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DJ Snake & Lil Jon 'Turn Down For What' by DANIELS

David Knight - 14th Mar 2014

How much fun can you have while just about keeping your clothes on?

DANIELS get back to videos for the brilliant, hilarious, typically nuts video for DJ Snake & Lil Jon's Turn Down For What - starring the infectious lunatic moves of DANIELS' very own Dan Kwan, the snake-like contents of his track bottoms, a brilliant cast of characters, mayhem, destruction  - and dancing boobies.

DAN KWAN (from an interview with VICE about making the Turn Down For What video):

“Generally we come from a concept. We try to push that as far as we can, and that’s usually the glue that holds it together. It’s usually a really dumb concept that we try to treat with utter sincerity, you know, in a way that makes people feel like: Really? they spent this much time on this idea? For some reason I think that cognitive dissonance is really funny to us.

“I never wanted to be in the video. I really don’t like acting and directing at the same time – it’s not a fun way to approach a shoot because then you’re like constantly split and you never actually get to concentrate on anything. But the other Daniel basically forced me because he was like, 'I don’t think we’ll ever be able to find anyone who can do the shit that you do,' which is probably true. It’s not even a skill thing – my dance moves aren’t good, they’re just weird. But beyond that, the shoot pushed my body to the edge.

“I had a cup on – that’s how I was breaking everything. I was actually smashing my dick on things and I actually broke them. There’s this huge bruise around my dick on my thighs from where the cup was cutting into me, but I had bruises everywhere on my body because all of those falls you see – I was actually busting through drywall, wood, all that stuff.

"My production designer Jason is incredible. He loves making things beautiful and then destroying them. He built all these walls and platforms and things for me to smash through. So that was awful.

“I mean that’s probably a big part of it, too – the fact that we do just look like normal people. The mother, who is incredible, was the first person we auditioned, and we just instantly knew that she was the one. Because she was so insane – so down to do whatever.

“What we did to make [her breasts pump] – and actually a lot of YouTube commenters figured this out – was cut holes in the back of her shirt and we had little punching gloves, like little boob-shaped punching gloves.

"And the whole party scene – most of those people were just our friends. They’re people we know like to go hard. Like, “OK, you guys wanna go hard? Come over for an hour.” That’s another thing you don’t see in music videos. It’s always like a very manicured party, there’s still a precision to it, and it was important for us to actually capture the spirit of the song, ‘Turn Down for What’.”

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David Knight - 14th Mar 2014

Tags

  • Choreography
  • Comedy
  • Narrative
  • Promos
  • VFX
  • Dance
  • Hip hop, Hip Hop, Urban

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Credits

Production/Creative

Director
DANIELS
Producer
Jon Wang
Producer
Judy Craig
Production Company
Executive Producer
Candice Ouaknine

Camera

Director of Photography
Larkin Seiple

Art

Production designer
Jason Kisvarday

Editorial

Editor
Paul Rogers
Editor
DANIELS

Grading

Colourist
Ricky Gausis

Agent

Director's Rep (UK)
Joceline Gabriel

Misc

Other credits

Starring

Sunita Mani, Aixa Maldonano, Paul Hatter, Allie Lemelle, and Daniel Kwan.

PRETTYBIRD UK Executive Producer

Juliette Larthe

David Knight - 14th Mar 2014

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