PS XOÂ “Glossolalia”
This took quite a lot of time to get together. It started in February of 2011. I had a bunch of equipment I was borrowing for another shoot and I was talking to Valerie Opielski, a member of the band and kinda sorta my landlady. I had heard some of PS XO’s music, because they practice in the basement of my building and when they do, if you sit close to the radiator, you can hear them play. They rocked rather hard and I wanted to shoot a music video as it would be different and I had been in a bit of a creative slump. Because of time constraints on the equipment I had the plan basically became shoot the band playing the song “Glossolalia” off of their recent release and then figure out what else to do for the video later.
It took me 18 months to figure out the rest of the video. I kept having ideas and tossing them away. In October of 2013 I figured out what I wanted to do. Glossolalia (speaking in tongues) is sort of reminiscent of collage. So, I rolled with that. I collected some used magazines from friends and converted our roommate’s recently vacated room into a set. I contacted Xannie Gray, who I had interviewed for a part in Abel and Cain, and we got together to shoot. She put together the collage under my guidance. I mostly just let her go at it however she wanted as the key part I wanted was the band name and song title. Everything else was just her playing to the magazines and glue. That process was about 3 straight hours of just shooting her making the collage.
After the collage Xannie and I went out into the East Village and wandered around shooting stuff for the exteriors. We had some fun, even when the police pulled up to us in Tompkins Square Park and questioned me about a gentleman matching my description who had been waving a gun around. I was frisked and the two cops that originally stopped us were joined by two more plain clothes cops. Luckily it didn’t progress beyond two of them making sure I was sure I wasn’t the guy who was waving a gun around.
The shoot went well and then came the edit. The major work of the edit was the performance. Making sure the song and action were synched and balancing the storyline with the performance. The band liked the rough but but had some notes. Then, came the new delays. I had some other projects get in the way and lost 8 hours of work on a recut of this video because Final Cut Pro X’s auto-save malfunctioned.
Now, I’ve finally got it done and out for the world to see. I hope you enjoy it.