ArmsBendBack guitarist Carson Slovak is the mastermind behind Century, a bruising modern, textural hardcore band that started as a one-man project and has evolved into a ferocious quartet that beats the hell out of any of those third generation metalcore monstrosities.
Century’s third release, Black Ocean (out April 29), is at once brutal and beautiful, cathartic and destructive turning juxtaposition into an art form that defies expectations and refuses to be ignored. Slovak produced the disc at his home studio and also created the art work.
And, he shot and edited the band’s video for “Black Ocean,” which premieres online here on Thursday and makes its TV debut Saturday on Headbangers Ball. “The ‘Black Ocean’ video took two days to shoot,” Slovak tells HBB Blog. “We filmed the performance portion one day and the story portion another. I work for a film company and have access to pro gear and grip equipment, so we borrowed whatever we needed and our only costs were props and paying my friend, Darren, to play the main character’s role.”
Having zero production costs allowed Century to create two versions of the video; the first is mostly a performance video and the second is more like a short film. The latter will be available on the official album website on April 29, the release date of Black Ocean. “Conceptually, the film ties into the theme of the album,” Slovak says. “The initial idea was inspired by the verse, ‘Tie yourself to the stake.’ and then further developed in a collaboration with the mysterious J. Sifl, the enigmatic genius behind SifBlog. Filming of the performance portion was arduous, but worth it. We shot everything at a high frame rate (60fps) in HD with a Panasonic HVX. We filmed upstairs on the storage floor of my recording studio with minimal lighting and did about seven takes of the entire song. Then we packed up and went right back to my office (which was closed since it was Sunday) and edited a full version of the video, performance only.”
Two weeks later, they reconvened and decided to shoot the story portion of the video on a whim. “Matt [Smith, drums] and [Jason] Baker [guitar] from the band, my boss Brad Kenyon, friend Andy Babin and coworker Darren Iovino (who doubled as both lead actor and camera man for the performance shoot) showed up with some additional gear from work and we started formulating last-minute ideas on the spot,” explains Slovak. “We decided to open the film with the character jogging on the street, ‘American Beauty’ style. The opening shot was filmed by me driving Darren’s truck and Brad laying in the back, filming from the bed. It was freezing cold outside but the light was incredible and everyone stuck it out.”
When the outdoor shooting was complete, the crew moved inside to shoot the living room scene. “The house we shot at is actually my own,” Slovak says. “And the character’s wife is played by my actual wife, Kelly. The living room scene was obviously the easiest to shoot. We wrapped up around noon at the house. As we were packing up, someone brought up the point that we didn’t have a woods location figured out yet. Brad suggested the city park, which sounded reasonable enough. Matt and Baker went to Lowe’s up the street to round up materials to make a ’shackle” prop,’ which consisted of a pipe connector, a chain, rust-colored spray paint and some other stuff. I grabbed the most non-descript looking book I could find (Chuck Palahniuk’s ‘Stranger Than Fiction’) and off we went.”
As soon as the team started scoping out the park they realized the location was perfect for the video. “We did some walking around and discovered the following things: a clearing (exactly how we originally envisioned it being), a huge rusted metal stake sticking up out of the ground and animal bones of some sort,” Slovak says. “It seemed as though everything that day fell into place perfectly. We used all of our found props and shot until about 5 p.m. Overall, the shoot was a huge success and the video and short film came together like clockwork. I am especially proud of this video because of how hard we worked on it and how much fun we had doing it, completely on our own.”
Check back Thursday to watch version one of the “Black Ocean” video.
