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Music

The Exclusive Premiere Of WIN WIN's Music Video "After the Wait"

A light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek short about a man whose car dies—directed by Bo Mirosseni.

About a month ago, we caught up with WIN WIN—producer trio Alex “XXXChange” Epton, Chris Devlin, and Ryan “Ghostdad” Sciaino—a few days after the release of their sophomore album Double Vision on VICE Records. Today we’re premiering their music video for “After the Wait”—a light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek short about a man whose car dies, directed by Bo Mirosseni.

Mirosseni, who’s directed music videos for Sleigh Bells and Black Moth Super Rainbow (not to mention some hilarious commercials for Virgin Mobile and Starburst), gravitates towards telling stories that feature idiosyncratic characters and slightly campy settings.

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We chatted with Mirosseni over email to find out how he shot “After the Wait” and found out that the video’s storyline was inspired by a real-life event. Buy Double Vision here.

The Creators Project: Did the WIN WIN song inspire this concept of strangers uniting under a random act of kindness, or was this an idea you had on the back burner for a while?
Bo Mirosseni: I was listening to the track at my place and was having a hard time coming up with an idea. I put it aside and went to grab tacos with a friend and we were sitting outside. We saw this dude's car break down right on Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake. There happened to be a fire truck behind him so the firemen jumped out and started helping him push. Then there was a Heineken truck across the street. The Heineken truck driver ran over and helped to push. THEN this old man dressed like a cowboy was watching, and he helped push. I had the song playing in my head and it was a magical moment when the concept seemed to be right in front of my eyes. I saw these people push this guy’s car and it fit perfectly to the song. Went back home and wrote it up. And then I realized how lazy I was for not helping that guy push. Gotta love irony.

How was the video shot… what equipment did you use?
Video was shot on the RED Epic using all natural light.

How did the concept change (if at all) from concept to fruition?
The physical concept didn't change at all. But I had to scratch some scenes and write new ones last minute due to actor availability. It was a blessing in disguise as I got better characters/scenes in the video.

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The slow motion aspect really seems to capture the pace of “After the Wait.” Did you have to do any other post work?
All the slow motion was shot in camera, varying the frame rate for different scenes, but we had post work for all the FX shots.

What about the slightly campy aesthetic is attractive to you? Were there any directors or videos from your childhood that inspired your style?
Not sure what about that aesthetic I like. The campy thing is hard to do as there is a science to it and there needs to be a balance to it all. No, I have no clue what I'm talking about. I think I just like comedy and I like making people laugh so it's a visceral thing. My main inspiration for this video other than the scene I explained in the first question is the movie Highlander.

Anything else fun or interesting I should know about the process of making this video?
It was very hard to stop the car sometimes. The more people started pushing, the faster the car would go. I didn't want anyone to fake push, so every time our lead actor Jim Turner had to literally dive into the car to stop it. The actors put their lives on the line to make this happen. All in all, it was a very ambitious shoot and I want to thank everyone who helped make it happen. We were very luck to have Jim Turner play the lead as he’s a well respected guy in the comedy world and a great human being. I love his work in movies and television so it was nice to lock him in. Waymond Lee from “Workaholics” playing the news reporter was also a nice treat. That man is hilarious and I don’t think he knows it. Lastly, I wanted to thank Reggie, the funny homeless man downtown who thought the picture car was actually broken and wanted to give us a hand.

We had very little time and a lot of locations to hit with a decent number of people in the cast. I use this software called FrameForge to storyboard everything. So I created some boards and showed them to my DP and actors so we would know exactly what we needed to shoot. Of course we grabbed a decent amount of shots that were not boarded.

Check out a few of Mirosseni’s storyboards below.

@kfloodwarning