Watch Cory Branan’s Surreal 3D Music Video for ‘You Make Me’
Cory Branan’s concerts are unexpected, volatile things.
He’ll strum his acoustic guitar one minute, then shred his way up the fretboard like a metalhead, willing to change the song’s temperament — hell, even the tempo — if the mood feels right. With one foot planted in the blue-collar alt-country of Steve Earle and the other in the ragged folk-punk of Chuck Ragan’s Revival Tour, he stretches his songs to their near-breaking points.
In other words, you haven’t really experienced Cory Branan until you’ve seen him in the flesh.
For those who’ve been unable to catch the self-described “No-Hit Wonder” on tour, though, watching the new video for “You Make Me” — shot in 3D by director Perry Bean, and making its premiere today on Rolling Stone Country — is a solid substitute.
“We were going for an old ViewMaster look — green-screening me into crappy fake sets and changing backgrounds — when [Bean] realized we could do something different with 3D,” Branan says. “Since each shot was multi-layered, we could add 3D to back- and foreground stuff and leave the middle unaffected. Voila! A 3D video that you can watch without glasses, if you’re into that sort of thing.”
“You Make Me” looks better with 3D glasses, though, which is why Branan’s label, Bloodshot Records, printed up 500 glasses to distribute this week.
The filming went quickly, once Branan and Bean decided to shoot the clip in 3D. “It was just a matter of adding my awkward lip-syncing and enlisting the reluctant help of my lovely wife, who the song is about, anyhow,” says the songwriter, “and here you have our goofy-ass masterpiece.”
The video shows a superimposed Branan traveling the world, guitar in hand. He rides a gondola in Venice, rocks out in front of Machu Picchu, flies high above the ocean in a hot-air balloon and stands on the London Bridge (while a shark circles beneath him in the River Thames). The whole clip feels a bit reminiscent of Phil Collins’ mid-Eighties hit “Take Me Home,” with less khaki pants and more dinosaurs.