Cherry Bomb is the new solo project from Los Angeles-based artist Mandy Lee, who is known for her role leading MisterWives. Never Be Me (M★ther★cker) is a disco/pop-driven track about independence, and its accompanying music video is just as fierce.
The
video was directed by Lee and her partner, Matty Vogel (mattyvogel.com), and features the artist vamping it up with her crew at a high-school track during the daytime, and in the back of a limo once the sun goes down.
"Starting this project, I knew I desperately needed to reconnect with parts of myself I lost along the way, and NBM was the catalyst to reclaiming my power, saying farewell to spaces that made me shrink while welcoming back the energy of the little girl who once wore boas routinely, blasting ‘You Don’t Own Me’ through a bedazzled boombox," shares Lee. "This song has become a mantra in learning to let go of old painful patterns and letting in the pleasure of self I once abandoned for the love and acceptance of others."
Vogel called on director of photography Isabel Mazzolini (https://isabelmazzolini.com) to shoot the project, which was captured using a DJI Ronin 4D camera.
"It's the brand new Ronin camera I bought a few months ago," shares Mazzolini. "It's so tiny. Basically, the camera is really just like a camera and a stabilizer."
The director and DP have worked together in the past, most recently on a podcast with artist Nora Jones. For Never Be Me, the shoot spanned a day at a school in the South Bay region of Los Angeles, and then another evening for the limo shoot. A pick-up day was later scheduled for a shoot at a track in Burbank.
"We found an awesome spot and they let us go in and shoot for the day," says Vogel of the day-time track shoot.
The video features Lee and her crew performing and dancing to the track. Mazzolini shot long takes of each performance and location. Rather than rely on quick cuts, the edit instead plays out with slow zooms and pullback, all of which were achieved in post.
Vogel cut the project using Blackmagic Design's DaVinci Resolve, first putting together a rough cut before sitting down with Lee to fine tune the piece.
"I'll do like an initial (cut), just to be like, 'It exists. Here it is. Here's how I see it,'" says Vogel. "And then she has very specific thoughts and visions," he says of Lee. "We get in, and...start piecing it all together. By the end, we're literally adjusting singular frames."
Vogel calls the creative process as "amazing," and enjoys collaborating with fellow creatives.
“That's like my favorite part about all of it - bringing in people I respect and trust and like,” he shares. “Obviously Mandy is one of them, so getting to like sit and look, frame-by-frame, is actually really fun, especially when Isa's doing it, and the (imagery) all looks so beautiful!"