Mayday Parade recently released Weekend Music, a new music video from their forthcoming release "Sugar," which is the final installment in a three-part album trilogy.
Weekend Music offers an early glimpse into Sugar's blend of nostalgia, reflection and forward momentum. The song captures the emotional honesty and melodic craftsmanship that have defined the band for two decades.
Benjamin Lieber (benjaminmlieber.net) served as creative director on the music video, overseeing all pre-production and post.
"The song has a nostalgic energy about the sunnier days of a relationship," shares Lieber. "We wanted it to be in a house, and to feature a couple that were truly in love, and film them in a way that felt like an earlier time."
The visuals of the young couple appear in black & white and were shot entirely handheld. By contrast, the band was captured primarily from a tripod - the exception being the end scene, where production switched to a gimbal, lean into the key change in the song's chorus.
"Marissa Nanarone styled the band and did a great job," adds Lieber. "We shot this video the day after we filmed the other video for Blame It On The Youth, both back-to-back in New York City in May."
Kris Khunachak served as director of photography, shooting with the Blackmagic Design Pyxis 12K - a new camera that the team has a growing appreciate for.
"It’s a very indie-friendly cinema camera that doesn’t just shoot at absurd resolutions, but manages to capture the dynamic range of a scene in a way that feels very filmic, which was certainly a motivated choice when you look at the nostalgia factor of the couple’s footage," says Khunachak. "Our B-cam for moving gimbal shots was the Sony FX3 - a compact and reliable industry staple."
Khunachak used the Helios 44-2 as the main lens for the shoot.
"It’s a Soviet-era vintage lens that has really interesting character, especially as you move your eye to the very edges of the frame. Combined with the way it blooms and reacts to direct light, this lens also did a lot to invoke that feeling of nostalgia."
For the overhead shots of Jake the drummer, which appear through the chandelier, the team called on a probe lens - the DZOFilm X-Tract macro zoom lens - which Khunachak says is designed to have a very long and slender housing that can fit into unconventional spaces.
Lieber and Khunachak encouraged gaffer Lorenzo Graziano to light the many rooms of the location as naturalistically as possible, while allowing the camera to move around and change perspectives without requiring resets.
"We were almost always going to be shooting towards the window side of each space, so we made sure to have exterior lighting that could compete with the sun across the shoot day and provide really directional beams that could punch through the background wherever we needed it most," notes the DP.
Lieber edited the video in Adobe Premiere, performing the color grade in Blackmagic Design's DaVinci Resolve. The edit and grade took a little over a week to complete.
“Sugar” will be released on July 24th.