Directors Discuss Making Of VELVET REVOLVER's 'Dirty Little Thing' Video

Motion Theory, a directing collective and production house based in Venice Beach, CA, recently spoke to MusicVideoWire.com about how they used a mixture of animation and live action footage for VELVET REVOLVER's new music video for "Dirty Little Thing" from the RCA release "Contraband". An excerpt from the interview follows:

MVW: Could you describe the pre-production of the video from writing the treatment and being awarded the video?

Motion Theory: "It started off with an idea that VELVET REVOLVER had seen on an album cover by Rockin' Jellybean (the illustrator). He had already created a few of the designs for their tour and drum kit. The band had just come back from a world tour and asked a number of people for their take on an idea that they had for 'Sucker Train Blues' and a train in the Rockin' Jellybean style. We really liked the world of Rockin' Jellybean, which has a very playful sexuality and the feel of underground rock posters from the '70s. We wanted to integrate animation and live action styles as close as possible to his style. We sold the band on the concept of a hybrid train that is half steam engine and half muscle car using mock-ups of what the train would look like in an extensive presentation of how we saw this world and the whole concept coming together, which is big testosterone rock n roll and just really having fun with it!"

MVW: How did you create the train setup?

MT: "There is a town called Fillmore (an hour outside of L.A.) with a working train yard. We took a gutted train car and completely built the whole shot from scratch, which was really important for the sense of light and movement. It was an art direction challenge to make it feel very rock n roll but at the same time have a bit of a Wild Wild West burlesque feel to it. Another challenge with shooting inside the train was the width that made it difficult to set up a performance space. We also set the entire train on hydraulics so that while we were shooting it was rocking back and forth which enhanced the technical difficulty of the shoot."

MVW: In such tight quarters, was it difficult for the band to perform?

MT: "They just give you gems moment after moment. For instance, Scott (Weiland) would take off his jacket at a very specific point in the song in every take making sure we would have continuity. It was just gold every single time and that really helped out in taking advantage of such a small space. We were very worried because the train was only nine feet across but they managed to make it work."

MVW: How did you go about choreographing in the small space? Did you have specific ideas in mind or did you just let it go to see what happened?

MT: "Our creative focus was answering the question, What can we do in here in spite of the limitations? On different takes we went for different shots, for example getting all the people in the train car so we could see all the women or the crowd interacting with the band. Sometimes we’d have to move the crowd over a little bit to get them out of the way so the Steadicam guy could shoot the scene. We also went for the widest possible shot with the amazing light that our dp Claudio Miranda created."

Read the entire interview at this location.