Bring It On - official video

I like the video; I like how Benny comes across, I like the setting, even the narrative bits, and of course the song, but ...

... it's very much more of the same look ('59 Sound, Great Ex); it doesn't stand out. Now I don't want the music to change drastically from album to album, but when it comes to art work and video, I think people should experiment a bit more. The album's been out for a while, so it's not as if a more experimental video could hurt sales (if anything, this should have been the album release video and single). So maybe next time we could have something more bold, like band footage (performance or otherwise) interwoven with some (tattoo) animation by El Jefe. Bring it on.

nebraska wrote:

I really really like the video, is dave hause on it? I think that the next video should be the diamond church street choir . Great job!

yes, that is dave hause getting divorced in it.

love it! they did a great job.

love it, great video & nice to have a bit of a new Gaslight injection!

I love Dave Hause's acting

I read on Kevin Slack's Twitter that the ending of the video is broken, and it's not meant to freeze when it does.

steady now steady now wrote:

I like the video; I like how Benny comes across, I like the setting, even the narrative bits, and of course the song, but ...

... it's very much more of the same look ('59 Sound, Great Ex); it doesn't stand out. Now I don't want the music to change drastically from album to album, but when it comes to art work and video, I think people should experiment a bit more. The album's been out for a while, so it's not as if a more experimental video could hurt sales (if anything, this should have been the album release video and single). So maybe next time we could have something more bold, like band footage (performance or otherwise) interwoven with some (tattoo) animation by El Jefe. Bring it on.

This pretty much sums up how I felt. Great video but its just more of the same. I too wish they would try something a little more bold.

Daire wrote:

I read on Kevin Slack's Twitter that the ending of the video is broken, and it's not meant to freeze when it does.

I thought that was a bit odd, at first I just thought my computer was playing up but then it kept doing it so I thought it was meant to be like that

My playback was choppy as hell. But all the videos I watch on the internet play like that lately so I didn't think much of it. Hopefully it'll show up on the ondemand for Fuse or what have you and I can see it there!

Its a good video and gotta love Dave Hause in it! The timing of it just seems weird to me, so far apart from the American Slang release and with Brian off with The Horrible Crowes seems like its about 6 months too late

Here is the video without it freezing at the end if you haven't seen it already

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-ZN7NyPfb4&feature=share

Hey
This is Kevin, the director of the Bring It On video. I wouldn't normally do this but I've liked this site for a long time now and I wanted to just say thanks for all the support you guys have given to this video. A bunch of you have contacted me on Twitter and helped retweet the links and such and I really appreciate that. I'm really thrilled the majority of Gaslight fans seem to really dig the video.

Feel free to ask any questions you might have about the video or the band and I'll do my best to respond.

Anyways thanks again guys! Have a good holiday weekend!

kevin_slack wrote:

Hey
This is Kevin, the director of the Bring It On video. I wouldn't normally do this but I've liked this site for a long time now and I wanted to just say thanks for all the support you guys have given to this video. A bunch of you have contacted me on Twitter and helped retweet the links and such and I really appreciate that. I'm really thrilled the majority of Gaslight fans seem to really dig the video.

Feel free to ask any questions you might have about the video or the band and I'll do my best to respond.

Anyways thanks again guys! Have a good holiday weekend!

Hi Kevin, good to have you on board. As you've liked our site for a while, you'll know that we're as supportive of the band as we can be, while we won't shy away from a little constructive criticism every once in a while.

And thanks for those great videos, not least my all time favourite of theirs, 'I'da Called You Woody, Joe'.

One thing i would like to ask is when you are making music video how much do you direct the band as individuals?? or do you just let them do their thing??

I recently was involved in a video shoot in which the director was constantly saying "do a jump" or "be more dramatic" which was really quite annoying as i am neither dramatic or a guitarist who does jumps ( a little like Alex R). I wanted the video to be as good as possible so i took his comments on board but felt like i was in an uncomfortable situation.

Great video for Bring it On by the way i think it really encapsulates the style of Gaslight and has interesting narrative content. my favourite Gaslight vid yet!!

Holland wrote:

One thing i would like to ask is when you are making music video how much do you direct the band as individuals?? or do you just let them do their thing??

I only direct them to a certain extent. These guys are professionals and if there is one thing they know how to do, it's to play their instruments and perform. However it's a much different thing to perform on stage than it is on set in front of a crew. I really only gave Brian direction actually. I didn't want him concentrating on playing the guitar or singing perfectly. I wanted him much more active with his hands and not worrying about being so realistic in terms of playing and singing. That's why a few times he actually sings away from the mic or he plays with his hat or during the "wait a minute" part (my favorite section) he grabs the mic and throws up the other hand. Obviously live he needs to be playing during these parts so that wouldn't work. For the most part though I let them do their thing.

steady now steady now wrote:

And thanks for those great videos, not least my all time favourite of theirs, 'I'da Called You Woody, Joe'.

Thanks! Glad you like that video, it's one of my favs to. We had no money at all for a video so basically we were just like "let's go hang in Asbury and see what happens". So that's pretty much what happened haha. Then I shot them playing live at the Iron Monkey in Jersey City that night

Hey Mr. Slack,

Nice to see you hangin' around here, pretty awesome to interact this way! You made a well done video, but my main quest on music-videos is: don't they destroy the imaginary pictures which are in the minds of the listeners? You know for some reason, Gaslight songs make me think of black and white fifties movies, but when I see the video it's happening today. Maybe I'm romanticising this whole thing, and it is my stupid naïvity that makes me think these stories could only happen in old B-movies. Nevertheless, you've done a great job, and I think there are quite a few aspects in it that are in my imaginary rock 'n roll movie as well. But don't you think directors (not necessarily you, but others) could destroy the beauty of music, as in only listening to it?

