Kerosin95 - Standort
A vibrant and inclusive dance performance
Directed by Marie-Therese Hildenbrandt
Interview by Tatev Avetisyan
The latest music video from Kerosin95, directed by visionary Marie-Therese Hildenbrandt, is a vibrant performance in collaboration with Arrioala dance studio. Skillfully put together by Ralph-Leonel Galvan and Helen Esther Aschauer's choreography, which features thrift clothes curated by costume designer Julia Trybula, the video switches between outdoor shots and disco lights, capturing the energy and excitement of the moment. Hildenbrandt, a Vienna-based director, follows the beats and vibe of the music, resulting in a powerful visual experience. As Kerosin95 remarked in the making of the video, it is not just about Kerosin95 featuring the crowds, but rather the other way around.
In conversation with Marie-Therese Hildenbrandt, who envisioned the artist's creative expression, Curation Hour reveals her hardships in navigating the work during and post-pandemic, sharing a glimpse into the director’s life and the importance of giving a stage to young dancers.
Talk us through the concept of the Standort for Kerosin95. How did the collaboration come about, what was the brief like, and how did you interpret it?
When we were still in lockdown, and measures for professional sports and film were opening up, Rebekka Rom, the founder of Arriola Dance Studios, approached me and said they were professionally training 80 kids. The dancers desperately wanted to perform again, and Rebekka suggested a collaboration. Since I was trained as a dancer, I was more than excited to get going with this. A music video, I thought, would be the most suitable genre. So I looked out for musicians to get on board for this collaboration. Afterwards, we started working with Kerosin95 and applying for funding to make this video happen. The original idea was for another song, but as lockdowns and funding processes were delaying us, we changed it to a new release called Standort. The main goal for me was to get the kids dancing again in a fun and playful music video and, on top of that, give them a chance to be part of a professional film production to show the performers’ incredible talent with an attempt to establish their future careers in the industry.
In your opinion, is it still difficult to reach a wider audience with a non-English speaking video? Would you say it is best to focus on the country of origin? And was there anything you adapted in the video to make the video reach a non-German speaking audience?
A catchy song always gets me moving, no matter what language it is. I think music works beyond language if it touches the listener in any way. To some extent, I also don’t believe in language barriers, as music travels within different realms. Sound, composition, and spoken or sung words can work in any way if well arranged in my mind. Sometimes, the lyrics are important to fully understand the overall concept of the song, but it is not quintessential. Don’t we all sometimes hum or sing along to a song without actually knowing what we’re singing? In the case of Standort, the Antwort is easily translatable to English. While in other cases, a foreign language can be difficult or even intriguing to the audience, making the listener escape into new sonic journeys.
The release of a song first happens in the country of origin since the artist’s fan base is probably bigger than in other countries. Mainly you focus on the country of origin, and then for me, as a filmmaker, it is important to reach as many people as possible with the video and get it out there for exposure. It can also positively impact the musicians’ work and create a wider non-German-speaking audience. Luckily we didn’t need to adapt anything in the process for the release, and the internet does help to publish a video globally.
The music video is a collaboration with Arriola Tanzstudio, with the choreography being developed by Ralph-Leonel Galvan & Helen Esther Aschauer. How did you start working together? What was the casting process like? How much freedom did they have? And generally, how do you make sure that your vision is translated into dance?
Helen has been a long-time collaborator of mine. She works as a dancer, choreographer and a director. I love working with her as we share similar aesthetic ideas, visions and a strong work ethic, which makes collaborating with her so much fun and easy because we understand each other blindly. Ralph is a permanent choreographer at Arriola dance studios and has been working with the kids for a long time, so he was able to assess the kids’ abilities, train them and help select the right kids for the video. Choreographing and organising so many dancers would not have been possible without him. I decided to team Helen up with him, which was a fantastic match, as they complemented each other perfectly. I did give Helen a general brief but left her and Ralph the freedom to do what works for them and the kids.
How much of Standort is realised through storyboarding, and how much came intuitively from shooting on location?
