Filmmaker Steve Daniels has teamed up with musician Chaz Bundick, better known as Toro Y Moi, to shoot the official video for “Still Sound,” off Bundick’s upcoming album Underneath The Pine. The Colombia, South Carolina based artists have worked together before, but Toro Y Moi’s new record is highly anticipated, making this collaboration an important one. The video concept was simple — grab a camera, hang out and dance all around their home town. An all analog film shoot with no digital to speak of, Daniels piqued our interest and was kind enough to talk to The Black Harbor about his creative process, how he got into film making, and why he loves working with Super 8mm to tell his unique, visceral stories.

When did you first become interested in making fillms?

When I was 12, I had this funny out-of-body experience where I became aware of my subjective point of view. I walked around all day in the snow staring at my feet wishing I could record it. I got a VHS camcorder when I was 16 and my Dad taught me how to sequence shots together. I started making back yard films with my younger brother, lots of fireworks, and fake blood.

What inspires your editing and sound design?

Rhythm and movement drive my editing — it’s all that internal rhythm. I shoot and edit to sound. Most editors I have ever known were musicians, although I wouldn’t consider myself a proper one — I fart around on a guitar. I usually do the sound for my own films too, and or foley [a process by which sounds are created or altered for use in a film] and sound design after the fact.

Tell us a bit about why you work with Super 8 and 16mm film.

I’ve always loved the raw, graininess of small format film. It reminds me of old Xeroxed punk rock fliers. It’s real and tactile — the fluttering sound the film makes as it goes through the gate. I love the little cartridges it comes in and how simple it is to use it. If you have a decent camera, you just pop a cart of film and shoot. There’s not a lot of tech bullshit involved. I’m very thankful Kodak still makes the film. Buy some today.

How do you balance your personal projects and working commercially?

Work sucks, but it’s necessary. I am lucky that I have a job at a really cool media production boutique here in South Carolina called Mad Monkey. When clients are constantly sabotaging their own projects, I like to daydream about my own personal ones.

The band performance was shot in Chaz's parents garage, the same house new album was recorded in.

How was your experience working with Chaz and what can you tell us about your creative process in the production of the Still Sound video.

The video was free-styled all the way. Chaz was adamant about not having too rigid a structure, or traditional narrative. We agreed it should be fun and reflect a kind of “day in the life” of Chaz dancing about Columbia, hanging out with friends, and then a band performance. Chaz wanted it to feel as if it could have been shot in the 1960′s or 1970′s. I had done a music video for his previous rock band, The Heist and The Accomplice, and it had a very deliberate, structured narrative. It almost killed us shooting it, so perhaps he didn’t want a repeat of that. We met in the morning, just the two of us, and just drove around, stopping when we saw something cool to shoot. It disconcerting to me at first because we didn’t have a plan…it was so nebulous, but that’s totally Chaz. He was not worried about it at all, and just went with it. It sounds corny, but once he started dancing, I knew everything was going to be alright.

Where did the concept come from?

Since we were keeping it “concept lite,” we just riffed little ideas like the ghost (death) and him holding up the art cards to keep it visually interesting. The rest is all very much like a documentary of sorts.

What can you tell us about the lighting design on the interior shots?

We embraced the Super 8mm aesthetic. The lighting reflected that flat, intense 60′s home movie camera “flood light” look. We shot on Kodak Ektachrome 100D which is a daylight based film. I purposely disengaged the camera’s correction filter for proper color reading in Tungsten light, which gave us those nice rich orange and red tones in the footage.

What kind of projects are you working on now?

I recently shot an amazing short puppet, pop-up-book-style film for Lyon Hill. It’s called Junk Palace and was produced by Heather Henson, Jim Henson’s daughter. It’s based on the true life story of the Collyer Brothers, hoarders in 1940′s Brooklyn. It should be playing in film festivals as we speak. I’m currently trying to wrap up my own epic short film, Dirty Silverware. I recently won a South Carolina state film commission grant to make it — a dark whimsical fantasy about a one armed man who has to go into the forest and kill a creature that creates cursed silverware that brings unhappiness to the world. Keep your eyes peeled. Photo: Jordan Blackmon/Fuck it. Party