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
- Art Director
- Coran Deloy Oberlin
- Production designer
- Greg Lang
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