman” effects. A “Guzman” effect is essentially what spruces up the visual and gives it more of a “music video” feel.

Doug: I’m always curious with a video like this, where weed is a major element, at any point as the director do you have to confirm that there would be enough weed on set the achieve the look you guys were going for?

Nicolas: This was the first video I have shot where weed was essentially an important character in the production, so having enough was certainly a concern of mine at first. However, Adrian assured me that it should be the least of my worries. If you saw how much Adrian and his crew smoked, you would take his word for it too.

Doug: I’ve been on rooftop shoots where suddenly police officers just show up out of nowhere. Was this ever a concern with the location that you guys were shooting at, considering what was going down?

Nicolas: The thought of getting in trouble never crossed my mind. It was a private roof and the neighbors seemed pretty chill. Also, the “party” wasn’t as live as it was meant to look. People were constantly coming and going, so it was really only a maximum of 9 or 10 people on the roof at one time.

Doug: What kind of direction are you giving the people on camera? Are they just naturally hanging out and you capture it, or are you telling them what to do?

Nicolas: There was a mix of both in this video. I felt that a treatment like this called for more authentic “chilling” and natural reactions. I will normally give my actors specific direction but for something like this, I knew that if I supplied 15+ people in their early 20’s a bunch of weed, alcohol, food, and interesting props, all I would need to concern myself with would be telling my DP where to focus on at the moment. If I could visualize an action that would potentially be cool in the moment, I would call it out. An example of this is the shot where the girl sensually licks the massive joint. I was also constantly calling out ideas during the “portrait” scenes with each party-goer sitting in that chair. I had a bunch of things written into the treatment like holding a guinea pig, playing with a samurai sword, lighting a Barbie on fire, etc. So I would decide what prop would go best with what person and then add to it how I saw fit at the time.

Doug: This set, in general, just seemed like a lot of fun. Just kind of smoking pot, chillin, and being cool. Was the atmosphere on set pretty as easy going and fun as the video makes it seem? Or were there still any stresses involved with shooting the shooting of this video?

Nicolas: Even though it seems like it would have been a super chill set, it was pretty chaotic in reality. Adrian is a good friend of mine, so I was helping him find ways to cut corners in terms of budget. I have a really bad habit of allowing the artists to produce their own video if the funds don’t allow for a professional. Without going into major detail, I think this is the last time I am going to give the artist such a large responsibility.

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.