Midnight Spin’s first single and Midnight Spin’s first music video.
Middle of winter, warehouse in New Jersey, bus full of actors, hungover, with no idea what we were getting ourselves into.
We had a lot of great talent involved in making this video. Alan Clary and Will Coss from MTV had connected with the band with an idea to shoot a music video. They brought in Ben Kutchins to be the director of photography and, after a bit of cajoling, convinced us to pony up for the insurance on a RED camera (worth it, the production still looks amazing). We had cranes, tracks, backlighting, makeup, wardrobe, it was all too much fun for a dozen twenty-year-olds in the middle of winter.
The first half of the day was for filming the actors and the story. Damon was our psychotic headmaster/donkey, and Danny’s cousin flew up from Wilmington, NC for the day to portray the liberator heroine lurking among the boxes brandishing a deadly…pair of headphones. We also had roommates, friends of the band, and future wives on set that day. Did I mention snacks and rubber prosthetics?
About 10 hours in, the crew reset the stage for the band shots. Pretty surreal for all of us to have flashing lights and expensive cameras circling around us while completely miming our instruments. By our fifth video, that feeling would become pretty mundane, but for the first time, it’s exhilarating. For Danny, almost too exhilarating because he passed out on the drum stool and fell off the platform at the end of his last take. Totally worth it.
After wrapping the production, we had a launch party with everyone who participated to watch the premier at The Library Bar in NYC. The video was also aired on FUSE and MTVu after release. Midnight Spin had entered the arena.
Director – Will Coss
Producer – Alan Clary
Director of Photography – Ben Kutchins
Music Video by Midnight Spin © 2010 Midnight Spin, LLC
Listen to In the Air (Revival) on Spotify