You have a teeny-bopper act that's insanely popular. A decidedly catchy song that could easily be matched with a simple beach party video — or, even easier, a tie-in with a certain Volkswagen. Give credit to the Jonas Brothers for wanting something very different. Director Philip Andelman takes us behind-the-scenes on a totally lush and unexpected video for the new Jonas Bros. single "Lovebug."
Philip Andelman, director: "The band's original idea was for them to be Cupid-like characters that brought several couples together at a party on the eve of war, and as the song exploded, there would be a domino-like effect of everyone breaking into dance. I got really excited about the ballroom scene, but wanted to scale the story down to just one couple, so we could make what little screen time we had as personal as possible. I love the lush tones of Douglas Sirk's movies and tried to create little vignettes that recreated moments of classic romance. The only issue was chronology. I knew there should only be one kiss in the video and I struggled with where it should go and where it should be shot. The band had expressed a desire to recreate the classic Eisenstadt V-Day kiss photograph but I knew that there was only so much time to squeeze everything in and if we shot the couple going off to war it would feel too repetitious to shoot him coming back seconds later. Ultimately, I decided to shoot the kiss on the dancefloor as this was meant to be the most special evening in the couple's life, before everything changes.
We only had three weekdays to prep the job and the locations we needed involved ballrooms, battleships, ferries, beaches, and homes, all with period dressing. I honestly don't think the job could have been pulled off without Melissa Larsen (aka Wonderwoman) as a producer. She got together one of the most remarkable crews I've ever had the chance to work with, and with those people involved, it would have been really hard to screw this thing up. We first called Max Goldman to shoot it as I remembered him telling me a few weeks earlier about his love of period pieces. We got really excited about the technical aspects of the shoot, from using vintage lenses to various film printing techniques. After that, Damien Byrne came on as production designer. I've had the privilege of working with him before, and his attention to detail is always spot-on. Working in conjunction with a research team, he nailed the broad strokes and the tiny details that only directors obsess over. While most people that we called laughed at our paltry prep time, others jumped at the challenge. One of those was Frank Chevalier who in two days was able to dress over a hundred extras along with the leads (Michelle Tomaszewski deserves credit as well for the elegant white tuxes the band sports). His thought process over patterns and fabrics, colors and textures was remarkable and key to nailing the look of the video as the couple had to appear to be working class during the day, yet elegant in the evening without being overly decadent. Pamela Neal and her crew rounded out the dream team, and despite her exasperation (read: incredible dedication to the craft) over extras unwilling to cut their hair for the sake of authenticity, she still pulled off a herculean feat. Last but not least, Christian Perry, our choreographer, casted and rehearsed the dancers in under two days...
With the job awarding on a Friday evening and shooting the next Thursday, we knew that the key to the puzzle would be locking our locations and that everything would fall into place after that. We spent the weekend scouting and once we were locked, I broke down each location with everything that was needed from each department, from key props to hair styles. At that point, conversations about set dressing and lighting began, and before we knew it we were in the middle of the ballroom with a Technocrane shooting the first shot. The shoot was actually the easiest part of the entire project as the prep had been so challenging, yet thorough. The band was beyond professional, nailing each of their takes, and having a blast getting into their characters, while our AD Andy Coffing kept us moving at an incredible speed (we had four separate locations on our second day, with company moves between each!). The only hiccup we encountered was the water condition as we were heading out to the ocean to shoot the ferry scene. From the docks we could see the ferry getting tossed around from sets of whitecaps and everyone was a little on edge. I don't tend to do too well in open waters so I was probably the most nervous of all. Once we got out there, things settled down a bit — though we never did get a nice steady shot of Joe singing his lines as he looks up from his camera. Other than that and your typical zero-hour-going-into-overtime-even-though-you-can't-afford-to frenzies, the shoot was smooth sailing. We transferred the print with Beau Leon over at Syndicate who along with nailing the color rescued a few shots with his clever tricks, and then handed over the footage to Holle Singer who delivered a rough cut in about two days. With about 30,000ft of film shot, i have no idea how she got something together so fast, but it was so solid. As I bit my nails and tugged at hair, she was the calm voice (and a really beautiful voice at that) of reason that solved every problem I'd created during the shoot (running out of available light on the boat, condensing the majority of the story to the final 30 seconds of the video, and mostly just reducing and reducing and reducing in scene after scene). After some seamless FX work by Skulley the job was over, barely a couple of weeks after it all started."
--> watch "Love Bug"
Jonas Brothers "Love Bug" (Hollywood)
Philip Andelman, director | Melissa Larsen, producer | Partizan, production co | Max Goldman, DP | Holle Singer, editor | Damien Byrne, production designer | Pamela Neal, hair + make-up | Frank Chevalier + Michelle Tomaszewski, costumes | Christian Perry, choreography | Skulley FX, post | Beau Leon, telecine/colorist
