Bomb.Repeat.Bomb: music video for Ted Leo

Please allow a few moments to load the video.

Running time: 03:07.

A few years ago, I came across an aerial photograph of people in a parade holding squares of paper aloft to create images and words. It struck a chord with me because it had obviously required a good deal of forethought and planning, it could only have been achieved through the collaborative involvement of pedestrians, and it was a gorgeously ephemeral gesture.

I started to dream up complex choreographed sequences that would create graphic animations at a very large scale – using individual people as single pixels. The imagery would have to be designed digitally first, then recreated and shot aerially, frame by frame, with a group of people in a street - then re-animated digitally.

I told my friend Jerry Lim, a very talented motion graphics animator, about my idea and he pointed out that this kind of thing is already done in stadiums in North Korea…. oh yeah. But maybe we could appropriate / reclaim the technique for something that would carry a very different message? And maybe we could achieve a powerful effect with minimal means? What about superimposing moving images on blank boards instead?

My dear and genius friend Jodi V.B. presented the perfect opportunity to apply these ideas: a music video with a strong anti-war message.

That was the challenge we undertook with this video, created for Touch & Go Records and Ted Leo and the Pharmacists.

CREDITS
Director / Producer / Co-Writer: Sara Grady
Director of Photography: Andrew Reuland
Art Director / Co-Writer: Jodi V.B.
Editor: Rob Burgos
Motion Graphics Champions: Jerry Lim and Eric Miro
Assistant Producer: Jason Wood
Assistant Directors: Andrew Freiband, Tim McConville
Production Assistants: Toija Riggins and Robert Hugel
Special Thanks: Jem Cohen (clips from Republican National Convention protest footage, 2004), Pat Goudvis (clips from "Dirty Secrets: Jennifer, Everardo & the CIA in Guatemala," 1994), Robin Bowman (for photograph of Jennifer Harbury, 1992), Guy Mossman (second camera), Ida Pearle, Ted Leo