FEATURE: San Cisco – Lost Without You (Dir. Levi Cranston)
The work of adaptation is nebulous. How does one faithfully transform a piece of already-existing material into another? Do you stick beat-by-beat to the story? Or just rip the characters out and place them in a totally different setting? Regardless of how you go about it there is one aspect of the work of adaptation that must always be present: Love. Be it for the source material or atmosphere or genre or the just the raw love of playing with fake guns and dressing up in cool costumes. San Cisco‘s clip “Lost Without You” is an example of this: A playful, camp and loving adaptation of Bonnie & Clyde, Old Hollywood and “Bad Movies” in a Golden-Age Australiana setting.
Writing out his responses on a typewriter holed up in a bar in Laver’s Hill, Director Levi Cranston speaks to the mindset he and his creative team took when tackling this project:
“The clip really revolves around the guns. It’s well known that Godard said all you need to make a film is a girl and a gun, so just to make sure we gave a girl two. Besides, in Australia it’s extremely illegal to be running around flaunting not-so-fake prop guns without a permit. . . and that was exciting. There’s nothing High Brow going on here. Just some Good Old genre tropes and a dumpster motel. The band already had the Bonnie and Clyde reference in mind and I think the relation to the lyrics are obvious. […] Well we set out to make something High Art but only landed with Camp, so go figure… It’s almost irresistible, the Bad Film – and have you ever pondered just why is it that people love bad films? I’ve thought this over plenty of times and am sure it’s unique among the art forms. People just straight up enjoy bad movies and send me a letter if you think otherwise.”
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- BTS Photo by Finn Mullen
If you needed to pick a word to describe the performances in ‘Lost Without You‘ many descriptors come to mind. Stoic, romantic, professional. But let’s nominate another: Fun. Mimicking the playful/nostalgic track the clip exudes fun and embraces the joy of simply making movies:
“I had this idea of two actors playing B&C and SC to cameo in it as ‘unassuming citizens’, but then they (San Cisco) turned around and said “No! We want to hold the guns!” and who can argue with that? So we had a video meeting (like a modern day screen test?) and Scarlett was sort of prancing around and Josh was playing it cool and Jordi was spread out without a shirt on — and I went… well, that’s that. That was who they were, and I made sure to caricaturize that. Except I made Jordi wear a shirt. At the back of my mind, for any scene, was a simple question: Does it have an action? That’s all you need to act. Then Emma (Costume) & Shaz (HMUA) came on, they dressed them up and the characters really took form and I think from there it was pretty easy. But the intimate scenes… They’re always testing.”
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- BTS Photo by Finn Mullen
The clip features some spectacular editing, each shot displays a uniquely cinematic and nostalgic atmosphere and weaves smoothly into the next keeping the playful story chugging along. For example, during the sequence where Bonnie (Scarlett Stevens) speaks with the detective (Joshua Biodillo) in a diner. There’s a brief cutaway between Bonnie’s lips speaking and a glimpse of the number 8 motel door. This tiny edit beautifully communicates a story beat in a minimalist and stylistic way that maintains the rhythm of the clip and just looks so good. It’s clear a lot of thought was put into the edit, and it absolutely was. The edit was essentially planned from the get go, by simple virtue of having to work with expensive analogue film and tight deadlines.
“The montage was sort of set out already to keep our use of film efficient – something that makes cutting quicker, but the flip-side being the greater responsibility in preparing the scenes. No room for mistakes, you’re editing at the imagination stage. The real challenge was the turn around – I had a week to cut it together and deliver the thing color and all – and that week began and the film had just arrived to LA, so we had to splurge on that ASAP priority, but I still cut the thing in four days, Wes (Colourist) coloured in two, and in between all that the band dubbed voiceovers and I built the soundscape.”