Standort was storyboarded, I filmed the rehearsals and edited a layout film. On the set and camera, I try to stick to this no matter what. In this case, it was a bit different due to the number of dancers, shots and time restriction of working hours with kids. The dance choreography was mostly storyboarded, but Kerosin’s performance was improvised. Also, the scenes in the red/green room had spontaneous moments.
“Sound, composition, and spoken or sung words can work in any way if well arranged in my mind. Sometimes, the lyrics are important to fully understand the overall concept of the song, but it is not quintessential.”
We loved the styling in the video. Who did you work with? And how did you brief them?
Oh, the styling, next to the dancing, is my favourite thing about the video. The costume designer Julia Trybula is a close friend of mine and my Vienna flatmate whenever I am there for work. We sat together at night time and shared ideas and inspirations. Julia had the freedom to evolve her ideas freely within the tiny budget, and as she showed me her mood boards in the process - I was always on track with what was happening. I think that creative freedom is important in filmmaking, and most importantly, I wanted her to have fun with the project.
The only brief we had from Kerosin95 was making it fit in with his queer aesthetics. My main aim was to show the kids’ diversity and their personalities. Instead of dressing the dancers all the same, we decided to create a unique style for each one to celebrate their unique characters. Since we had about 80 dancers to dress, the budget was quite limited, and Julia didn’t want to work with fast fashion. She chose mainly second-hand clothes, which she then altered to the dancers’ body shapes and personal styles. We went thrift shopping and kilo sale hunting in London and Vienna and got tons of funky stuff. I am super happy with the styling; Jenny Bladek and her fabulous makeup and hair team added some quirky makeup and hairstyles to perfect the looks. There is a huge amount of BTS photos by Bella Simon and Felilx Vratny and a lovely video by Romina Achatz, who captured all the details that didn’t make it in the video.
What was the most challenging aspect of the music video?
A film production always comes with all sorts of difficulties: some you assess beforehand and can avoid, and some you cannot. The only thing that can teach you in this process is experience and a good producer, which in my case was Manuel Nguyen. The most challenging part of the project was the editing because sometimes you need to realise that you need to kill your “darlings” even if it hurts. That means some shots you worked so hard on do not even make it to the final cut. Therefore, I was lucky to work with Stefan Pecher, who had to cut the film down to the point where the storyline, movement, and editing align, and everything flows within the film.
You have directed Cari Cari/Summer Sun, Mella Casata/Nobody, Leyya/Heat, and many more music videos. What draws you to a project and how do you choose which idea you take on?
First of all, I need to like the song; while developing the video from prep to post production, I listen to those tracks dozens of times. I need to understand the artists within their creative practice and resonate with that . I have worked with emerging Austrian artists, receiving requests from the label or directly from them. So other than the song and the band, the timing of the project needs to work for me, and there needs to be a budget to get at least the equipment fees covered. If there is a specific brief, I need a spark of inspiration for it and the freedom to interpret it in my way. Otherwise, I don’t think there is much difference to shooting a commercial for a client, except without much budget. Like most music video directors, I don’t earn money with it, because the budget mostly goes into the project to make the best film possible. If there is a concept that is too big for the budget, I have to develop a creative concept that works within the budget and for the musicians or leave it to somebody else to realise it.
How did you first get started directing videos? What directors do you draw inspiration from, if any?
I started working in production over 15 years ago at Sabotage Films in Vienna, which also supported this project financially to make it happen. Whilst I was studying theatre, film and media science, I worked on different projects as a freelancer since then, from Hollywood feature films to indie documentaries to multiple commercials. After a while, I wanted to evolve from production, and go into directing, so I went to New York and took a filmmaking course at NYFA.
