OK Go takes its inventive music videos up a notch by shooting in an aircraft at zero gravity; 31-year-old comedian Quincy Jones, who was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer, used Kickstarter to finance taping his own comedy special; Paco Delgado drew inspiration from singer Annie Lennox to design costumes for "The Danish Girl."
'The Danish Girl' costumer Paco Delgado had twice the work for one actor
For Spanish costume designer Paco Delgado, working with director Tom Hooper is a good gig.
Delgado has been nominated for two Academy Awards, both on Hooper films — first for the director's 2012 adaptation of "Les Mis," and now for "The Danish Girl."
Creating costumes for a movie about a trans character in 1920s Europe posed a unique challenge. After all, in "The Danish Girl," actor Eddie Redmayne plays a painter who — over the course of the film — goes from living as a man named Einar to a woman named Lili. The movie co-stars Alicia Vikander as Einar’s wife.
Delgado recently stopped by The Frame studio to tell us about his inspiration for the costumes, and his goal in creating dresses for Eddie Redmayne.
The OK Go song 'Upside Down and Inside Out' gets a literal video treatment
The band OK Go is well-known for its music, but maybe even more so for the group's single-take, elaborately choreographed videos. For their most recent project, the band teamed up with Russia-based S7 Airlines to shoot a video in zero gravity — adding flips, spins, aerialists and paint balloons to the mix.
Guitarist/vocalist Damien Kulash and bassist/vocalist Tim Nordwind met with the Frame's John Horn to break down the logistics behind the shoot, and to talk about how their videos have developed over the years.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
Kulash: We've had this video idea for almost a decade, to shoot in zero-G. We did not think it would ever happen because it's really expensive, and it's really logistically challenging. It seemed like one of those far-fetched ideas that [we thought] maybe one day we'll get to do, but don't bank on it. And then the song we wrote happens to overlap very well thematically.
You like to do single-take videos. How many takes did you need to get this video right?
Kulash: Over the course of the whole video, we did 21 flights and eight actual takes. We got all the way to the last one and got a perfect take, until paint from one of the balloons splashed directly on the lens of the camera and obscured the very last shot. It was a big letdown. So we did one extra flight, and we nailed it.
Tim, you've said there were 58 puke events in the making of this film. First, who is counting these? Second, do you outgrow the nausea?
Nordwind: We were all on pretty heavy anti-nausea medicine. It's a patch you wear behind your ear. You do start to get used to it after a while. I got pretty sick but didn't throw up on the first flight. In fact, none of the band threw up. A lot of the [video] crew around us threw up.
It's really hard on your system. It gets worse over the course of a single flight. On any given flight we'd [fly] 15 of these weightless parabolas. And by the tenth or so is when nausea has really kicked in. The longer you go, the worse it gets. However, over the course of many days, it gets easier. So your body does sort of get accustomed. It's a lot like seasickness.
On their first viral video, "A Million Ways."
Nordwind: The video for "A Million Ways" was more of a rehearsal video. That dance was meant to be done at the end of our live shows. And that was a rehearsal tape for us to look at and see what it looked like. We'd been making stuff like that, like "A Million Ways," since we were 11 years old. It wasn't so much like we'd been hit by a lightning bolt and we were like, Oh! We've got to start making these things! That was actually what we ... do.
Kulash: You gotta go back to 2005. Indie rock bands were so cool. Shows were so ... formulaic. You had to stand up there, shuffle your feet and smoke and look cool. So we would do this thing where we would drop our instruments and break into dance, like choreographed along to the CD. It really screwed with the audiences and it was a really fun part of our live show and of our musical presence. And we had this rehearsal tape of us doing it in the backyard that went viral even before we knew about YouTube. We didn't think of it as a video at all. It was after we realized it had been downloaded more times than our major label album had sold in the year prior to that, that we were like, This is a real thing! If we could do that by accident, we should try to do this on purpose.
So that was exactly what OK Go did. In 2006 they released the music video that made them famous. For the song "Here It Goes Again," the band danced around six treadmills, and kept dancing up to a spot on the Billboard Hot 100 and millions of YouTube views.
Since then, they've released many other video hits, like "This Too Shall Pass," which took 60 takes to film correctly, and earned the machine's engineer a Ted Talk.
Since its release on Feb. 11, the music video for "Upside Down & Inside Out" has already approached 50 million views on the band's Facebook page. It seems like a tough act for anyone to top, but knowing OK Go, they'll probably try.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the title of "Upside Down & Inside Out" in the headline. KPCC regrets the error.
Comedian Quincy Jones: 'There is no cancer when I'm on that stage'
UPDATE 6/01
Here's a link to Quincy's stand-up special, which hits HBO on June 2.