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- BTS Photo by Finn Mullen
A crucial part of the clip is the location. And as as much as I would like to describe the quaint town of Ipswich and the adventures the crew got up to there, I would be doing and injustice in not letting Levi describe it himself:
“SC were flying over to the Gold Coast to play a gig and I started fantasizing about an Australian Bonnie and Clyde… polite gangsters in Golden Era Brick Motels set against palm trees – but then you drive along and they’ve pretty much knocked them all down to make way for highrises and duplexes and carparks for monster truck utes and bulbous SUV’s. Hmm. So we stretched out horizons to the Far West pioneer town of Ipswich – recently labeled by Triple J as “The Paris of Australia”. Quaint place, you know? Just a little down-and-out is all. Plenty of dive motels there, replete with palm tree lodges and red bricks. Heaven. Ipswich is incredibly hospitable – shockingly so. At every corner we were expecting to be turned away like dogs, dressed as we were, wielding cameras, asking if we could stage a shoot-em-up, but we were welcomed with open arms. We weren’t even yelled at once, even when the cops came to inform us there was a fella running around with a knife (and we didn’t mention the prop guns). A lawyer did come and stop us when we were shooting the heist scene on church property — just to hand out a $100 voucher to Isobel (Producer) for milkshakes at the diner cross the road. No joke. Everyone was so about the Arts happening in Ipswich.”
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- BTS Photo by Ella Cuning
It’s no surprise the clip looks beautiful. The team used an ARRI SrIII from Panavision, an older camera some may affectionately refer to as ‘brute’ but a classic nonetheless. Aside from being shot on gorgeous 16mm which already practically guarantees a sexy retro aesthetic, the camera and light work is replete with lovely smooth slow zooms and ultra stylistic noir-backlighting that embody a uniquely cinematic feeling. However the choice to shoot film over digital is a large (and chiefly expensive) one. Levi talks through about decision, as well as some of the key collaborators responsible for putting together the clip’s beautiful look:
“I had pushed management for money because I wanted to shoot on film chiefly because, well what? You’d prefer to shoot digital? We soaked up a bit of the budget on film, but Panavision hooked us up with a camera package and PJ [Gaffer] came on for nothing with a ute full of lighting gear just because he loved the band. Elliott [DP] and I wanted to do the whole dual-key-light double-shadow right-above-the-
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- BTS Photo by Finn Mullen
When asked what’s on the horizon, project wise – most directors will mention possible films, scripts, collaborations, etc coming up for them in the near future. But Cranston, writing on his typewriter lodged away in a bar in Laver’s hill doesn’t operate like most directors:
Well I was planning to drive across the Nullabor to WA to work with SC again – which coincidentally is also the cheapest place to depart to Indonesia. Tickets are like $300. Tempting. I can feel an irresistible urge to go get lost for 3 months in the South West Sumatran jungle with tigers and endless perfect reef breaks and the strange new cultures. Hmm. Tempting. I heard that Warren Ellis runs a farm over there and everyone speaks in different tongues and wears no clothes and everyone is beautiful. Tempting indeed…
Since the release of this clip the prolific Levi Cranston has kept busy with awesome work for Earth Tongue, Tessa Fleur & even another for San Cisco called ‘High / Summer Days‘. With that said we still look forward to seeing what comes next from this talented director and his collaborators, be it music video or travel memoir.
Here is the official video for “Lost Without You“
Music Video Credits
Director: Levi Strauss Cranston. Producer: Isobel Jones. Starring: Scarlett Stevens as Bonnie, Jordi Davieson as Clyde, Joshua Biondillo as The Detective & Mike Jones as The Motel Owner. DOP: Elliott Deem. Focus Puller: Lachlan McGilp. 2nd AC: Kristin Rolles, Clara Ciottariello. Gaffer: Parker ‘PJ’ Hilliard. Costume Design: Emma Tomm. H&MU: Shaz Massey. Art: Levi Cranston. Overdubs: James Ireland. Stills: Finn Mullen. Stills Assist: Ella Cuming. Prod Coordinator: Miranda Allender. Editor: Levi Cranston. Colour: Wes Grant. Titles & Sound: Theodore. Artwork & Logo: Jeffrey Annert. Camera Package: Panavision Asia. Process & Scan: Spectra.
