Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1540216
CASH COBAIN - DUNK Cash Cobain's latest video was released on the one-year anniversary of the rapper's debut album, "Play Cash Cobain." Dunk portrays the artist as the coach of the Slizzettes, a girls' high-school basketball team that has lots of talent and energy, as well as an enthusiastic fan base, but is having trouble executing the coach's biggest play. Brooklyn-based director Kevin Douglas — who goes by KZA (IG: @kingkza) — reunited with the artist for the project, having worked on 2024's Fisherrr, which brought Cobain together with Ice Spice and Bay Swag. Dunk was shot over two days last winter at a high school in Brooklyn. Jon Charles, who served as the director of photography on Fisherrr, also returned to shoot Dunk. "I have like a rough idea of how I want things, (but) I'm not super technical- ly knowledgeable about lenses and lighting," Douglas shares. "I know certain compositions. I know the scenes that I want to shoot. I know how I want it to feel camera movement-wise. I explained that to Jon — or any DP that I work with — and they kind of give their opinion and their perspective on things. And then they execute it with their team." The first day of shooting was used to capture most of the principal photog- raphy, the basketball game, the coaching scenes and the overhead jib shot of the crowd. Day two was used for pickups, including additional coverage of the cheerleaders and secondary performance footage of Cash Cobain wearing his red jacket, rather than the green coach's uniform from the prior day's shoot. "We just did not have enough time to shoot everything — even on a 12-hour shooting day," Douglas recalls. "It's still never enough time, so we had to pickup and get a couple extra shots." Douglas often edits his work, but in the case of Dunk, he called on close friend Ethan Santana (IG: iheartxantana) to cut the visuals. "He's a great editor, and I've actually known him even before he was editing," Douglas reveals. "He really showed up and made the video very energetic and the way that I feel it needed to be. Obviously, I'll give my input and see the process as it's going along, but I kind of took a step back and let him cook. I wanted to see what somebody else's perspective would be." The narrative breaks, where Cobain is shown drawing up plans for the team, serve a dual purpose. First, they allowed Douglas to world-build — something he'd like to do more of in the future when extending into long-form projects. Secondly, they are a clever way to shorten the length of the track without it being obvious to the viewer, while still holding their attention. "The song's a little bit longer than it actually plays in the video," he reveals. "One of the things about me is, I love world building and making characters inside of these videos so it doesn't feel so performance heavy. You can actually believe Cash is just like a coach of a basketball team." Santana used Blackmagic Design's DaVinci Resolve for the edit, and has con- verted Douglas to a Resolve user too, after many years cutting in Adobe Premiere. "It's so good," says Douglas of Resolve. "I've converted. I used to use Adobe Premiere for like seven, eight years, and just paying the subscription — it adds up! When I look at it — and cost/performance-wise — it's a no-brainer for me. I know a lot of people have their preferences, and I still kind of use Premiere sometimes…but my main editing platform now is DaVinci." The video was completed in January, but wasn't released until August, com- memorating the anniversary of Cobain's album. The timeline was unlike what Douglas is used to, having completed editing on projects that were due for release that same day. "This was probably one of my first times really experiencing that," he says of the long delivery date. "I know it happens more often than not, but I've been so used to rushing edits just to get it out in time." Cash Cobain began his tour in New York City on September 7th. The Monster Energy Outbreak Tour Presents: Party With Slizzy hit more than 20 North American cities as it ran through October 9th. — By Marc Loftus MOTION CITY SOUNDTRACK - YOUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED Motion City Soundtrack's new music video uses animation to tell of a battle be- tween technology and nature. "Your Days Are Numbered (feat. Mat Kerekes)" was directed and animated by David Prindle (IG: @snwmnstr). The visual fol- lows a modern-day warrior — a young girl with a golden sword — who tracks the world's demise to an abandoned arcade, where a coin-operated fortune teller warns her that her days, too, are numbered. Closely following the girl are technology-infused roots and vines that spread quickly, turning all of nature into a vast, gray landscape, Once the girl realiz- es the threat, she uses her weapon to destroy the faceless villains, allowing nature to return once again. Prindle used Blender and Blender Grease pencil to achieve the look of the video. "(Motion City Soundtrack's Josh Cain) had asked for a toon-shader look, so I made kind of a hybrid between traditional 2D animation and 3D toon shad- ing," he explains. "The idea was originally sparked by Josh's wife Jill, with the concept of a person talking with a Zoltar machine, warning of the past and future, and 'Your days are numbered.' From there I morphed it into the char- acter climbing a mountain to reach the 'mythical machine,' but being followed by dangerous vines sucking up the life of the mountain to later be replaced by green vines bringing back new life." It was Cain's idea to have the fortune-telling machine spit out cards with the song's lyrics. "I thought it would be cool to take the lyric 'You'll be just like me,' and have the character replace (vocalist/guitarist Justin Pierre) in the machine as a twist at the end." In addition to Cain and Pierre, Motion City Soundtrack also includes Jesse Mack Johnson, Matthew Taylor and Tony Thaxton. Mat Kerekes also provid- ed vocals. The band (http://motioncitysoundtrack.com) is currently on tour through December 9 th . "Your Days Are Numbered" is off the band's "The Same Old Wasted Wonderful World" album, which was released on September 19th via Epitaph. — By Marc Loftus