Take One: Portland Production Company OCCULIST on Making Music Videos

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Saturday, October 18, 2014

Kemea Smith, GoLocalPDX Contributor

Making music videos sounds like one of the most fun jobs you can have, and Dani Ransom and Leah Maldonado of OCCULIST, a Portland based video production company, don't disagree. But there's plenty of hard work in there too, as they told GoLocalPDX.  

After meeting in a general education class unrelated  to art and film, Ransom and Maldonado “had a realization that we were meant to be a power team” and formed OCCULIST, which launched earlier this year.  

OCCULIST is an independent video production company that specializes in creating unconventional music videos and shorts for North Western based musicians, like members of the Portland hip hop collective, The Renaissance Coalition and Seattle-based singer songwriter, Raven Zoë. 

Their videos are primarily filmed in Portland neighborhoods and locations like Asian superstore Fubon. They tend to feature outlandish closeups, pastel monochromatic scenes, and nature underlays that create surrealist visual experiences. 

Photography is also an interest of both Maldonado and Ransom with each photographing Portland youth, friends and musicians. “Everyone has a story. I might not be aware of their story, but something in their body language is able to communicate the way they’re feeling and I try to capture as much of that as I can,” says Ransom. 

SLIDES: See OCCULIST Slideshow BELOW. 

GoLocalPDX: What films have been the most inspiring or influential to you and why?

Leah Maldonado: The Holy Mountain has hands down been the most inspiring film for me because of the intense and absurd imagery. It’s a film you can watch a million times and still discover new layers. Alejandro Jodorowsky's color palettes and extreme attention to detail are incredible. 
 
Dani Ransom: I draw a lot of inspiration from campy sci-fi films like Flash Gordon or Dune, anything with ridiculously fabulous and gaudy costuming as well as those low-budget laser special effects. That and 70s-80s horror, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched Hellraiser or Carrie or the Evil Dead trilogy. 

What is it like working with Portland musicians?

LM: HARD. The group of artists we've chosen to work with are awesome, but Portland doesn't support the hip hop scene like it should, so planning a video shoot is really just planning around our day jobs and that can be impossible. 
 
DR: I feel really fortunate to be able to work with the musicians that I have in the last year, I feel like they’re a group of really talented people who are incredibly focused in what they do and are heavily involved in their communities. 

What is your favorite part of the filming process?

LM: I love pre-production. I like chugging coffee and just sitting at my computer and typing a bunch of bullshit. It’s a huge release, writing a music video, is kind of like letting my brain puke. And beyond writing I LOVE set design. Set design, whether it’s scouting a location or creating a scape from scratch is such a high for imaginative people. The constraints of reality can leave you and you're allowed to create a world that only a camera can capture, there’s a lot of beauty in that to me. 
 
DR: I love being on set more than anything. There’s so much energy on set and I love getting up at ungodly hours in the morning to go do creative work. Being in a creative environment where I’m able to manipulate light or color is where I feel most at home.
 
What was the most important lesson you had to learn that has had a positive effect on your music videos? How did that lesson happen?

LM: We decided to launch with four videos and I think each video helped us make a new step in learning our process. I would consider us novices in many ways and just getting out there and working taught us so much, but mostly it taught us that we have so much more to learn. There is always more to learn, but learning while you go is totally allowed in my book.

DR: Launching our work and screening it for the public for the first time was a really great feeling. It’s so important to collaborate with other creatives and get them excited about what you’re doing, because the support we’ve received from other creatives in Portland has been really great.
  
If there is one or more things you think would make the film industry better, what would it be?

LM: MORE WOMEN. Seriously, a woman's perspective may not necessarily be different than a man's but the lack of women in the industry definitely make that pool of perspectives much smaller. It is so important to have diversity when it comes to visually interpreting and manipulating reality, these images we create have traction and influence, leaving out the viewpoint of those who make up around 50% of the population just seems boring! 
 
DR: My feelings toward the Portland film scene are torn. There are a few organizations that I really love, especially Cinema Project, a non-profit independent film organization that screens a bunch of crazy weird avant-garde films in various warehouses and studio spaces around town. Most filming opportunities in Portland are either for TV or live performances; the opportunities that this city has are really great but also really limited. It just depends on what field you’re wanting to enter.

Homepage Photo Credit:  Joel Olives via Compfight cc

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Related Slideshow: Slideshow: OCCULIST

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