Sondock via Riff Raff Films directed this mysterious music video for Nick Leng’s new song “Beetlebugs.” The story follows a young beetle who seeks the help of Leng himself, playing a private investigator for creatures, to find her missing partner Blu Bug. As they delve into the investigation, they exhaust all leads, navigating a world of shadows and secrets. The tension builds with each clue, leading them to a shocking revelation.
“Filming this video was like going to summer camp for a week,” shared Sondock. “Nick and I had already made a video that was a great success (for his song ‘Morning / Midnight’) and this project was an opportunity to really go in a totally different direction. While ‘Morning / Midnight’ was an ethereal, highly technical one-shot performance video, ‘Beetlebugs’ was exactly the opposite–it was a super narrative, world-building goofy/psychedelic adventure video. It ended up being a five-day shoot with multiple locations a day and a cast of Zebras, Emus, Hamsters, way too many beetles and even an ex-congresswomen (one of our impromptu extras, incidentally). I owe the world to the entire cast and crew, especially producers Alex and Amy, DP, Gus Bendinelli, and 1st AD/beetle wrangler Josh Montes. Everyone was deeply invested in the project and process, and endured creaky twin beds and long rambling road trip rants as we made our way around Northern and Central California.
“Post on this video, quite literally took a year,” continued Sondock. “Did it need to? Probably not. But damn, I’m so proud of what we made. Gwen Ghelid brought an incredible eye to the edit, taking it from a maybe 3/10 to a full A++, not to mention dealing with all my tiny tweaks for months on end. And HOLY SHIT–Kohana Wilson, our animator, is genuinely such a treasure. They hand-drew what is probably my favorite part of the video: the Freaky-Friday narrative climax (the inspiration for which I owe a lot to fellow Riff Raff director David Wilson).
“During the post process, I even got to spend time turning thousands of black drinking straws into a ‘practical bugs-eye effect for some of our endoscopy camera footage’ (yes you read that sentence correctly). All in all, this was one of those special projects you get to the end of and think: ‘wow, even if nothing comes of this, I’m so glad this project happened the way that it did.’ But lucky us, we also made a really fun video–and I think you will agree.”
