Arturo Perez Jr - Director

Typhoon Music Video

2011-04-18T12:47:00.000-07:00

We were exhausted. It was the last day of a grueling SXSW and the night before we had stayed up all night singing, drinking, and dreaming with a past Blogotheque band.

That morning Typhoon was already late for a very important show and only had thirty minutes to spend with us. They had played a ton of shows that week and were growing excessively tiered.

Any responsible set of people would have rescheduled this session for another time. Normally, that would have been the smart thing to do.

But at this instant, we couldn’t have cared less about what seemed “smart.” We HAD to do this session at THIS moment. It was too important for all of our creative energies. So we rushed over to the band as fast as we could. They were staying in a hippie house just outside of Austin filled with all sorts of hidden treasures. And as luck would have it there was a giant tree in the backyard.

Without hesitation we organized the Typhoon army, all 10 of them, in and around this wonderful dreaming tree. Softly Kyle Morton starting singing and from that moment on his powerful voice orchestrated every move.

SF Giants Commercials

2011-02-27T15:02:00.000-08:00

The month of February is my baseball month. A little too early to play ball, but our time to come up with new creative for The San Francisco Giants. All I do during this month is eat, sleep and drink Giants. A job that aint too shabby, especially when you're dealing with a team stacked with such great characters. A bunch of "outcasts and misfits" as coach bochy likes to call them...

After the World Series win last season we wanted to communicate something extra special. We opened the campaign with this "Anthem" where we introduced our tagline for the season, "Together We're Giant."

Once the season started we started running a bunch of fun spots like the ones below...

eBay Group Gifts Video

2011-01-30T16:24:00.000-08:00

Recently I was given the task to write and direct a short video that explained what "eBay Group Gifts" is.

We needed it to be short, fun and informative. I chose to do it in animation because I think live action "how to" videos can be pretty lame, even when they're short.

The client seemed to really like the video. They even redesigned their entire landing site based on the characters that we created.

Stars Music Video

2010-12-18T17:16:00.000-08:00

If I would have to describe my early twenties in song it would most likely play a lot like a Stars song. That’s because nearly everything I did during those days, I would do it while listening to Stars. I would write, study, run, snuggle and most importantly, party, to Stars.
Stars is a band that enchants you. Their live shows are unapologetically dramatic, filled with energy and wrapped up with a weird sense of nostalgia. We’ve had an opportunity to shoot Stars a few times throughout the years but we never quite aligned until this moment. That night while I was getting ready to meet them, I remember thinking to myself, “I have to get them to play Your Ex-Lover is Dead.” I had come up with different reasons and approaches as to how I was going to get them to play it. But to my pleasant surprise, the first song that they suggested to play was this one. That’s when I knew that this night was going to be special.

We jumped in a cab and headed to North Beach, a beautiful part of San Francisco, filled with old beat generation artists, poets and drunks. It was fitting. It was perfect. It was Stars.

La Blogotheque Music Videos in Mexico

2010-11-15T12:42:00.000-08:00

In August I directed a bunch of live music videos with what we considered to be the best bands in Mexico. Below is a selection of my favorites...

The first video that we filmed in Mexico: a charming duo, a combination of beautiful voices ... and a bullfighter, Leopoldo Casasola.

We should have filmed The Plastics Revolution in the Condesa neighborhood, in a place more or less normal for a Take Away Show: A street, a shop or a home ... The circumstances (or abuse of mezcal!) decided otherwise: due to a disambiguation and a strange misunderstanding, we found ourselves in Xochimilco. And we never regretted it.

We wanted to shoot Carla Morrison: Max had made her a virtual declaration a few weeks ago and we had collectively fallen for her beautiful voice. There was however a major obstacle : Carla lived in Tecate (next to the United States border) and we had not planned a trip that far up north. So it was Carla who came to us in Mexico City. And we are very grateful.

We got lost in Guadalajara, the streets were all alike: the same fountains, the same low-rise buildings, the same bright colors on all fronts. They played "Shine." Their music was more universal than we had imagined, evoking the sounds of the world with every note. We were in Guadalajara, but we could have be in Cairo, Delhi or Copenhagen ...

Small unstable steps, unsteady leaps, a game of perfect balance to this sweet song with frailty and mischievousness...

To find more of the Mexican Take away shows click here.

