We Set Out Across The Hills
In celebration of Jesse Lamonaca & The Dime Novels album release show TONIGHT at the Casbah we wanted to share a video we shot with Jesse.
A few Saturdays ago, the three of us piled into my station wagon with cameras, coats and a cooler and headed East. Forty five minutes later we found ourselves winding through mountain roads. We continued on for a bit until we came across some landscape that matched our vision for the shoot. Equipped with 5Ds and a steadicam rig we hiked out until we found a path we liked and attempted our first run through. This is where behind the scenes footage would be priceless as it would be quite amusing for the viewer. I will try to paint the picture for you…imagine a rough terrain, rocks, sticks, stumps, branches sticking out here and there and everywhere. Kevin was operating the steadicam and had to focus all his attention on the back of the camera. This left him pretty must blind to his surroundings. Enter Rebecca, professional leader of the blind and music provider! Now this is where the picture becomes funny, the unglamorous side of filmmaking if you will. So every time Jesse is walking toward camera, Kevin is in front of him walking backwards and I am there in front of Kevin pulling him like one would an unruly dog, backwards by his belt while gripping an over-sized boombox looping the cd and watching the path to decide where we go next. The terrain was tricky at times. The funniest moment was when I led us down a narrow path, dead-ending into a impenetrable wall of bushes. Just as I realized there was nowhere to go, it was too late. Kevin was right behind me unaware of the dead end. At that moment he crashed into me, and took a couple more steps back further affixing me into the mass of branches to the point where I was stuck like a fly in a web and couldn’t get out on my own. It wasn’t all goofing around, there were also beautiful moments when the song was true and our simple vision of Jesse singing about lost love in the isolation of the wilderness was captivating. We shot and reshot in many different locations in order to be able to edit the final piece to feel fractured, like what we assume heartbreak to feel like. We attempted to capture the passing of time while holding onto a love that is no more through use of fragmented layers joined with images of near and far to resemble feelings of isolation and abandonment. We hope you enjoy our visual translation of Jesse’s written word. Support Jesse, download his music and buy a ticket for tonight’s show!
The Joelsons 