Need a band for your special event? Might we recommend ANR (Awesome New Republic). As is apparent in the sparkling new clip for the title track off Stay Kids (streaming in full right here), Michael-John Hancock and Brian Robertson take entertaining the youngs seriously.
Directed by Jorge Rubiera (Animal Tropical/Plains), the bright-colored video loaded with a bunch of happy children premiered on the Guardian's website today. The U.K. is very aware of ANR right now.
Back here in South Florida, we hit up Rubiera for a few details about how this video came about, and he was pleased to oblige.
When/where was this filmed?
Honor Roll Music was gracious enough to host our party-concert-music video shoot a few Saturdays ago.
How did you decide on the birthday party theme of the video?
MJ
(Michael John Hancock) came up with the concept of the band playing a
kid's party. There were many permutations of this idea not excluding
mini versions of ANR themselves. I vetoed that one, thankfully.
Who are the kids?
The
party was arranged by Humberto Jose Castello of Animal Tropical and his
painter friend Hugo Hernandez. Hugo's daughter was having a birthday,
so we invited all the young parents we know. Apparently, everyone we
know has daughters, so Hugo's son was the only boy at the party.
What were the challenges of directing such young actors?
There
were really no challenges at all. The kids were extremely excited
about the idea and wanted to participate. They are all smart and
enthusiastic and took direction better than a lot of adults I've
directed.
Check out more of Rubiera's videos at his Vimeo page.
