The Pixies "On Graveyard Hill"

When Kii Arens and Mama Hot Dog asked me to shoot this, I said yes before I even knew who the band was. I’d follow Mama Hot Dog anywhere, and I’d wanted to work with Kii for a while. Two directors with bold, unmistakable styles, so I knew what I was walking into, a retro acid trip with an amazing band that was down. Say less.

Then I found out it was the Pixies.

We shot with a vintage Cooke Varotal zoom, and I was deep in a crash-zoom obsession during this time, so this was the perfect excuse to do them in camera. The same went for the projections and practical effects. That crash course later fed the dreamworld sequence in Dark Bardo.

We only had one very long day, a pile of locations, and heavy makeup and effects. Each band member got their own world, and they moved like pros. The underwater scene was the monster. We blacked out the comedian Jeff Ross’s pool underwater and pumped it full of light with a few underwater PARs so Kii could go super slow motion. No tank, no problem. The footage came out so good we joked it could be its own video.

It plays like an everlasting gobstopper of images, one flavor after another. Premiered on Rolling Stone.