Short Film // Runtime: 16m10s // Shooting Formats: 16mm, RED Komodo, Hi8
Main promo for Bryan Cho’s AKA The Black Skirts (검정치마) 2022 album “Teen Troubles.”The assignment was to create a short film as a visual album (ie visualize multiple tracks) based on his memories growing up as a punk-y teenager in 90’s Bergen County, NJ. This is technically 5 music videos - “Flying Bobs,” Friends in Bed,” “Baptized in Fire,” “John Frye,” “99%” - acting as chapters telling one story. I interviewed Bryan a few times over the course of a week to develop the overall concept. We found key memories to write into the script, looked at his old polaroids, and I watched films/TV he watched back then to capture his POV of the zeitgeist. I brought on additional inspirations (anime, modern Japanese films, Italian arthouse, American/Anglo ensemble coming-of-age films) for a style that felt both East Asian and American.
DP Konstantin Lyubimov & I designed a cool and gritty, trendy yet nostalgic look to resonate with demographics from Gen Z all the way to Bryan’s Gen X, and we mixed vintage formats to make complex memories come back alive on-screen. The coverage was kept simple to not distract the client’s needed story beats. We also mixed a documentary approach in-between the scripted elements, with scenes like Lara’s bedroom and 7/11 being fully improvised by cast & camera.
PD Sharon Vion Reiss, stylist Nina Attel, and I kept the art direction period accurate while embracing chances for poppier, fun colors. We also created quirky key props (Bosko’s camcorder, Electra’s doll) for the characters & actors’ business.
Editor Olaf Woldan had both feature film and film-production music video backgrounds to cut this project that had to flow both as a music video and narrative.
Overall, the interviews & writing took a week, prep was just short of a month, and we filmed for 5 days with an additional day of pick-ups.
After two months from my first interview with Bryan, we were able to deliver him the neon-fever-dream, hallucinatory nostalgic home footage, adolescent heartbreak catharsis, glorious teen wasteland, celebration of the adventures of our youth.
Our lead producer James, who introduced me to Bryan’s music, was stoked.