Upon my return, I started to try to get more into the directing side of the industry, which was a slow and long process. Then, I moved to London to do a MA in Fashion Media Production, debuting with my first fashion/short film. Within the last few years, I started directing commercials and documentaries for the TATE and still work as firstAssistant Director on Hollywood action movies shot in Europe. I still try to do at least one music video a year, but I focus more on writing and directing another short and my first feature-length film; a couple of commercials along the way would be great. Other than that, I have a very unglamorous director’s life, writing, pitching, not getting the job or the funding and going for the next one until it works out. Just trying to keep the creative juices flowing and the spirit high and looking up to legends like Quentin Tarantino, Agnes Varda, Sally Potter and Leo Carax just, to name a few, who have inspired me greatly.
Do you think the purpose of music videos has changed over time? Or is it still solely a marketing device for artists?
My musical education in terms of music videos was mainly via MTV and VIVA back in the day. Since the distribution changed to online representation, I researched all of it on the internet to keep myself up to date. I think that in terms of purpose, it still is a marketing device for musicians and directors. It is a great step toward developing a creative voice and vision for filmmakers to build up a showreel. When working with artists and musicians, you have to work around their vision and their idea of how the video should look like. It teaches you how to work for a creative client, which will get you an understanding of how it is to work briefly and deliver accordingly. In my case, I had a lot of freedom to do what I want within the budget and time frame.
What's next for you?
In the future, I will try to focus more on my personal work and would love to move further into the narrative and long format as well as try out alternative forms of film representation within an artistic context. At the moment, I am developing a script for an experimental short film and working on an eight-piece media installation about Otherness from a postcolonial and posthumanist viewpoint. Hopefully, a couple of interesting commercials or music videos come past me along the way to keep me afloat. I take every day as it comes and try to keep on doing what I am doing and also have a bit of fun sometimes.
Featuring: ARRIOLA TANZSTUDIO
A FILM BY: Marie-Therese Hildenbrandt
IN COLLABORATION WITH : Arriola Tanzstudio
CHOREOGRAPHY: Ralph-Leonel Galvan & Helen Esther Aschauer
PRODUCER
Manuel Nguyen
COSTUME DEPARTMENT
Costume Design Julia Trybula
Wardrobe Anna Steinkellner
Wardrobe Barbara Bori
Wardrobe Hana Trybula
Wardrobe Linn Ziegelmayer
Wardrobe Liam Pfefferkorn
Wardrobe Bernhard Ach
HAIR & MAKE UP DEPARTMENT
Head of Hair & Make Up Jenny Bladek
HMU Assistant Alica Hruza
HMU Assistant Kerolaine Contato
HMU Assistant Gabriela Rybka
HMU Assistant Sarah Bock
ASSISTANT DIRECTORS
1st AD Nicole Stigler
2nd AD Alexis Felten
PRODUCTION
Unit Production Manager Niklas Siemens
Production Coordinator Basecamp Alex Mandl
Set Manager Michael Vaccaro
PA Simon Steiner
PA Adrian Kaindl
Catering Moritz Bernhard
CAMERA DEPARTMENT
Camera Operator Roland Schafek
1st AC Stefan Pausa
2nd AC Tobias Gstaltner
Making of Videographer Romina Achatz
Set Photographer Isabella Simon
Set Photographer Felix Vratny
LIGHT DEPARTMENT
Gaffer David Carey
Grip Gerhard Deiml
Electrician Valerie Keller
Electrician Michael Wimpissinger
Electrician Levi Tauchner
Electrician Michael Preston
Young Electrician Juned Kahn
Young Electrician Pia Möstl
Young Electrician Jonny Arnold
POST PRODUCTION
Editor Stefan Pecher
Colourist Maruf Khan
Colour Company The Mill
Title Design Mathieu Cadelo
Colour Making Of Navneet Jayakumar
SPECIAL THANKS FOR THE SUPPORT
Sabotage Filmproduktion | Gernot Schaffler
HOVN films GmbH
Ernst Dangl GmbH
Stöger Kameraverleih
ARRI Rental
The Mill | Edwin Ellington & Peter Oppersdorff
ORF III Kulturbeirat
Hergestellt mit Unterstützung des Bundesministeriums für Kunst, Kultur, öffentlicher Dienst und Sport im Rahmen des Förderprogramms
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