WATCH IT: Rey Pila "No Longer Fun"

What's the point of going on if it's no longer fun? Such is the case in sad/sick/twisted, yet also strange and beautiful video for Mexican alterna-artist Rey Pila, which has the vibe of a more gonzo Harold & Maude. The theme seems to be that death is even more boring than life, with suicide victims repeating their acts in hopes of yet another change to their plane of existence. NOTE: Not recommended viewing for anybody squeamish about explicit suicide scenes. --> watch "No Longer Fun"

Rey Pila "No Longer Fun"
Whitcher + Ariel Danziger, director | Justin Cronkite, producer | Humble, production co | Matthias Koenigsweiser, DP | Jon Grover @ Cut and Run, editor | Damien Van Der Cruyssen @ The Mill, colorist | Eric Berkowitz + Persis Koch, executive producers

note: Humble is a sponsor of Videostatic.com

WATCH IT: Wolfmother "Far Away" (Hydra, dir.)

The Humble creative team humbly breaks down the action of their recent video for Wolfmother "Far Away,"  shot on-location in Sydney, Australia and directed by their collective Hydra.

"One mirror-plated piano, five wild feral children, and an estimated seven million lens flares later, a kick ass rock video was born.

Shot on super 16 mm film using the Arri SRIII to get that 70's warm, retro, faded, grainy feel that we all love.

We took the rocky surf turf blue waters of Maroubra along with the dense green woodlands of Centennial Park and turned them into mirror utopias. Of course it wouldn't have been complete without a 10 ft. rotating mirror-plated pyramid for good measure.

Costume designer Georgia Ashdown went above and beyond the thunderdome with her Mad Max inspired costumes for the children. The kids were decked out as tiny little hunter and gatherers looking like they had skin thicker than rabid wolves.

Director of Photography Matthias Koenigswieser dangled a 26 ft. jimmy jib over shark infested waters on a 50 ft ocean side precipice for beautiful sweeping shots of the band's performance. Do you believe that there is love that lasts forever? Humble and Wolfmother do. All hail the mirror pyramid."

--> watch "Far Away"

Wolfmother "Far Away" (Interscope)
Sam Stephens/Hydra, director | Justin Cronkite, producer | Humble, production co | Matthias Koenigswieser, DP | Alan Witcher, editor | Eric Berkowitz, executive producer | Persis Koch, head of production | sponsored content: Humble is a sponsor of VideoStatic.com

SHOT: Wolfmother - Hydra, directors

• artist: Wolfmother
• song: "Far Away"
• label: Modular/Interscope
• director(s): Hydra
• production co: Humble
• rep: RW Media

WATCH IT: Muse "Uprising"

Get the feeling that the authorities treat humankind like nothing more than mere toys? Or, more specifically maybe you think there are giant teddy bears watching over us like evil, controlling and not at all cuddly teddy bears? That's basically the crux of this new video for Muse, directed by the three-headed creative team, Hydra. A toy populace, rampaging bears and then Muse right in the thick of it, performing this insta-hit and inciting a war. --> watch "Uprising"

Muse "Uprising" (Warner Bros.)
Hydra, director | Humble TV, production co | RW Media, rep

BOOKED: Muse - Hydra, directors

First video off the new Muse album, The Resistance... Video being directed by the three-headed team Hydra, which also directed Passion Pit "The Reeling" through their production company, Humble.

• artist: Muse
• song: "Uprising"
• label:  Warner Bros 
• director(s): Hydra
• production co: Humble TV
• rep: RW Media

WATCH IT: Passion Pit "The Reeling"

Hard for me to see any post-punk video with a paper motif — take this Aberdeen City clip from a few years ago as an example — and not instantly flash to the title of music critic Simon Reynold's book, Rip It Up and Start Again: Post Punk 1978-1984. The world and music and culture is malleable. Think of it like paper: Rip it, crumple it up, throw it away and start anew. That's the case in this video from the creatives at Humble. A group of hipsters who make their creatively destructive way through the city en route to a Passion Pit performance where the band is also reveled to be constructed of discarded and presumably recycled bits of paper. It's a cool effect for a cool song, even if it's proven to be as ephemeral, yet beautiful as fine art created from newsprint. 

Humble, production company: "For the lead video off Passion Pit's eagerly anticipated debut LP, 3 of our creatives banded together into a multi-headed directing beast.  A beast we now call Hydra.

Inspired by the worn away layers of street art, advertising, and flyers plastered around downtown New York, they set out to create a world of distressed, animated paper.  Think:  Cases of spray glue, 2 video projectors, a couple of workhorse color copiers, untold reams of paper, 2 mannequins, 4 mexican wrestling masks, a stage full of cardboard Moogs, and one 1971 Charger, covered in 3000 sheets of torn flyers.

The video, shot on the new handheld Canon 5d DSLR, was edited, tracked and composited in a normal post workflow.  Then, every other frame, some 4305 of them, were printed out, crumpled up, spray mounted in stacks, and then reshot on homemade animation stands.  A month of long nights, razor cuts, toxic fumes, and a terrabyte of stills later, we came out with this."

--> watch "The Reeling" (hi-res Quicktime)

Passion Pit
"The Reeling" (Frenchkiss/Columbia)
Hydra (aka Sam Stephens, Ariel Danziger, John Hobbs), directors | Kim Koby, producer | Humble, production co | Aaron Philips, DP