It’s been just over a year since we shot the video for “T-Dot State of Mind” and we are excited to be working with West on the video for his new single “Coming Home.”  A song which focuses on the joy, love and happiness derived from the words “Coming home” both for the person who says it, and those who await them at home.

While last year’s shoot had us running around in negative a lot degrees, with enough snow on the ground to build a politically correct snowperson, this year we had the luxury of shooting at Studio 207.  Yes the four walls and roof was a treat, we’ve never felt so spoiled by heat.  While part of the shoot did have us outside on the rooftop, it didn’t keep Sterling from wearing his camo shorts outside.  Bold move.  Also working with the talented makeup skills of Amanda Wynne was a treat.  A smile on her face, and a willingness to help, even if it fell out of her spectrum of makeup and fell into the spectrum of helping around set.  She rocks!!!

What really drew us to this song was the importance of family, home and the love that can be produced by it.  As a result, it was very important for us to focus on the true family unit of mother, father and child, and the purity of love.  To emphasize this, we worked primarily in a black and white colour pallet, allowing for focus on the message and symbolism of purity around love… and darkness resulting for poor life decisions.

Was it fun on set???  The love and laughter was bountiful… smiles, good music and good fun, most of which is thanks to our young talent.  While historically we are used to our star working with us on scheduling, what we quickly discovered with our youngest star was when it was time for a running party… then it was time for a laughing giggling running party.  It did make it interesting to predict the direction of the shoot, but we managed to secure all the shots we were looking for.
Funniest part of the shoot?  Trying to get 12 feet of Dolly track onto the subway during a subway breakdown.

All in all, we are really excited about the newest addition to the T-West collection, and are excited to share it with you.  Keep your eyes peeled for it’s release in March! And for now, see below to see some of the screen captures from the shoot.

Until next time…

Koray Salih and Sterling Pache
Romantic Child Studios

The photographs below were taken by Vancouver’s finest photographer Julia Kozlov.

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To my left, I see a man in a cage, nostrils flared, both hands holding the cage which he calls his home, gnawing at his encasement, our eyes meet. I’m mesmerized temporarily, before fear forces my eyes to the road. Probably a victim of Paco, a highly addictive cocaine by-product that transforms humans into the living dead. My ears are fixated on the sounds the caged man is making but my eyes go their own way and find refuge on the skeleton of a dog partially sunk into the ground.

Picture: Handmade shack

I look to my right, I’m waved into a school, a boy runs up yells “Hola amigo. Que tal”, throws me a high five, his little sister, not wanting to the re-construct the academic sentence of her brother offers a high pitched “hola” and throws her little hand up for a high five. I bend down.  She puts her fingers in her mouth and smiles the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen. The sound of the gnawing is still in my head and the audio contrasted with a little angel before my eyes throws my mind into a tailspin. Someone yells “milk time” and the kids run to get their milk. I forget the gnawing.

Picture: Beautiful smile

We sit on the ground to film the post milk dance party, which lacked music but not spirit. Diego, a director of a production company in Villa 20 offered the group of angels his best shot of Reggaeton so they had a beat to dance to. But the song died out quickly, when Diego realized he only knew 6 words to the popular kids dance song. But no beat was needed. They were all turned into the same internal radio station. They didn’t even notice the music stopped. The dance waged on. Afterwords the kids wanted to watch themselves on the camera, they crawled all over me tying to get a glimpse of themselves on the screen. Their soft cheeks against my unshaven cheeks. This makes me smile.

These children have nothing. They’ve been pushed to the margins of society. Being young children, economic wellbeing is out of their control. On the surface, their homes and streets look unfamiliar and unfriendly. Cages, hand made homes, and the curious stares of locals who quickly recognize the un-weathered face of someone with a home with 4 protective walls and temperature control. We look our age, they look their experiences. Yet, these children maintain their innocence and showcase their joy of the world for everyone to see.

Picture: Dancing in the slums

I leave the school, I find myself doing a dance of my own as I try to fend off the biggest  mosquitoes I have ever seen in my life, I’m covered head to toe in bites. I pray that the biggest killer of mankind will stop their attack or at least call a ceasefire while I try to make it to our next destination a few blocks away. The mosquitoes are too bad, we jump in a car and head back downtown.

Picture: Diego thinking of a new song to sing

I get home, my mind overwhelmed with new thoughts and experiences. I feel that poverty is almost impossible to understand. I saw life and death living next door to each other. People who have almost the same, with completely different life outcomes and perspectives. This is why poverty has yet to be properly defined. It is agreed upon that poverty has to do with deprivation or lack of well being, but beyond this point, there is much debate. There is something bigger at play here. There are new conclusions to be drawn.

Picture: Bedroom in one room shack

The next thing I know it’s 8am and I’m jumping out of bed to meet with Maya, my co-director. I’m late, I can’t find a bank machine that’s not broken. I have to try the subway for the first time. Surprisingly I figure it out pretty quickly. I also realize how much I love subways. I take a moment, buy a fruit from a homeless man, and wait for my train. I arrive at the stop “Constitution”. My gut talks to me. It says “put your hand in your pocket to protect your wallet”. I feel bad but I listen to myself.

