When Chris Hafner, co-owner/head creative at Brass Knuckles, Venice, Calif., began taking film and video courses at Palmar College, San Diego, he could not have foreseen how quickly he’d be in the ring with the heavyweights of postproduction. During his first year of studies, one of his assignments was to create six public service announcements about the local fire department. The PSAs earned six nominations for regional Emmy awards, and Hafner won two for directing ("Drugs Won’t Make You Cool" and "Your Last Bag"). He then transferred to New York University’s Tisch School Of The Arts, and directed music videos on the side. "But [I was] always editing, always cut my own stuff," Hafner says.
Hafner’s college internship with editor Judy Minot at RVI Editorial, New York, led to his meeting Jeff Brian, an in-house director for Sony, who enlisted him to help edit a longform home video for Ozzy Osbourne. While traveling with Osbourne’s band, Hafner impressed the tour’s opening act, Prong, who asked him to direct a longform video for them. "I was still in school," says Hafner, who also cut the project. "I just kept getting freelance calls. I had no plans to move to California, but I kept working and working and working. I called my roommate at college and said ‘I just bought a car. I’ve moved; send my stuff.’"
For two years, Hafner worked as a freelance director and editor until he and his former college roommate, Doug Johnson, pooled their savings to buy an Avid 400, rent an office, and set up their own shop in West Hollywood. That small operation was the beginning of Brass Knuckles, which today counts among its clients the Gap, Mazda, Budweiser, McDonald’s, Disney, Kids Footlocker and Snickers.
As Brass Knuckles expanded, one of Hafner’s editors, Scott Canning, introduced him to Greg Laube, who is now Brass Knuckles’ CEO, as well as president of the Los Angeles chapter of the Association of Independent Commercial Editors (AICE), and VP of the national AICE (SHOOT, 11/12/99, p.1).
In ’80, Laube opened Laube-Roth & Associates with Roger Roth. Upon Roth’s retirement in ’97, the company name was changed to X-Stream Post, and it merged with Brass Knuckles in ’98. "Brass Knuckles was just skyrocketing. I bought out Doug Johnson, and we merged [X-Stream Post] into Brass Knuckles. Then we moved over to Venice," says Hafner.
SEEING SPOTS
Though Hafner ran Brass Knuckles as primarily a music video editing house, the merger brought in more commercial work. Today, there is a 50/50 split between the two forms. "The commercials are a natural outgrowth of the music videos, because the music videos always establish new techniques and new trends and new styles which are picked up by the advertisers," Laube explains. "Growing up through music videos teaches you to be not only a storyteller, but an edgy storyteller with technique, which then can be translated into commercials."
Brass Knuckles’ work includes Swiss.com’s "The Adventures of the Joker," directed by Marcel Langenegger of bicoastal/international Propaganda Films via Advico, Young & Rubicam, Zurich; Gap’s "Khaki Country," directed by Michel Gondry of bicoastal/international Partizan, for Gap’s San Francisco-based in-house agency; and "Could Have" and "Crucial Area" for Toyota Tundra, via Saatchi & Saatchi LA, Torrance, Calif., helmed by Peter Nydrle of Nydrle Productions, West Hollywood. Brass Knuckles has cut videos for music acts including Marilyn Manson, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Wyclef Jean and R.E.M.
One of Brass Knuckles’ latest spots is "Self Expressions," a Philip Morris-sponsored PSA directed by Simon Blake of bicoastal/international Chelsea Pictures, via Young & Rubicam, New York. The ad, which is set to break in early 2000, implores teens to avoid smoking with the tag of "Think, don’t smoke." It is comprised of a few dozen layers of different body parts cut and pasted together, rotating, spinning and bouncing about the screen. "It’s an extremely complex editorial project that has probably over twenty-five layers of visuals in each frame. The challenge was to make all of those visuals work in an exciting way," says Laube.
Brass Knuckles is now housed in what was once the old V.I.P. boxing club where Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard trained. "It was just a coincidence that we were called Brass Knuckles," Laube laughs. "It’s sort of like a karma thing."
One of the advantages to being a boutique, Hafner says, is that "it’s still small enough where every single thing can get that attention to detail, and we can keep an eye on everything. None of our projects gets lost in the shuffle; there’s no machine or factory [atmosphere]."
Future plans call for the installation of a second Henry and/or an Inferno, and the addition of a few more Avids. "We’re probably going to expand our finishing capabilities in Venice; then we’ll be going to NAB and seeing what products are out there," says Laube. The company is currently equipped with one Henry and six Avids.
Chris Gernon, formally of Mojo, Santa Monica, was recently hired at Brass Knuckles as an editor, and there are plans to hire one or two more. The company recently began representing Canada’s Third Floor Editing, Toronto, in the U.S., including that company’s owner, Richard Unruh. Brass Knuckles also hopes to open a New York outpost. "A lot of our clients," says Hafner, "are like, ‘Please, open a Brass Knuckles, New York.’ " Laube adds, "We’re in the process of looking for space; the timetable on that is still in the near future. Chris and our other editors find themselves flying to New York much more than they ever have, so to be based there would be really convenient for us and for our clients."
"The people usually come to Brass Knuckles because they want what we do," says Hafner, who recently signed with 8Media, Culver City, Calif., for music video representation as a director. "For the most part, they [Brass Knuckles’ clients] kind of let us go. The directors will come in at the end to tweak and perfect things." Brass Knuckles’ editors, who do about 75 percent of their own sound design, also spend time on the set, which Laube believes speeds the post process. "It’s so valuable to have someone on the set who’s actually an editor, and not just a post supervisor. Post supervisors are okay, but they’re not really creatively thinking about how images are going to be put together in an editorial form," Laube says. "That’s where the edge with some [of our editors] is. They can go out there and make suggestions right on the spot, and that can save production companies time and money."
