Last week, we were all introduced to Ivy Levan through her music video for "Hot Damn," a video that generated a lot of attention, especially for a relatively new artist. Directed by Daniel Carberry, the video depicts Ivy as a powerful female figure and an expert level camera mugger, two things we are naturally drawn to at IMVDb. We talked to Daniel about his work with Ivy, which includes several other projects, and helping her to establish her unique image.
Doug: How did you get involved with the project?
Daniel: I know Tomo Milicevic from shooting/touring with his band 30 Seconds to Mars. He is a big part of Ivy's team and brought me on to direct her first video, which we did last August, and most recently the third video I did for her was "Hot Damn," which is actually the beginning to the story for all three videos.
Doug: Ivy Levan is a new artist, was there talk of establishing an image for her with this music video?
Daniel: Absolutely! We talked quite a bit about powerful female figures to help steer us in the right direction. However, Ivy's style, attitude, and image are ultimately all her own.
Doug: Ivy is wonderful during the performance sections, she's got so much personality when delivering the lyrics. Did she bring it like that for every take?
Daniel: Ivy is an amazing performer. She definitely brings so much personality, attitude, and game to her performances. I'm always so blown away.
Doug: She's got a video trailer for the album, as well as some upcoming videos, are you involved in those projects as well?
Daniel: Yes! "Hot Damn" is the start of a film. Lucas (manager/producer) and I talked about early on about doing a film like what Elvis/Beatles did that contains some of her songs which turns out that's exactly what we did for her EP. The story does not end after "Hot Damn" with Ivy getting thrown into a trunk but lives much further. You'll have to be patient and wait for her next videos to be released to see what happens next! After all the shooting we decided we had to do a trailer to get people excited!
Doug: What were the kidnappers based on in this video, and the masks that they wear? Was that inspired by anything?
Daniel: The masked men are blood sucking evil souls from the pits of hell.
Doug: In addition to what you were trying to establish for Ivy, what goals were you trying to accomplish narratively or tonally?
Daniel: The narrative goals for this one was really about Ivy's transformation from a cook into the dame and to capture her as a powerful female figure and show her kicking some ass. Another goal was to end the story of Hot Damn open-ended for the next video to continue it. I wanted to shoot the narrative parts like a film noir classic with an addition of high speed to heighten the action and build suspense.
