Travie McCoy feat. Sia 'Golden' by Leblanc + Cudmore
After a prolific run of videos for everyone from Alt-J and Belle & Sebastian to Metz and Spoon, Michael Leblanc and Scott Cudmore have now stepped boldly away from their roots in indie rock, turning their attention to Gym Class Heroes' singer/rapper Travie McCoy's track Golden - featuring the soaring vocals of Sia.
But despite this change of musical direction this retains defining characteristics of a Leblanc + Cudmore video, with its flowing camerawork and its taste for mild surrealism. Shot in the desert outside LA, the Godard-infuenced video sees McCoy stuck in a traffic jam in the desert, and finding that everyone is making the most of it, apart from him - and then going round all over again...
LEBLANC + CUDMORE:
"The general idea was inspired by Godard’s film Weekend which features a very famous tracking shot of a traffic jam in the French countryside... Obviously this is a pop video so it goes in a much different direction, but that was the genesis - being stuck in a never-ending traffic jam. And then the loop idea is an extension of that feeling.
"We hadn’t really made a pop/hip hop video before, so this was pretty new to us actually, but the approach was the same: just to try to do something unique and that didn’t feel like a traditional video."
Credits
Director | Leblanc + Cudmore |
Production Company | Good Company |
Producer | Brian Welsh |
Executive Producer | Brian Welsh |
Executive Producer | Jonathan Lia |
Executive Producer | Lock It In |
Director of Photography | Michael Leblanc |
Steadicam | Ari Robbins |
Production designer | Maxwell Orgell |
Key Grip | Julien Janigo |
Production Supervisor | Lauren Simpson |
Editor | Michael Leblanc |
VFX | Jake Owens |
Director's Representation | Lock It In |