Sometimes, a director needs to actually see what’s in their head in order to help visualize the concept, even if that means doing ballerina moves in their living room, which is exactly what director DJay Brawner did while brainstorming the idea for “Hands And Faces” by The Used.  We talked to DJay about the video, performance direction, and using Quailman for inspiration.

Doug: Where did the concept of this video originate?

DJay: I have been working on a documentary for The Used and they asked me if I wanted to make a video for “Hands & Faces.” I listened to the song on repeat but kept thinking, "How do I make a music video on a small budget for a band who’s done million dollar music videos and that have done very, very well. What do I do with a band like that, that has so much behind them already?" I had two ideas. One: I thought it would be rad to see ballerinas dancing with the band, and I don't know why I felt that way. I was just sitting in my living room listening to the song and I started doing ballerina moves while I was listening it, trying to think of ideas. I probably looked pretty stupid, but for whatever reason I just saw these big, beautiful movements from ballerinas. Then the other thing I saw was Bert [McCracken, of The Used] being suffocated by hands. From there I turned that into my concept. I would have a bunch of hands grabbing Bert's face and have it be really weird feeling for everyone. Then we'll reveal those hands are actually the hands of several ballerinas. Bert and I talked further about it. We wanted to push it further and do some strange things, like have him dress up like a superhero and wear a bunch of masks. That was all sort of thrown into the mix after we were already moving forward. We wanted to make it feel a little off-putting in some ways. I'd originally had it so we’d see the ballerinas during the first half of the video, and then after the bridge we'd see them go under water, and then at the end the ballerinas wouldn't be there anymore. Dan, their drummer, was like, "I really want the ballerina to die." and I was very into that. It just came together well and we spent some time in post to get the edit right, and I’m very happy with the overall concept and look of it.

Doug: You said you were doing ballerina dances in your house, have you ever had any training?

DJay: I've had literally no professional dance training. I take that back. In fourth grade I took a dance class my mom put me in: hip-hop dance. I was dancing to MC Hammer and C&C Music factory. But no professional ballerina training. I just had these ideas of these big arm gestures and spins. I was listening to the song with my director of photography, and he was sitting on the sofa and I would say, "I wonder if the ballerinas are just doing this." I would throw my hands around and spinning around and laughing at myself. I was trying it out to try and gauge a reaction for it. It's hard to know what something's going to feel like without actually doing it.

Doug: Where did you the find the actual ballerinas that you used in the video?

DJay: My old roommate Mark. I had remembered bragging about his new girlfriend being a ballerina. He was telling me when he first started dating her how excited he was that he was dating a ballerina, and I never for sure knew if she was a ballerina. So I texted him, "Is Megan a ballerina? Does she have ballerina friends? If I were to hire her for a video, would I be able to get other ballerinas?" This was all before I even submitted the concept to the band and management, I wanted to know I could get some girls who were down for the cause. Megan, his girlfriend and lead ballerina, came over and we talked about it and she was really into it. She got one of her other professional dancer friends to be in it, and then we hired two other dancers.

Doug: Then costuming was provided by you guys, that's not like a team of ballerinas who had those?

DJay: No, the costumes that they wore I think are typical practice outfits. There's different types of outfits that they wear apparently and different colors. They'll wear pink for certain things and white for others. I think what they're wearing is just like a typical practice outfit that anyone who has ever done ballet should own. Our costume designer, Corey, worked with the girls to make sure we had the right colors and right looks. I do know for sure that we bought the tutus!

Doug: Were their hands at all part of the casting process? Or did you at least look at their hands since they feature so prominently?

DJay: Actually the funny thing is, that was not just the ballerinas' hands, it was also all of our crews’ hands as well. A bunch of people's hands were all in there trying to fill up the space. I think there was probably about 12 people all crouched in front of the camera.

Doug: How did fit everyone so that you could pull that off? Is it basically people stacked on top of each other?

DJay: Yes, it was tough. We practiced it a couple of times. Everyone was just kind of on top of each other, just standing. We had the ballerinas in the right place for where they would pull away perfectly. Their hands were the first hands and then we layered hands on top of it and just had people stack in. We made the frame tight enough so that we could hide everything around the camera. We also shot this to be a 2:35 Anamorphic frame size so that helped crop in the top and bottom.

Doug: Are you giving much performance direction during the video, or is that all natural style performance out of the band?

DJay: Pretty natural. I let the band do what they wanted to do. Usually, I either say, "Give 150%," or "Give 90%," because 150% will make it seem more exaggerated and way more lively, but sometimes I'll say to the band give 90% so that they're doing what they would normally do, but maybe not as crazy. A band’s performance always reads different depending on the style of the video. If people are going too crazy, then it might distract from the aesthetic of the rest of the video. I think with The Used, they have done over a dozen music videos, they are pros and knew what needed to happen.

