So Sick

Netherlands

Dir. OFCLOUDS

Ben Smith & Cam Vokey

For Vacationland.club

Over the last decade, I've been making weird videos with a group of folks under the name "OFCLOUDS" – this is work I made mostly with Zack Shepard for VACATIONLAND, but in the last 5 years Ben Smith and I have continued making content under the OFCLOUDS banner. Former glory from OFCLOUDS included content for Sundance, a bunch of music videos, and some interactive installations. We've been around the block a few times.

As OFCLOUDS, Ben and I produced a kickstarter video for a new bag company. You should watch this video. You will want to buy the bag. We also produced a series of screen tests playing with lighting, grip, and camera kits. It's super whacky, and you can see it on my instagram.

This is all a very long way of saying: even though we're older and jaded, we still like to make weird art and our new friend Timo Ellis (of Netherlands fame) approached us to make a music video for his latest album. This is through an introduction made by our very good friend, Seth Kirby. Timo's track is a banger, and though I'm no expert, I think it lands somewhere between house, electro-clash, and metal.

We wanted to make a video that's all about phone consumption and a Lynchian figure who uses a control board to make them puke when they look at their phones. We also wanted to shoot talent on green screen, make it super stylized and bizarre to watch. We also wanted to feature non-actors. Our pool friends worked perfectly for this! (Though we have one professional in there 🌈). What followed was an exodus of content development.

There's media in this music video from all over the place, including: Maine, New York, Ireland, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. We shot everything ourselves. No stock – though we tried to emulate stock because we thought that would be funny.

Alright, let's do the numbers 🎶

• 1 editor (Ben)

• 1 VFX (Cam)

• 2 cameos (you can find us if you look closely)

• 2 directors (Ben and Cam)

• 2 studio shoot days

• 2 countries

• 3 computers

• 4 states

• 3 cameras (matched Fuji XT3s)

• 6 location shoot days

• 6 pukers

• 7 lights

• 7 XF Fuji Lenses

• 8 people in the phone-zone

• 10 Terabytes of OFCLOUDS / Vacationland contents

• 14 days of eyes-bleeding white-knuckle post production

Locations

New York City

• Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn, NY

• Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY

• Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, NY

• Crown Heights, Brooklyn, NY

• TV Eye, Queens, NY

• Rockaway Beach, Queens, NY

Outside New York City

• Livingston Manor, NY

• Balsam Lake Mountain Wild Forest, NY

• Willowemoc Wild Forest, NY

• Flax Pond, East Setauket, NY

• Plum Island, Newburyport, MA

• Salem, MA

• Keene, NH

Outside the United States

• West Cork, Ireland (Kilcrohane, Reenmore)

• Doolin, Ireland

Thanks

Shirley’s Temple, Heptathlon, Jason Batcheller, Paul Cendron, Nick Chandler, Erin Colby, Ted Day, Jon Ehlers, Jessie Hillman, Addie Horan, Maggie Horan, Seth Kirby, Jacob Krupnick, Stef McFayden, Dillon Majoros, Corey Nunlist, Melanie Parker, Benny Sanson