The Creation of "Rub My Back"

IMP-Style: "Rub My Back"

When I showed Outi my first rough cut of "The Anthem" , she immediately said "I want to do that."  She's never been afraid to get her hands dirty.

We went down the next day to downtown L.A., again, with no plan, no choreography.  But we've been dancing together for years, so our telepathy is strong.

I've been playing for a long time around the 6th St. Bridge (including driving on sidewalks, and other footage that will appear in the final of Stick's Riffs: Bad Driving). Some of that footage follows:  

One feature that I've been eager to include in a video is a block-long tunnel, utterly unmarked, that starts from under the bridge, and leads to a ramp into the L.A. river.  The tunnel entrance is in the background in one of our shots (lower right).

When we arrived in the river (no river at all, for those of you who don't know it, but a long concrete culvert), we found there was already some bad driving going on.  Three trucks were playing with hydroplaning on the shallow river surface.   I had taken Z (my motorcycle) into the river just the week before, on a lark, (and ridden down about a mile and back), but I kept mostly to the dry areas.  I don't know if our appearance made them nervous, but they left before we started shooting.

The river supplied backgrounds for four of our shots, including Outi's idea of dancing in the river itself.  A couple of homeless guys applauded us during the shoot, one of whom crossed frame and made the final cut.  As the sun was setting, three men hiding and doing some business in the bushes on the bank above us finally got us to consider leaving.  I've been playing around in plenty of rough and wild neighborhoods in L.A. after dark, but it's all new for Outi.

Back on the surface, we found that there was a Hollywood shoot happening right above the tunnel (it's a favorite location for the $ producers, as well).  We were hoping to get them into the background for a shot, but they wrapped up, just as we were getting ready.
The other spots were all within a half-block of the tunnel entrance.  The multi-tiered tan wall, fence track, and the long curb all front the bridge, and the street lit area was right across from them.  This was my first time creating an IMP vid using night lights, and I love it.  With summer faded into fall, there's such a small window between when everyone evacuates downtown and when the sun goes down, street lights help prolong my shooting day.  Dramatic lighting, too.

One of the toughest things about the shoot was the synchronization of two separate iPods. This is something we'll have to perfect for future shoots, especially when we have more people join us. This is a quick outtake montage of our absurd attempts at getting the song started, in all four ears, at the same time.

After just a few hours, we wrapped our first IMP-Style duet.  Although I had been playing with parkour and other three-dimensional dance, it was mostly new to Outi.  But you'd never know it; she threw herself into everything with no hesitation, and full commitment.  A beautiful first for both of us; it was also our first duet (after years of dancing together) caught on camera.