Its 1999, and what were doing is just trying to get out of the way of the material because its so easy for us not to, says director Jon Kane talking about spotmaking in general and Go Behind the Music in particular, a series of spots he recently directed and edited for VH1 via Rubin Postaer and Associates, Santa Monica, through New York-based Celsius Films. We have all these tools and computers and things that can make all this groovy crap.
In the VH1 spots, Kane, whos repped by Celsius, explores rock n roll myths from the mouths of icons such as Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Pete Townsend. Completing the spots was an exercise in restraint, allowing each artists recollections to speak louder than any on-the-scene or postproduction fanciness. It was almost like my mind was polluted, Kane says. I had to cleanse it out so I wouldnt do all that stuff.
Rendered in a cinema verite style, the material Kane explores in the black-and-white spots includes Keith Richards conception of the (I Cant Get No) Satisfaction riff in Keith Richards/Satisfaction and the genesis of Pete Townsends penchant for destroying equipment. Other artists featured in the short vignettes promoting the music channels programming include Jewel, Mariah Carey, John Cougar Mellencamp, and Shania Twain.
Kane, an editor and director in the early days of MTV, mentions Robert Franks Cocksucker Bluesaa 1972 doc about the Rolling Stonesaand the Madonna Truth or Dare rockumentary as influences on the VH1 spots. But where the Truth or Dare filmmakers spent a year with Madonna, Kane had limited time with the artists for the VH1 promos. Nevertheless, his goal, as outlined by VH1, was to gain interesting answers that didnt seem like the same old interview. I did anything I could to avoid setting up that tight little bubble that you set up if youre in a traditional interview, Kane says. These people are pretty particular about what they do and how they do it. So the big challenge was to create an environment where the [artists] would be loose enough. The game was to create an intimacy that seemed like I had spent a lot of time with them, when in reality, I had an hour or two. To do this, Kane relied on a jambalaya of his skills at interviewing, improvising, and making the artists comfortable enough to elicit an off-the-cuff reminiscence.
The setting for the interviews was a key ingredient in this process. Once the spots
were arranged, Kane spoke with each of the artists to determine what each was doing and where the shoot would take place. This is where some of Kanes improvisational elan came into play. Responding to his question about where she felt most comfortable, Mariah Carey half-jokingly responded, In the water. Picking up on that cue, Kane suggested that they shoot her spot in a pool. In the spot that aired, Carey, clad in a bathing suit and high heels, waded through shoulder-height water, observing that some of her best music from her first album was recorded in a studio located at the back of a wood shop. Something about that wood shop was never recaptured, she says.
To keep the rest of the fish in the water, Kane arranged his sessions with the stars in comfortable settings where he could, if possible, take advantage of the presence of friends or family. Kane met up with Mellencamp in Indiana while the songwriter was visiting old friends. Townsend appears in a pub at a London art institute, surrounded by other pubgoers who went about their business as Townsend talked. Kane achieves a wholly unscripted intimacy in the spots because the artists were both grounded by the on-lookers and, in some situations, compelled to amuse them. For the Pete Townsend/F*ck spot, Kane prompted Townsend by inquiring about the windmill, Townsends style of guitar strumming that originated when the guitarist watched Keith Richards warming up. Townsend explained that, yes, he took the windmill from Richards, but added that on that same night, watching Mick Jagger dance the twist was the first time Townsend realized he wanted to fuck a man.
Ego Battles
Kane acknowledges that getting these world famous and interview-wary artists to talk was something of a contest of wills. The artists did their best to initially intimidate the director, and Kanes success is a measure of his patience and the fruits of brinkmanship. They want to control how theyre going to come across, he says. They dont want to say things or reveal parts of themselves. And the way that they try to control it is by being intimidating.
Just about every artist tried to make the director blink. One of the first things Townsend said to Kane was, I dont want to call you a fuckin idiot, but I think youre a fuckin idiot. Townsend thought it was ludicrous that smoking was prohibited in the pub because it would interfere with filming. Kane didnt wince, and he says that the artists attempts to frighten him worked in his favor. You get to become kind of friendly with them through their attempt to intimidate you. If you get intimidated in a situation like that, the whole things over, Kane observes. I was trying to stay as far away from Barbara Walters [rosy-colored Atite–tites in static surroundings] as possible.
Walters could use a few tips from cinematographer Russell Fine, a frequent Kane collaborator who achieved the verite style of the spots by doing tricks with the camera such as quickly changing the cameras F-stop to produce a sharp exposure change during the filming. Prior to shooting, Kane and Fine experimented with different cameras, ultimately deciding on a 16mm with a light mounted on it that would enable them to move and give them the dynamic feel they wanted. Whenever I felt that the artist we were shooting was getting into a groove or getting bored or their answers were starting to be very static, wed move, he says. And I didnt want to take any time to re-light anything.
Double Team
This isnt the first time that Kane, collaborating with Fine, has set out into documentary territory. In 1995, Kane and Fine wandered through the South looking for subjects to film. Kane first planned to use the extensive material as part of a commissioned assignment, but ultimately felt it wasnt appropriate for that project. Instead, he assembled the material into Fellow Americans, a portrait of seven real-life people whom the filmmakers met while journeying. Kane finished editing the film in spring 97 and screened it for the first time for an audience in March 98. Fellow Americans, completed before the VH1 spots, was key in proving Kanes documentary mettle.
One interview bit with Mellencamp led to one of the more surreal moments of the campaign, in which Mellencamp decries the use of rock songs in commercials while his song is being used in a commercial to promote the music channel (I dont think that John Lennon wrote ARevolution for a pair of tennis shoes to run down the street to, Mellencamp says.) To be fair, Mellencamps song is being used to promote his music, not for a product entirely unrelated to his songs (at various times, Mellencamp was approached by the Ronald Reagan presidential campaign and Pepsi to use his songs). And none of the artists were paid for their appearance (or use of their songs) in the spots. [Mellencamp] doesnt believe that songs should be sold to sell products, Kane explains. But I did like the subversive nature of the fact that it was, in the end, a television commercial where he was talking about how corporate sponsorship and commercials have an evil element to them.
Kane came to Celsius in September 1998 after working through New York-based cYclops productions for a year and a half. In addition to directing and editing, Kane runs Optic Nerve, Brooklyn, a multipurpose creative collaborative and post house doing editing, sound design and graphics work, modeled after London-based Tomato.
