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Basement Jaxx 'Never Say Never' by Saman Kesh

David Knight - 25th July 2014

It's the near future, and the drop-off in proper dancing by humans is killing the flame of passion that keeps the human race going. So a Japanese couple decide to do something about it. Only Mr and Mrs Nakamatsu are having a few issues of their own...

With his typically off-the-wall premise, Saman Kesh's video for Basement Jaxx's Never Say Never somewhat harks back to a couple of classic 'white-coat'-themed vids for the Jaxx by Traktor. But Saman puts his own distinctively satirical (and butt-orientated) take on the whole lab scenario with his remarkable invention - The Twerkbot.

Featuring sensory stimuli and JAXX-patented buttocks technology – and every couple is going to want to have one. In fact, thanks to Saman's work with Alterian Inc. (who also made Daft Punk's helmets, and work a lot with Spike Jonze), it almost looks like the Twerkbot is ready to go into production...

SAMAN KESH:

"I wanted to make a creation that merged the Japanese obsession robotic/sex toys and the fact that the worlds 'dancing' population is starting to look less and less exciting as the music as become more 'synthetic'. So the irony of using a synthetic recreation to bring back such a human trait was kind of powerful to me. 

"The Build: My, now, dear friends at Alterian Inc. kicked ass. I brought the idea and a document of a rough mock-up of what I was looking for and what it needed to do as well as the features. They went off and kind of made a little more of a concrete sketch. We then tweaked and adjusted as we went along (since we didn't have a ton of time - 8 days to be exact). After visiting the shop almost every day and having our daily pow-wow of evolution, the robot was ready to show its stuff. 

"The Twerking: I always knew that I didn't want to do CG, but I also didn't wanna do full-on robotics. Mostly those two would have been impossible. Instead, I pitched the idea of puppeting the robot & adjusting in post. Alterian bought in and that's what we did. There were three puppeteers. One for the ass pump (the booty shakes). Another for the humping/thrusts (this was a professional Twerker). And finally another animator that worked the legs and knee joints. We later adjusted the "jittery" amount accordingly in post.

"Can you get one? I'll send you a pre-order link when it's up ;)"

David Knight - 25th July 2014

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Credits

Production/Creative

Director
Saman Kesh
Producer
Courtney Davies
Production Company
Skunk
Executive Producer
Shelly Townsend
Executive Producer
Matt Factor
1st AD
Jesse Sternbaum

Camera

Director of Photography
Guillermo Garza
1st AC
Jonathan Dec
2nd AC
Jordan Gaylor

Lighting/Grip

Gaffer
David McCabe
Grip
Jake Smith

Art

Production designer
Greg Lang
Art Director
Coran Deloy Oberlin

Wardrobe

Wardrobe
Michelle Thompson

Editorial

Editor
Mandy Brown
Editor
Saman Kesh
Sound design
Brent Kiser

Grading

Colourist
Derek Hansen
Grading company
MPC

Commission

Commissioner
John Moule

Other credits

Twerk-Bot Design & Build

Alterian Inc.

DIRECTOR ASSISTANT

Brendan Varni

PROLOGUE MUSIC

Ed Hobbs

Rotoscope Artists

Moving Picture Company (MPC)

Graphics & Read-out designs

Cosimo Galluzzi

Read-out Motion Animations

Mike Kelley, Justin Hantz

Read-out & "Add to Cart" CG

Saman Kesh

CO-PRODUCERS

Joe Faulstich, Alterian Inc, Saman Kesh, Carrie Schrek

SPECIAL THANKS!

Sascha Keshavarz, Randy Hoss, Bob Porter, Taylor Dean McCausland, Joe Vierra, Nicoletta Rousseva, Taylor

TALENT

Mr Nakamatsu

Toshiji Takeshima

Mrs Nakamatsu

Kazuho Yamazaki

Twerker

Nicole Steen

Scientist 1

TJ Yoshizaki

Scientist 1

Swee Khor

Scientist 1

Muneki Nakamoto

Scientist 1

Charles Han

Scientist 1

Jon Chua

Truck Packer

Ben Barrett

David Knight - 25th July 2014

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