Red Sweater By Stupid
Directed by Michael Sladek
Director’s Commentary: When I first heard "Red Sweater" I knew that I not only wanted to use it in my first feature film Devils Are Dreaming, but wanted to make a music video for it as well. The video, however, has no relationship to the film except for the song itself which, for me, evokes a certain level of disillusion and anger I think many of us feel in relationships and living in modern America.
Over the span of many weeks I shot video footage and stills of Stupid's live gigs in New York and Los Angeles. The idea was to get startling images that captured the energy and anger of Stupid's live shows with focus pulls, rough movement, decidedly unflattering angles and high contrast colors.
The 8mm footage is culled from family films my grandfather and uncle had shot between the late 1940s to early 1970s. Editor Joseph Krings and I transferred them to mini-DV using a homemade telecine system and edited everything in Final Cut. To me, these often-deteriorating film images evoke memories of innocence and the American Dream: the suburbs, children, babies, teens, grandparents, mothers, fathers, young lovers, all experiencing America at its peak after World War II.
This footage, mixed in with Stupid's live show, is interrupted by bright and disturbing moments of violence from 9/11 and other modern day atrocities, marking a loss of innocence in our collective psyche coming seemingly from out of nowhere. These photos were contributions made by journalists who are friends of the band and myself including Ron Antonelli, Jiro Eso and Heidi Schumann.
Michael Sladek
Director / Producer
Plug Ugly Films