[Update:] Somehow our original text for this post got ‘misplaced’, so instead of trying to rewrite it I’m just gonna repost the video and the interview. I’m sure no one would have even noticed but I thought I’d tell you. This is version 2.0 of the Aqueduct post, I’ll include only the important sentences from the first:

The singer and principle band member [David Terry], reminds me of Kevin Smith, Hurly from Lost, and apparently Peter Jackson, but I don’t see the Jackson in him.

Get the song it’s delightful: [Aqueduct - Living a Lie]

The concept of the video made me think of a book by a Czech writer named Ivan Klima. The book is called Love and Garbarge and deals with ideas about the emptiness inside all of us.

My other interpretation of the video, is that people tend to ‘throw’ a lot of their own ’shit’ over artists’ music, and this clip showcases that idea with a pile junk.

Both of my thoughts on the video are wrong, as Charles Spano the director will tell you, he will also say some words concerning the video and other facets of his existence. He is a bit more informed than me.

[SRO] So is this your first director responsibilities? I see you worked a lot with our buddy Ace on most of his videos over the past few years, are you guys friends? Did you go to USC together?

[Charles] Originally, as a director, I was trained in ethnographic filmmaking – anthropology is my background – and I’ve done some documentaries, Fredrick Wiseman-influenced shorts on the plight of great apes. As for music videos, I’ve directed a handful, though I usually work with more obscure artists. I’ve directed videos for A Gun Called Tension, the Willowz, a great electro-acoustic group called Clue To Kalo, and two of the videos I’m most proud of – one for the instrumental post-rock band Voltage and the other for this brilliant, bittersweet trailer pop outfit called Unbunny. You can see those here:

Unbunny “Casserole”

Voltage “01″

Clue To Kalo “The Just Is Enought”

Ace and I work as a director/producer team – we always use Hammer and Tongs as the closest example to our thing. We co-own and operate Commondeer together (www.commondeer.com), he’s my best friend, my brother… Now you are correct that my crowd is the recent USC alums as well as some of the current USC crop, but I didn’t go there, and the way Ace and I met is kind of an interesting story. A friend of mine who I haven’t seen in ages now, gave me Ace’s contact info cuz Ace was looking for a producer, and I was producing various stuff at the time. I contacted Ace, we met up, and really hit it off as a team almost immediately – I remember making very DIY photocopy-art DVD covers together in Kinko’s…that was the early defining moment. I found out later that my friend didn’t even know Ace (as I thought) but had just seen a Craigslist add and thought it sounded right for me. Ace and I have worked together on every one of his videos and commercials ever since we met.

[SRO] How did you hook up with Aqueduct for this video? Are you a fan of the band? Are you into the whole indie rock scene?

[Charles] My dear friend Jill Kaplan, who is a freelance music video commissioner, thought I would be right for the Aqueduct gig she was commissioning for Barsuk Records. So this great project I got to do with cool people is really entirely thanks to her. She had me write a couple different treatments for the song, and the one we ended up doing was the one that Dave Terry – the man who is Aqueduct – really dug.

I was definitely into Aqueduct’s first album when it came out. If I remember correctly, this was around the time I moved to LA from Washington State, so I was still following Pacific Northwest music particularly closely. I was also still doing a lot of rock writing for a Seattle magazine called Resonance, so Seattle music was certainly on my radar.

I came up on listening to indie rock precursors like the Smiths, Dinosaur, the Fall, Brian Eno, Fugazi…and I am still very into the indie rock scene and some of it’s outer limbs – like Drag City country folk stuff and acid folk stuff, noise music, and the whole disco punk scene. My alltime favorite is Will Oldham aka Bonnie “Prince” Billy. The other current artists I love the most right now – and incidently, would love to do videos for – are MSTRKRFT, Cat Power, Ted Leo, Pop Levi, !!!, Brightblack, Magnolia Electric Co., the Kills, and, of course, LCD Soundsystem.

I also just directed eight commercials for the new Bright Eyes album with my co-director Steve Drypolcher – and Bright Eyes is kinda the center of the indie rock scene, I guess.

[SRO] Well that sounds cool. Bright Eyes is definitely big news around the indie-rock block, so that will be some good exposure for you. How did that come about and when will we see it?

[Charles] Juan and Kevin over at Ravenhouse management contacted me about doing the Bright Eyes promo spots for the new album and they will be released starting the end of this week to promote the record “Cassadaga”. It’s an entire series starring the same two characters played by my friends Sean Durrie and Court Davies. Ravenhouse and Jason over at Saddle Creek gave me the initial broad concept – I’ll just say it has to do with magic. My co-director Steve Drypolcher and I worked out the characters and setting and wrote the scripts for each spot. Chelsea Oliver did a wonderful job with the production design and all the styling. I’m really proud of them and it was one of the most fun days ever collaborating with my friends.

[SRO] So did you collaborate with the artist in building the theme and concept for the video?

[Charles] I came up with the initial theme – the microcosm of revolution and apocalypse in suburbia – although it was heavily influenced by an existing photograph. My directing work usually revolves around ideas like suburbia, nature, memories, nostalgia, bittersweet feelings at the fleeting nature of things. Dave Terry and I seem to have very similar aesthetic interests, so we really clicked, spent a few phone calls brainstorming and ironing out the details of concept. Jill Kaplan gave us her input to help steer the whole thing in the right direction, and there ya have it.

[SRO] The concept is obviously influenced by the song and lyrics, but did any other influences come into play when you shot the video?

[Charles] Absolutely. The central part of the concept – the pile of belongings in the backyard – is influenced directly by, is really an homage to, a photo from the book Twilight by Gregory Crewdson. Visually, I tend to like things very square, simplistic and formalistic, and I think my cinematographers Steve Drypolcher and Hiro Murai did a great job with our William Eggleston-influenced framing. Color-wise, we were going for an Eggleston or Kodachrome look, captured very nicely by my editor and colorist Brandon Driscoll-Luttringer.

[SRO] Can you tell us a little bit about what went into making the vid? Any hardships? Hoodwinks? or Missteps?

[Charles] Hmm. Good question. This video went quite smoothly, and also being a producer, I’ve had some real experience with videos when they are not going smoothly. The most difficult thing was scrounging all of the objects to make the pile in the backyard. My production designer Will Basanta was searching for about two weeks to gather as much as possible – we knew we would need a lot of stuff to make the pile as large as we wanted. This was all kept in a temp storage unit, my backyard and my garage – so my house was a bit ugly and overrun for awhile. Will managed to find almost all of the stuff for free though, which is quite incredible when you think about it. The car that we flip at the end we had to pay for, and Will managed to find that midday on the day of the shoot. There were only two other real worries – location and getting enough talent to come out on a Wednesday…I think it was Wednesday. My fantastic producer Justin Benoliel and I drove all over South Bay and the Valley and even out to Claremont looking for the perfect suburban house, and I think the one we found in Hawthorne was just right. As for talent, my dear dear friend and collaborator Cristina Dunlap did all the casting.

Whether I am directing or producing, I always say to everyone, if we are not having fun, collaborating with great people, and making new friends, then why bother.

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We thank Charles once again for his time. Go and check out his work, among others, over at Commondeer. Also pick up David Terry’s [Aqueduct] new album Or Give Me Death over at Barsuk