Greetings from Holland,
Steve

theBasemen wrote:

my main quest on music-videos is: don't they destroy the imaginary pictures which are in the minds of the listeners?

Thanks! Really happy you liked the video. I understand what you mean. The same goes for when books are adapted into films. People who read the book first usually don't like the movie as much because you already have an idea in your head of what the book "looked" like. But you can't let that ruin the song. The music video is just one interpretation of the song, doesn't mean it's the right or only one. When you watch music videos you can't think about what you imagined the song to look like. You have to judge the video completely on it's own separate from what you had in mind. No two people will interpret the song exactly the same way. When Brian and I first talked about the song, I thought it meant something a little different than what he said. Which is the beauty about music. So the video ended up being a mix between my interpretation and his.

I dont know if that really answered your question. But I hope most people don't think music videos ruin the song a bit because then I will be unemployed :)

Some people are wondering why the release now (as opposed to late last year/earlier this year). Is that up to the band/record label/you?

Awesome video

NeverTrustAJunkie wrote:

Some people are wondering why the release now (as opposed to late last year/earlier this year). Is that up to the band/record label/you?

Awesome video :)

Thanks! As far as timing of the video, that is completely up to the band and record label. I have no say whatsoever about that stuff.

Hi Kevin,
Congrats to the video. Loving it. Especially how you captured the different characters - seems very cool but natural at the same time. Great to have you here - it's really awesome that you're doing this. Means a lot to us .. at least to me ;o)

I'm interested in the creative process - who did come up with the idea for the video? Did you propose something to the band, did they have a clear picture in mind how they wanted the video to look or did you just sit down and kind of brainstormed all together?

And also one more question: Considering that MTV etc. are giving less and less time to music videos (at least that's the case over here) - how do you see the future of music videos? Do they lose their importance during the process of releasing a single?
To me it's very important to have them because it gives me the chance to see the song through the eyes of the band. And I would hate to lose that.

enola wrote:

I'm very much interested in the creative process. Who did come up with the idea for the video? Did you propose something to the band, did they have a clear picture in mind how they wanted the video to look or did you just sit down and kind of brainstormed all together?

And also one more question: Considering that MTV etc. are giving less and less time to music videos (at least that's the case over here) - how do you see the future of music videos? Do they lose their importance during the process of releasing a single?
To me it's very important to have them because it gives me the chance to see the song through the eyes of the band. And I would hate to lose that.

Hey, glad you like the video! Tell all your friends ;)

So here's the story. Alex L called me one night and said they wanted to do a video for Bring It On. Obviously I said, awesome when do we start?! So I submitted a few ideas to the band. Looking back now most of them were a little out there, a little weird. Maybe not quite right for this band ya know. So Brian and I talked some more and at the time he was in Australia on vacation and then a short tour with Gaslight. So he gave me the basic plot of how he wanted the story to go. It pretty much followed the lyrics and was fairly simple. So I took his idea and molded it into something else and put my own spin on it. Basically I thought if we just shoot this couple in real time, acting everything out, it will be a bit melodramatic and people will roll their eyes. So I thought it would be more interesting to just see moments of this couple's life. Just to see the destruction of them. We don't need to watch entire scenes to know what's going on. One image of him sitting on the bed and you know the relationship is troubled. And so that's how it all happened :)

As far as the life of the music video from this point on I'm not sure. I think it's great to see huge artists like Lady Gaga and Beyonce and Kanye still taking videos very seriously and putting money and creativity into it. THose guys are the ones keeping the video alive. Also VH1 is bringing back Pop Up Video and that will be huge. I think videos will never completely go away. However being on the business end of them I know their budgets have dropped dramatically so the whole music video scene has definitely changed for sure. One thing that I wish bands would do more is take bigger risks. The formula of story mixed with performance is getting pretty stale and formulaic. Unfortunately bands and record labels are a bit hesitant to do so because they are worried about their image or how it will come across so they stick with doing something safe for the most part. Hopefully that changes :)

Hi Kevin, great video. I'm going to university in September to do a degree in film making, I'm really interested in music videos and it is one of the career paths I am considering trying to get into once I have finished my course. I was just wondering how you got into directing music videos? I should imagine a lot of hard work to get to where you are now, I'm prepared for that. Just wondering how I would go about getting into the business?

Gaslight23 wrote:

Hi Kevin, great video. I'm going to university in September to do a degree in film making, I'm really interested in music videos and it is one of the career paths I am considering trying to get into once I have finished my course. I was just wondering how you got into directing music videos? I should imagine a lot of hard work to get to where you are now, I'm prepared for that. Just wondering how I would go about getting into the business?

I got into doing videos because I knew some local bands. Just start shooting. It doesn't matter if it isn't good or polished, the more you shoot the better you will get. Find some new unsigned bands who will let you make a video for them. Or make videos for existing songs and put together a reel to help get you real paid jobs. just shoot shoot shoot :) good luck!!

I just want to know what is up with the floating plates...