WEAR & TEAR

&& (Ampersand Ampersand) hired me to direct the launch spot for their Wear & Tear modular synthesizer. In their own words, &&'s work lies “at the intersection of boolean operators and jokes.” The Wear & Tear module takes a clean audio signal and outputs anything “from the gentle flutter of tape warble to the gritty charm of a forgotten attic tape collection.”

The idea was to emulate but subvert the iconic Maxell Blown Away Guy spot, emphasizing the analog low-fi aesthetic produced by the Wear & Tear module.

Low Fidelity

Mickey-mouse gloves, tuxedo t-shirts, and visible puppet strings informed the overall approach. The spot blends high concept promotion & product design with handmade effects & analog signal distortion. In the final piece, we wanted to achieve the same level of practical effect mastery as the original, but also to retain evidence of our on-set trickery.



Lampshade, tie, chain, and wine flute all needed to move at different moments. The puppeteers each had unique cue-points to remember. Dan Keezer was the lynchpin keeping everyone in sync with the timings required to match the original inspiration. We did not have a megaphone. The leaf-blower was very loud.





Despite the seams-and-all aesthetic, the spot still required some level of post-production cleanup and compositing. Limitations in stage square-footage ($$) required us to shoot the wide shots in pieces. In post, I stitched those pieces together, removing distracting grip equipment, rearranging the speaker prop, and creating camera movement, eventually matching our spot frame-for-frame with the Maxell original.

FLOG 2 RCA

Once we locked picture, I brought the spot to Chris Zabriskie, who would create the final visual touch. Chris ran the 4K video signal through various SD video processing devices to give the image a suitable low-fidelity visual treatment, complimenting the audio possibilities of the Wear & Tear module.

Wet & Dry

I left Chris’ studio with 40 minutes of glitchy video.  Back in my own studio, I combined various takes of SD distortion with the original 4K image to produce a distinct wet/dry look of hi + lo-fi visuals.


Thank you Jason & && for having me ✌️ 📼 🍕, & thank you to everyone who worked so hard to make this happen. 

 

Directed, Edited, Composited & Color Graded by
Brent Chesanek

Produced & Creative Direction by
Jason LaFerrera

First AD
Dan Keezer

Talent
Thomas Graft 
Jason LaFerrera

Puppeteers
Weston Ulfig
Molly Baker
Jade Nakabayashi

Voice Over
Rob Milton

Video Signal Processing
Chris Zabriskie