Best use of technology by Moop Jaw?

I am not the most technical person in the collective so I cant really give you anything relating to software or cameras or any of that but I think what seems to excite us all the most is our art department which is now made up of two designers called ‘Tin&Ed’ and our long term collaborator Simon Boucher.

Simon is awesome!, he builds our sets and props as well as making any mechanical effects on set. For instance in the Young & Restless ‘Police Police’ video, the first shot shows the moon rising behind the drummer who has a flashing tombstone for a kick drum.

So we’ll say “hey Simon, we need you to put a moon behind the drummer and it needs to have a variable speed to which it rises. It needs to be controllable in order to sync nicely with the camera track……oh yeah and we need it in 5 minutes”. Usually that is the most direction he will get, but sure enough, we come back in 5 minutes and he has rigged up a few pullys, fishing line and an electric drill, to make our moon rise and lower at any speed with perfect accuracy. It is amazing how many things this guy can control with a drill.

He also plays a primary school maths teacher in a video we haven’t finished yet so he is very versatile.

Top 5 websites:

Nice Cup of Tea and Sit Down

Big Stereo

Daily Motion

Hats Of Meat

Tori Spelling

How do you make your art?

When we are talking music videos, we receive an email with an MP3 and a brief from the band, and then have between 24 hours and 5 days to make a treatment or two if we like the song.

We open up the treatments to each director and usually at least two of us will have ideas. Then we talk about those ideas and pick the best two to form into pre production pitch kits with a blueprint of the videos and how they will look. Then its up in the air until we get picked.

If we are chosen, it is usually a high intensity environment from that moment until delivery of the finished product, which is around 3-4 weeks after confirmation we have the job.

We have a regular crew which we always work with, who know when I call them they are in for the long hall and its time to drop everything. We have all become really good friends and I make sure that everyone gels properly on set otherwise the long hours would be hell. Each video we usually add someone new to the crew and then they are in for life.

Our team is also really dedicated. I met this guy at Melbourne airport called Sam Ash (a photographer from Sydney) and we hit it off pretty good so then when the video for Y&R came up he paid his own way to come to Melbourne and work on it for the week end, and was thanking me when he was leaving on Sunday. That’s the kind of dedication that blows my mind with Moop Jaw. Everyone loves being involved, and are really passionate about the jobs we do. It is such a nice creative alternative from the commercial work a lot of us do on the side.