Beastie Boys Message Board - 2006 March 30 - Clubplanet

Awesome, I F$#kin' Shot That!
Clubplanet article link
March 30, 2006
-By Naomi Baria

Leave it to the Beastie Boys to revolutionize the way we view live concerts. Fifty handheld cameras were passed out to fans before their October 2004 show at Madison Square Garden with instructions to keep recording until the very last moment. The result is Awesome, I F*ckin' Shot That!, a film that at once throws you into the trenches with the fans, catapults you on stage with the Beastie Boys, and elevates you into your own realm of experience.

Nathanial Hörnblowér (Adam Yauch aka MCA), the pseudonygmatic visionary behind the “So Watch’cha Want” and “Intergalactic” music videos, caught a glimpse of a fifteen-second clip he saw of a Beastie Boys concert taken with fan’s cell phone camera. From that seed of inspiration, came the idea behind Awesome and a prismatic whirlwind of long, short and explosive shots capturing crude emotions, energy and angles never before experienced and encapsulated into a 90-minute film.

CP sat down with Mike D, Adrock and MCA to discuss the film, its post-modern implications on observer-actor metaphysics, and the anticipated extraterrestrial reception. This will make sense. Trust us.

Clubplanet: Why did you pick this particular concert to film in this way?

Mike D: When [Adam] Yauch came up with the idea, it was a few days before our concert at Madison Square Garden and it made us think of all the past concerts that we would have liked to film before. And the fact that this concert was going to be at the Garden, and we’re from New York, we expected more intensity to come out from the show.

What poor fool did you pay to watch fifty cameras worth of footage?

Adrock: Not me. Thank God.
MCA: It was me and [Supervising Editor] Neil Usatin. Neil has watched more than anyone. He really wanted to be sure that we caught everything and even sat down and watched every camera from beginning to end.
Adrock: I mean, whatever, it is his job.
MCA: The man is thorough.
Mike D: Tho-rough! And it hurt him to watch all that footage. I don’t think he can ever be the same after going through all of that.

When this film opens, and since you’re studios are on Canal Street, are you going to be looking out for bootlegs of your “official bootleg” in the neighborhood?

MCA: They don’t sell official bootlegs on Canal Street.
Mike D: Well, we have a thing on the side, too, involving all major releases. That’s (ahem) one of the reasons we’re so centrally located.

Did the shooters get better as cameramen with time through the night?

MCA: Some people had more camera time featured than others.
Adrock: Wow, it would be good to have awards for this. On the DVD maybe?
Mike D: I dunno. I think they actually got worse. As the concert went along, they got more drunk and high and…
MCA: I think you mean, more tired.
Mike D: Right.

Right. Well, you guys sure looked fresh. Who does your styling?

MCA: Work uniform catalogs.
Mike D: Well, we also have foremost experts take a look at the conditions for the clothing. We need fabrics that breathe, allow for movement and absorb sweat that are suitable for the onstage occasion.
Adrock: And we got free stuff from Adidas — that helped with making the decision.
Mike D: We also had Jean-Paul Gaultier custom-design our outfits for the show, but when it came to fruition, we decided not to wear them. Not to mention Karl Lagerfeld and I are pretty tight; he gave me the idea for the diamond-encrusted glasses.

Are you guys working on anything new right now?

Mike D: I’m currently working on a big album with Faith Hill. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the artist.

Oh really?

Mike D: I’m doing most of the digital editing and special effects. As well as the album cover graphics including all the airbrushing. I play the glochenspiel bell on there, too.
MCA: Well, we’re always working with other people.
Adrock: Two of us did remixes for Matisyahu.
Mike D: Let me know which one you like and I’ll let you know which one was mine.
Adrock: And I’m working with Def Jam recording artist Lady Sovereign.
MCA: I’ve got my hand in a film about graffiti artists set in 1981.

Oh, another documentary?

MCA: A drama.
Adrock: Or romantic comedy.

Ever get upstaged by Mix Master Mike?

MCA: He’s the man. He makes the crowd happy and knows what he’s doing.
Mike D: Rehearsals are pointless--you never know what tracks he’s going to throw down on any given night.
MCA: Sometimes you’ll look up and you’ll see him smirking. He speeds things up and gets crazy and..
Mike D: In his words, he’s trying to “wind us.” See how far he can push us to the edge.
Adrock: Well, there was that one time we had to stop Mike when he played Gary Numan’s “Cars” over a song we were supposed to rap over.
Mike D: That’s why he’s got that plastic guard around him—he knows we’re gonna come for him. He’s savvy like that.

From a PR point of view, did you have any problems putting the word “fuck” in the film title?

MCA: We didn’t want to use the F-word, but the movie company forced us to.
Mike D: Yeah, I heard that Rupert Murdoch and Clear Channel had something to do with that.
Adrock: Actually it was Scientologists.

And finally, if we were to transmit Awesome into outerspace, how do you think alien lifeforms would respond?

Adrock: Very good question. We’ve actually been discussing the subject at length.
MCA: They’d say this shit is hype on earth, we gotta get down there.
Adrock: Yeah, they’d be into it, because it feels like you’re at a show. So they would probably wonder, “Hey, I wonder what it’s like to actually go to the show.”
Mike D: Would they have a sub-base, these aliens?
MCA: Would they know how to decode Dolby 5.1?
Adrock: Well, how about the relationship between gravity and sound. Does the lack of gravity have any effect on the transmission on sound?
Mike D: That’s a great question. Sound needs matter to travel through and air is their means of conduction. So if you were on the moon…
Adrock: She didn’t say the moon, she said outerspace!
Mike D: Well, I still don’t know how sound would travel on the moon…
MCA: Can the aliens decode Dolby E? I believe that’s the important question. This is critical before the sound is transmitted…
Mike D: You’ll just have to ask the aliens that.
Adrock: How can you ask if they can’t hear you?

Awesome I F@#kin’ Shot That opens Friday, March 31st.