Doug: You mentioned one of the instances that you would give the band, say, 90% would be if you wanted it more subdued because it would match the surroundings. Are there other situations where you would give them that 90% direction, and what are the situations where you would say, "give me 150%"?

DJay: I did a music video a few months ago for a band called Our Last Night, a hardcore band. We had a conversation that we weren't going to make a typical hardcore video for them. You know a video in a big empty warehouse or outside with nothing going on except for them shredding in an open field. We wanted to make it feel more like a film or a pop video, so during the performance I told them to give me 90%. I didn't want them go 150% and go off. I said, "Give me a live performance, but don't make it the most epic live performance you've ever done. Just make it strong, so that we can get really nice clean images and compositions of you." In that instance we wanted 90%. Last year I did a video for my business partner Heather's band Fake Figures. I told them to go as off as they possibly could, "Just give me everything," so that we could make it ultra chaotic and crazy in the edit and never see the exact same thing twice. It's always relative. Every artist varies, so every situation is slightly different than other situations. Bands like to be bands, so it's nice to be able to kind of tell them, "Jump more," or "Calm it down a little bit." You usually want to capture the band's energy and who they are, unless you're putting them into some other world or something where you don’t want them to feel exactly like they would on stage.

Doug: Getting back to The Used video, do you think that some of the performances maybe shift a little bit based on the costumes the band had on? Like when he's dressed as a superhero, do you think that performance is slightly a little bit different than when he's like as a band member?

DJay: I think there's one performance in there that really felt like Bert to me, the Bert that everyone knows and loves. We closed the walls in the room that they were playing in so it became this little tiny hallway. It was just Bert by himself singing in the hallway and I told him to just do anything and everything, just be Bert. The same person you see on stage at a Used show was the person that was there in that moment, in that little hallway. I've seen the Used a lot this past year, I'd say they were point on with how they usually perform live. I think Bert as a superhero is Bert as a character, doing something goofy. During the full band performance the guys were being who they are, having fun.

Doug: Was there a specific superhero that you guys were basing this superhero character off of?

DJay: No. We had a long conversation about it. We just wanted him to look like a pathetic superhero, we had some images that we looked at and went through with our costume designers The big thing is we just wanted him to look pathetic.

Doug: It's not the exact outfit at all, but it reminded me of Quailman from the show Doug.

DJay: It's similar to Doug. We talked about Quailman when we were on set, we talked about Doug. There's some movie that I'm blanking on with Michael Rappaport. Special, I think it's called, where he's a superhero and he’s this makeshift superhero.

Doug: What was the process of shooting the underwater scenes?

DJay: We filmed in a friends backyard pool and it was actually pretty easy despite the fact it was 60 degrees outside, and the pool was 50 degrees, if that. We dropped a big black 20-by in the water, weighted it down with rocks and sandbags. The sky was clear that day, so we didn't really have to do too much lighting. We had a bunch of shiny boards to bounce some light in there, but it was a pretty even day so we didn't really get a lot of sun really strike into the water. Bryant, my director of photography, had a wetsuit on, a scuba regulator, and a weight-belt and he went underwater. We shot the underwater moments with a 7D and 5D and had it in a splash bag, kept it pretty easy. It only took us a couple of hours to get the whole thing done. It was cold. Bert and Megan were miserable. It was hard for me, because I didn't really get to see any shots until afterward. They'd shoot for a little bit and I could kind of tell what was happening and where the camera was, but I couldn't exactly tell what was being shot. After every take I would play it back. It took more time for me to watch the footage than it did to shoot. We'd have to unwrap the camera and then wrap it back up, I'd watch it and then throw it back in there, and they'd go again. It took some time, but I think after a few minutes I was grasping how to tell what they were doing without actually seeing the image that was coming through.

Doug: Because you obviously can't direct them when their underwater, right?

DJay: Well, actually I could. Surprisingly they weren't too far below the water so they could hear a lot of what I was saying. Occasionally they wouldn't be able to hear me, but I was able to yell down to them to dip back down. They'd come up and breathe and I was like, "When you go back down, make your hair move forward." I could give them direction, and they could hear me through the water a bit, it was still difficult.

Doug: So would you pull the actors out of the water and have them there, directing them as you're all looking at the previous shots?

DJay: Yeah, we'd watch the images with them and tell them what to do. Bert has filmed underwater before so he was already pretty familiar with what to do and how to do it. His hairstylist that was there really wanted to make sure that his hair looked good under water, so he really molded his hair so the hair would have good movement. I believe he did the same for the ballerina. I think the underwater footage came out really well. I'm happy with it, it was interesting to do.

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.