The Director Explains: Cold Reading - 'Tree Diagram'
Director Águeda V. Flores speaks to us about the concept behind Switzerland based Indie quintet Cold Reading’s cinematic music video for ‘Tree Diagram’, taken from the band’s new three-part concept album, 'ZYT'.
Where was the video for 'ZYT' filmed?
We decided to create a concept that could be interesting in any part of the world, and Valeria, our producer, had the idea of shooting the video in Mexico. As a director, I wanted to create a Mexican Neo Noir style based on American mid-century painters like Edward Hopper, specially his painting ‘Nighthawks’. In our scouting we found the restaurant “El Manolin” which is an iconic mid-century diner in Monterrey’s downtown. It was perfect for what I envisioned. We also shoot at the metro station which has a brutalist architectural style, it also completes the neo-noir look. These locations are also very interesting to me because they are usually seen only by daylight and since they are in an older part of downtown people tend to neglect them. I wanted to show the potential beauty of these kind of places.
How does the video connect with the song?
The song talks about having all your life possibilities in front of you and having to decide. Time unraveling, the existence of the past and other dimensions is something that has always fascinated us humans. The story in the video shows a man and it’s doppelgänger tied in a loop, the future and the past merge and it’s impossible to tell if the story is moving towards the future, to the past or not moving at all. I wanted to portray the feelings of confusion when taking decisions for our life and the eternal mystery that time represents for us humans. I think that the song and the video share these themes and raise the questions: If given the possibility to change the future or past will I do it? Am I tied to a given destiny?
Do you have any behind the scenes stories you could share with us?
Well, one curiosity is the Volkswagen Beetle we used for the video. That classic beetle I used it for a my first feature film which is still in post production. I love classic Beetles because they remind me a lot of México. It is still very common to see these kind of cars in Mexico, but not anywhere else in the world. It’s something we share with the European past which I think is a nice detail since we are talking about time and multiple dimensions. In the same world we live different realities. Thou it was hard to drive it to location because it’s very old. The PA was having a hard time but at the end it was worth it. I loved working with cinematographers Alan Zuñiga, Ricardo Barrera, Carlos Gil and stylist Diane Alons they understood the script I made and put their style into it. Also Andrea López Pacheco who was a producer in my movie helped me find the locations scouting through the city. It’s always fun to work with a creative team that already knows your style. I wanted the actors to be stunts or athletes cause I wanted them to be jumping around in the city, we cut out the stunt parts to keep the airiness in the story at the end. But Miguel Barrón and Mauricio, the athletes, where casted because of they had experience with acting as well as making stunts.
Can you tell us about the ideas/themes/imagery used?
Mexican Neo Noir. Mid Century painters, Brutalist architecture. Futurism but also mysticism. I love contrast in everything even in themes and ideas. So I wanted to create a story that makes you feel like you are in a mid-century painting but could also be happening right now. The book we see at the beginning of the video it’s supposed to be a scientific thesis about time travel and quantum leaps, but the cover of the book is an ouroboros, a snake eating itself in an infinite loop, which is an occultist symbol to convey infinity. Always keeping the mystery and the suspense.
The doppelgänger was also an idea that we wanted to explore. We can see the first character chasing himself in the past but I wanted it to be confusing at the beginning, Am I chasing my other me? Or is it someone that looks like me? Do we exist in the same time? Or are we leaping through dimensions?
Is there a message the video is trying to convey?
The themes could sound very sci-fi or even magical; but what’s conveyed in the video is a feeling that all of us have felt and it’s shared with the song. The feeling of repeating ourselves and not being able to get out of situations that keep on happening to us. Are we slaves of time and destiny or is there a way out? Sometimes we need to open our eyes and see ourselves from the outside as we are to free ourselves from monotony and start living again.
Interview by Karla Harris