Patrick Longstreth: “Reality TV did not kill the music video star, it just pushed him onto the backstage for now.”
by Jan Schimmang on May 11th, 2009
He is the director of the excellent clip “One Day” by The Juan MacLean: below Patrick Longstreth gives answers about the music television today, good work in videos and his next projects.
Are there cinematic references in your work for “One day”?
“A lot of their new album is a repackaging of 70s and 80s sounds, but it still looks toward the future. Therefore, it seemed appropriate to visually reference Tron and Logan’s Run, two movies from the past that look far into the future. The narrative is losely based on a short story by Kurt Vonnegut called ´A Long Walk to Forever´. Its about a young military man who finds out that a girl he had a crush on in high school is getting married. He tries to win her back. Its a beautiful little story. You can read it here.”
What is your opinion concerning the meaning of videos for songs after the death of the classic music television these days?
“I think we’re witnessing the death of all classic television as we know it. In the next ten years everything is going to be owned by Google and we will watch everything on-demand from our computers. Content, as a reflection of our society, will continue to get more fragmented and specialized. People still want to watch and make music videos. They may never reach the mainstream peak they had in the early 90s, but they are quickly carving out a niche on the internet. Reality TV did not kill the music video star, it just pushed him onto the backstage for now.”
Please name three music videos which are brilliant.
Beck “Girl”, The White Stripes “Dead Leaves in the dirty ground”, Fatboy Slim “Weapon of choice” (starring Christopher Walken) and recent honorable mention: Chairlift “Evident utensil”.
How was it to work with Nancy and Juan - how do you come together?
“They were really great to work with! I e-mailed their band manager and we hit it off from there. They gave me a general idea of what they were looking for and then let me go wild with my vision. They came down to DC from NYC and we shot the whole thing on green screen in one day (photos here). We had a crew of about 10 people that worked really hard to get it all done. We also had a lot of fun though. Juan and Nancy gave a great performance on set. We agreed that we wanted their expressions to be sort of melancholy and mysterious, and I think they delivered perfectly.”
What are your next projects?
“I have some storyboards out there, but there’s nothing in production right now. I’m actually going to grad school for visual effects at Savannah College of Art and Design in September. I’m hoping to leave there with some pretty radical short films and music videos.”