My role as father (and murderer?)

Two words:

Spirit Gum



I got my first introduction to this wonderful substance over the weekend as i portrayed a father wrongly accused(?) of murder in the Gentleman Auction House(GAH) video for the song "book of matches". before i move on here, i want to say that the fine folks at Living Nightmare make a substance that is both a disgusting and reliable adhesive. word to the wise: if you need to apply spirit gum to your face for... say a mustache. remove ALL hair before the application. i left some stubble and thought "oh it will be fine". after i took the mustache off the spirit gum was locked into the stubble, and washing was not enough. i had to shave it off. not fun, not fun...

A month ago, keyboardist, trumpeter, and off-the-market fiance Steve Kozel asked me to be in the video for his band. let me preface this by saying i love every member of GAH. I travelled down to SxSW with them in march and they are like family to me. they are nice, considerate, down to earth, dedicated to the craft of music making, and a have realistic understanding of how the cesspool of the music industry works. so when steve asked me i thought,"sure why not?"

my expectations were, well... low, as far as production went. nothing on steve for this, its just that in the past four video shoots, i have either been in or a part of there has been a couple of hand held camcorders and then some high level editing software involved. but when i arrived at 5207 Berthold in St. Louis Saturday morning, i was floored by the set up.



- director
- director of photography
- audio personnel
- video personnel
- stage techs
- make up artist
- cast and crew of 25
- three days of setup, choreography, and filming
- three projectors
- two confetti air cannons
- 100 sparklers
- 13 25 X 5 projection screens
- two smoke machines
- staging on wheels

this is just a sample of all that went into the production of a three and a half minute video. it easily cost somewhere in the thousands. so again i was blown away.

my role as it stood was that i was being sought after for the murders of some unknown amount of people and children. as you can see in the picture above was sported with a fake mustache and a shirt covered in blood splatter. my character was arrested by a mob, broken out by my own "children" and then re-arrested by the same mob, put on the stand and then pulled the old switch-a-roo with lead singer eric enger. he got to go to the gallows, while i got to play and sing with the band. (this is how i became the lead singer of the foundry... poor poor Dennis)

Anyway, the last time I acted in anything was in high school. Back in those days i played the comedy relief of whatever play i was in. in this setting i had to keep up a tired and broken character but use oversized props like the handcuffs (which left some nice bruising, see pic below). after a few walk-throughs and several rehearsals, the stage was set for filming. oh i should mention that this video is one continuous shot, soooo... not only did all of the cast have to be marked and choreographed, but the cameraman, projectionist, and stage techs had to be marked and choreographed as well. OH AND i should mention that the song was sped up, so that when they play it back in normal time they can make the movements more herky and jerky a la silent film era production. needless to say everything was executed perfectly.




my only complaint is that i HATE being in front of the camera. i hate the way i look, and it makes me wonder how people can stand me in real life. i can think of four off the bat that actually hate my presence, which is fine that's their deal, however the majority of the lovely people in my life want to deal with me and i just can't understand their visual perspective of me. (okay enough self-deprecation here, but you understand where i'm coming from).

overall it was a really positive experience, and i can't wait to see the final product. though knowing how much went into the shooting, i can only imagine how long the editing will take. at this point i expect nothing less from the GAH video team...