I hate when my faith in the human race fails me. I feel snobbish, thoughtless, and I also felt obvious about the fact I was protecting my wallet. How unnatural is it to walk around with one hand in your pocket.

I sense people’s eye’s are on me after realizing I’m protecting something of value. I meet another little angel on my way upstairs to see Maya. She sees I have a bottle of water. She asks me for a sip. I say of course, and give her my bottle of water, she takes the littlest sip. I feel suspicious. I check my pocket. I feel horrible about thinking she was capable for that. She gives me my water back. I take a few steps away from her before I realized I should have given her the whole bottle. I turn around, tap her on her little shoulders and tell her she can have the whole thing, she said “no thanks, I just wanted a sip”. Strangely cute.

With my hand in my pocket I run up a broken escalator to meet Maya. We get ready to board the subway which is taking us to the presidential speech of Hugo Chavez  in a soccer stadium on the outskirts of the city center. I take my wallet out to get the 70 cents it’s going to cost me. Maya, yells at me and tells me to keep my wallet closer to my chest. She explains “I just watched two different guys get robbed within the last 30 minutes”. I felt less rude and thoughtless about protecting my wallet beforehand, but not better about second guessing the little girl.

After jumping the turnstiles, (not because I didn’t have 70 cents, but because everyone else was doing it and I would have been trampled if I stopped to try and pay), we squeezed into the subway. Then we squeezed some more. I didn’t need to hold onto anything because the human cargo was keeping me in one place. Every inch of my body was being pressed against by another human body with great force. Breathing was difficult and to make matters worse, others in the subway put hygiene on the back burner that day. I have never experienced a “squish” like that before. I decided to do a test between subway stops. I thought it might be interesting to see if I would remain standing if I allowed my legs to give out on me. Surely the pressure from the other humans pushing against me will keep me in my position. Test hypothesis was correct. However, I received strange looks as my change in body pressure started to make others feel uncomfortable, so I turned the power back on to my legs. I was having a blast, this subway ride was ranking near the top of my list in terms of coolest subway experiences.

The train and I had some type of connection. The old beast realized I was having too much fun and decided to light itself on fire. Smoke started filling our car as we barreled down the dark subway tunnel. The smell or rubber filled my already compressed lungs. I hoped my companions who helped me so gracefully conduct my gravity experiment with my legs would be as helpful and cooperative when it came time to evacuate the train. No one other than people in our car realized there was fire so the train didn’t actually stop until the station at which time an official standing on the platform yelled out “get the %^&* out of the subway”, someone smashed some glass, someone else ran for the fire extinguisher. This was my first experience with the subway in Buenos Aires. Incredible. My subway teammates, quickly made their way out the car and pushed me all the way up to the street to fresh air.

We made it to the Chavez rally and we got everything we bargained for. One of George bushe’s biggest critics moved a crowd of, I’m not sure how many, but a lot. The only food I had this day, a yogurt, about 13 hours before started to wear off and a slight fear of fainting kicked in as I noticed my body waving back and forth while I was trying to stand still. We took a cab for dinner at midnight, a common time to eat here then called it a day.

Picture: Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela

We’re also finalizing finishing touches on the subtitles, sound and music for the short documentary we filmed, then somehow managed to break, last year entitled The Purpose of Life is Rice… Wink. We went to commercial Drive to interview Danse Crowkiller last night in the rain to find out what’s happened to him since we’ve finished filming.  He’s been stabbed, had his corner burned down, his bags stolen and most recently he was attacked with a metal bar which cut open his head and broke his arm. The hospital also cut his hair, which I thought was a sort of tragedy, but he seemed to be indifferent towards the new hairdo. For those of you that know Danse, you’ll know that he loves fashion and he loves his hair.

The protagonist in the music video guides the audience through the story on  a night that’s ripe for revolution.  With a metal briefcase and Molotov Cocktail in hand, he’s seemingly ready to single handedly  instigate an uprising. Or is he?

The video will be edited within the next week or two.

Below you’ll find a few production stills from one of the most recent short films out of Romantic Child Studios. We’ll post all information regarding this short film and the progress we’re making with it on this page.

Enjoy!

Codependence Short Film Trailer from Romantic Child Studios on Vimeo.

Innocence and vulnerability are represented in the short film in one character who is cared for by a stronger, dominating yet maternal other character.

Due to the nature of their relationship; a dependency is created  which is shown by physical attachments, interconnectedness and weight sharing. The film then explores  two different scenarios. Once the codependency is created, both characters become vulnerable yet strong and work together to create something beautiful. The direction changes however when the stronger character abuses their power. The result is destruction, violence and self abuse.

We’ve also used this short as an opportunity to introduce audiences to parts of dancers that they don’t normally get an opportunity to see. By moving the camera in close to the dancers the the audience can see the dancer as human rather than a disconnected visual object. We’ve done this by showing the small details such as blinking, pulses, breathing, reaction and smaller body parts such as the spinal chord, neck, collar bone, ribs and wrists.

Enjoy.

We were out in the forests of Mission BC shooting in the woods.