IN THE TUBES: YELLOWBIRDS “BENEATH THE REACH OF LIGHT”

This summer Yellowbirds based out of Brooklyn NY shot a super cool music video in the Coolidge Corner Theater and at Falmouth Beach in the cape.

You guys shot the video for “Beneath the Reach of Light” in Mass, do you guys still have a soft spot for the Bay State?
Sam: Well, that basically happened because we have a bunch of connections in Boston the make the video work.

We shot the talk show part at the Coolidge Corner movie theater. They let us go in after midnight and we shot there until almost noon the next day.

Yeah, I love the lyric bubbles in the talk show part.
Sam: That was actually the first and only idea when we started talking about the video together.

Oh really? I was going to ask you about that, What the process of coming up with the creative concept. Did it just kind of come together?
Sam: Yeah definitely it was really just a bunch of conversations.

Erez: Yeah, I mean the thought bubbles. We were just so happy with the idea of thought bubbles. We were just pleased. I mean Sam is a really creative guy and I’m pretty creative. Any time we have to come up with something like that, we were just psyched that we both thought something was cool. We kind of fell in love with that idea. The idea didn’t really progress for sometime. Then eventually we realized that you can’t just make a video about card board cut outs. So we kind of got frustrated because we couldn’t think of a place to go with that initial idea. Then, I think Sam was driving out to a wedding.

Sam: Yeah we were on our way to Chicago. I can’t remember what triggered the idea but I just started picturing a talk show. I was like oh man with just a simple set and one other actor we could really make this funny thing. We could have the thought bubbles and it would be kind of surreal. Then we could move to the beach. Originally I pictures all of the chairs staying in the exact same place and only the setting changing. Yeah I called him all excited but I had terrible cell service.

I was like mumble mumble talk show!

So who was the other actor in the video?
Sam: That’s Michael Hutcherson. He is also from Boston.

I have to ask you guys, where did the sinking of the row boat come in?
Sam: Oh Erez, this is actually really interesting. You tell her, you dealt with Ron.

Erez: The row boat was an idea and I’m not sure where it actually came in. We knew we wanted to transition somewhere cool. Then I think either Sam or I said you know it feels like a good ending to have a guy on a row boat. I don’t know why it felt good. We started looking around and suddenly we were presented with the problem of who has a row boat. We were calling friends. No one really had what we were looking for so kind of on a whim I went on Craigslist. I was thinking maybe we could find someone who was selling a row boat and I could offer to rent it from them. I was looking at all of these row boats and none of them looked right. Then I found this one and I kind of sent it to Sam as a joke.

I was like look at this sweet row boat.

The guy was selling it for some obscene amount of money. It was hand made, it was wooden. So I sent the guy an email and we kind of chit-chatted. I had never met the guy but we just kind of a nice little chat. So eventually he said we had to come down there and pick it up and give him a piece of collateral. He said that we had to give him something that was worth money. He would hold that and he would let us borrow the boat. So we drove to this random guy’s house, he lived on the water. As soon as we got out of the car he was standing in his drive way and he was good guy. He didn’t take anything, he just let us borrow the boat for free basically.

[Laughing] so you guys made a friend.
Erez: Never having met this guy, Ron. He let us borrow this boat. Ron wherever you are we are indeated to you forever.

Was it hard to sink?
Erez: Oooo well actually. Sam and I were in the boat together and I was being a little clumsy. We had gotten all of the shots we really needed. op[ I got up to try and get around the other side of Sam. Sam was like, Erez be careful. I put a little to much weight on one side of the boat and the whole boat tipped over.

Oh no! Were you holding a camera?
Erez: I was but, fortunately the camera was in a water proof bag.

Sam: We had gone back and forth so much on whether or not we should rent this bag for the camera. It’s one of those things were you just can’t stand how much they are charging for you for this plastic bag. We had so many conversations if we should get it or not and I had to drive all the way out to Queens to get it.

It was totally worth it. It made the drive to Queens and the price worth it.
Erez: Yeah but the boat being full of water was actually a mistake. You know we were not to happy at the time but after we saw it we were actually like you know that looks kind of cool.

Yeah it works i like it. So, what about the light pattern shots? Who does those?
Erez: Oh the surreal thing that’s going on there?

Yeah I don’t know what to call them.

That was actually another happy accident. The boat tipped over the camera was still rolling.

It recorded bubbles and and under water. I was looking at it and thought it was kind of an interesting pattern. So I kaleidoscoped it. It’s a really simple effect, it is just basically where you flip the image over its self and then you flip those images over themselves. It is a very traditional concept. Then it just looked amazing. So I did some color corrections and was able to phase in some different colors in a way that felt good. Then I showed it Sam and he seemed to really liked it.

Yeah, I had no idea. It turned out so cool. It really works, it reminded me of the albums name, Colors. So, Sam you have a show on the 7th at the Brighton Music Hall?
Yeah I’m opening for the Sea and Cake.

YELLOWBIRDS
WITH THE SEA AND CAKE AND BROKEBACK

MONDAY 11.7.11

BRIGHTON MUSIC HALL
158 BRIGHTON AVE.
ALLSTON
617.779.0140
BRIGHTONMUSICHALL.COM