UPDATE 3/21
HBO has announced that it will air Quincy Jones's stand-up special. Jones recently went on the "Ellen" show and host Ellen Degeneres called out for a network to pick up his special. Looks like it worked!:
On July 3, 2015, L.A.-based comedian Quincy Jones received the kind of phone call that many of us have nightmares about: he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given about a year to live.
Jones has been going through chemotherapy, but he's also embarked on another journey: he wants to tape an hour-long special of his standup comedy, explaining that "would be [his] opus."
Friend and fellow comedian Nicole Blaine volunteered to produce it along with her husband, Mickey Blain, and to help with the production costs they started a Kickstarter campaign. Their projected goal was $4,985. To date, with 21 days left in the campaign, they've already received pledges exceeding $35,000.
Originally from Seattle, Jones came to Los Angeles four years ago to further his stand-up career. He worked as a barista while pursuing comedy gigs at night. When he got the cancer diagnosis he'd just booked a comedy tour on the East Coast. Jones spoke with The Frame's John Horn to talk about his goal, and what it's like pursuing a lifelong creative dream while simultaneously battling stage 4 peritoneal mesothelioma.
To hear an extended interview with Jones in which he talks in more depth about his diagnosis, his childhood and Chris Rock as an influence, click on the play button at the top of this post. Below are some interview highlights.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
I want to talk a little bit about your diagnosis of mesothelioma.
I have peritoneal mesothelioma. There are three types of mesothelioma: peritoneal is in the lining of the stomach wall, where mine's at. It's the second most rare; [there's] the lung, which is most common; and then the heart. And so they all get in a lining and they block the vessels so fluid can't travel through it. It has to get backed up somewhere.
And what have the treatments been like? Is there a lot of chemo?
A lot. I just had chemo on Monday.
How are you feeling?
Nauseous. It comes and goes in waves.
Have the things that you've found funny changed since you got your diagnosis? And has comedy changed in terms of what it means to you — what you're able to laugh at and what isn't funny anymore?
For me, I still find things funny. I love comedy. I love the art of it. It's pure joy for me on that stage. I love the ability to perform. And one of my biggest fears when I was in that hospital — I thought I wasn't going to be able to perform again. And so when people asked me, What do you want to do?, I said, Well, the next step in my career would be a special. An hour special. I have over an hour of material.
Is the whole idea, that you can leave behind a document, a testament, the version of your comedy that can live forever?
Yeah, that was the thing. When you're faced with your mortality, like — most of us lived life before the documentation of the Internet and Instagram. I don't have any pictures of when I went to Paris or anything like that online. I don't have any kids. I don't have a wife. What do I have? You start thinking about it. At 31, you're like, What do I have? What have I done? You start looking at all your friends who are getting married and having kids. Because I'm at that age now. I'm like, I gave up on that life to be at an open mic? You know what I'm saying? You start questioning — Oh my goodness, did I make the right decision? Is this really what I want to do? And then I was like, Alright, well, I do comedy. That's what defines me. That's what I am. I'm a comedian. So I want to leave a special behind.
The comedian Nicole Blaine started this Kickstarter campaign for you. Who is Nicole and how did you meet her?
Nicole Blaine is a good friend of mine. She's an amazing comic and producer. I met her at an open mic and we just hit it off. She and her husband Mickey, they're a production team. They [said], "We want to help you film a special." Then the Kickstarter [campaign] dropped. But I was in chemo when the Kickstarter dropped.
So you had no idea that not only had you met your goal, you went way past it.
I had no idea. I didn't know until Tuesday afternoon. I had chemo on Monday afternoon and I was just out of it. And then Tuesday afternoon I posted on Facebook, and I was like, Whoa! The love has been amazing. It's an amazing feeling, that all humans have come together. It almost restores faith in humanity. Because these people don't have to do this. They don't have to donate.
What do you imagine it will be like when you step to the microphone during that special? It's been your life ambition to have a one-hour comedy special. You're going to be onstage with the microphone at the same time that you have a stage four cancer diagnosis.
There is no cancer when I'm on that stage. I don't feel anything. I give myself so much to the craft. I'm so in love with it that [I] don't feel any limitations. The only thing you're restricted by is time. But you have these people — they're there to watch. They're supportive. And this is any performance. So I imagine in the special, it's going to be people who also want to support. And they're there to laugh. They're there because maybe my story inspired them.
The special is dedicated to anybody who has been through cancer, lost someone to cancer, or has cancer. It's not about me. This is bigger than me. This is literally about a disease. It's not even just about peritoneal mesothelioma. It's about cancer.