The Plastics Revolution - When Rockers Meet Mariachis

2010-10-04T15:12:00.000-07:00

Xochimilco is a big neighborhood from South Mexico City which is about an hour from the city center. A neighborhood – under Unesco’s World Heritage label – made of canals, remains of lakes and swamps that used to be the very historical part of the city before it became the huge Megalopolis we all know now. A strange Venice, dedicated to flowers, in which you move by taking trajineras, big, colored, richly decorated boats driven by the local cousins of venice gondoliers.
We were supposed to meet the Plastic Revolution people early morning so we had time to enjoy the touristic place. They arrived with a few friends and much enthusiasm, bossted with the energy you can feel on their record, wanting to give a great show. Each of them is still a student, and two of them, living abroad, had rescheduled their return to Mexico so they could arrive earlier and take their time to rehearse acoustic versions of their songs for us. With their joyful bikingual rock, we were expecting lively, pepsy tunes, a sweet FOLIE ? We were fulfilled.
On those boats, we had seen many tourists, families, hanging out or just sharing big lunch. Many vendors came to us to try and sell us souvenirs and weird drinks. The Plastic Revolutions were playing, and couldn’t care less about what was around, as if they just melted into this environment. We just loved those unique, precious moments. Then we met a Mariachi band on another boat playing music to earn a few pesos by playing music for the tourists. It’s been easy : they quickly agreed to leave their traditional songs and to take possession of ‘Light of day’. within less than two minutes, they got the rythm, the chords, and thus they started to play this song they never heard before.
There was only one take, and this was just unique moment to feel the magical of unexpected meeting, the pleasure the musicians had when they played altogether, the sparkling eyes as people smiling on the bank. The Plastic Revolutions were crazy, the Santa Cecilia Mariachis pleased. The most beautiful improvisation we had on our trip…

Directed by Arturo Perez Jr.
Sound by Francois Clos
Text by Julien Courbe

eBay Commercials

2010-09-04T14:52:00.000-07:00

Work is fun. Especially when you can be creative.

We made these puppies fast -- from concept to delivery in a matter of weeks. I was the copywriter. I think they're pretty funny. But you can be the judge.

The Interview:

First Date:

Hey Rosetta!

2010-07-26T09:30:00.000-07:00

I heard about Hey Rosetta! a few months before I started listening to them. All of life’s little distractions had prevented me from finding time to take a listen. But after a bad breakup (you know, the kind that you can’t even listen to anything you and your ex-lover used to listen to together for fear that a rush of memories would come stumbling back) I found myself having to give this band a chance. I needed to listen to something new. They were cunning and heart wrenching. Polite and angry. Happy and sad. Their lyrics were smart and their melodies were powerful. They weren’t just something "new” they were something “great”.

An opportunity to film them in San Francisco came up. We shared a drink, we walked the city, we filmed a couple of songs. We were having fun, too much fun in fact. So they ended up spending the night at my house. We drank and talked about adventures, projects, ideas, and ex-lovers. It was a beautiful night, with a beautiful band.
This was one moment of it.

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zero's

2010-06-10T22:03:00.000-07:00

We had been in contact with them for months. Originally we had planned to film them at Coachella. Bryan, their manger, sent me a text asking if we could film minutes before they went on stage otherwise we would have to wait until they played in San Francisco.

I knew that there was no way that we could get to them; it was too crazy, too hot, too many people with security badges telling us we couldn’t do it. My heart sank. I watched them cast a spell on 50,000 people that day and all I could do was stand there and imagine what could have been.

Two months later. They were playing a sold out show at The Fillmore, San Francisco’s Sistine Chapel of music venues. They played a magical show that night and were exhausted. We had agreed that they would come to the streets and play a couple of songs for the fans after the show. But were they now too tiered to do it?

I knew security was going to be tight and had no idea how long the fans would stick around. Minutes went by. Nothing. An hour passed, and still nothing. My heart was beginning to sink again. Had we just missed another opportunity to film this band?

Finally at the corner of my eye I see Alex Ebert, the front man, appear from the side of the venue. He was pushing an old piano into the streets. My heart started racing. This was it. This was the moment we had wanted to create for months. I pressed record and let the energy of the night take control. What happened next, well, I couldn’t have imagined that.

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zero's - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

San Francisco Giants

2010-03-15T10:54:00.000-07:00

It's been a pleasure to work on creative for such a great team. Been working hard on these spots for about about two month now. Hope you enjoy them.

There's many versions to these spots, but these are probably my favorite.

Jerusalem: War In My Land

2010-01-10T13:50:00.000-08:00

Jerusalem is a complicated place.

Trying to sum up the story of this city or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in one 10-minute film, or even in this blog post, would be disingenuous and wrong. So let me just say -- right off the bat -- that this film isn’t trying to do that.

The aim of this piece is to give context to a side of the story that doesn’t get the attention of the international media. With all the despair, distrust and anger around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, few journalists or news outlets see the benefit of highlighting peace organizations. Many people living in the area see the “peace effort” in Jerusalem as nothing more than that -- “effort” -- an effort that will never evolve into anything more.

I first arrived in Jerusalem in the summer of 2009 with only my HD camera, two mics, a still camera, a reservation at a hotel, and a contact at IEA (The Interfaith Encounter Association). I had no crew (and never got one), and I had little idea of what kind of film this would turn out to be.

Ten days later, I left more hopeful than when I arrived. Everywhere I went, everyone I talked to; the taxi drivers, the people selling flat bread, the businessmen, the students, they all wanted peace. More than that, they were all desperate for it.

This is the story of two of them.

Hope you enjoy it.

Directed and Edited Viral Lou Dobbs Video

2009-10-21T17:45:00.000-07:00

When I was a teenager, my Mom and I would make dinner together every night. It was a nice way for us to spend time together, and a great way for me to steal her recipes. My mom is a political junkie, and CNN's Lou Dobbs' show was usually on as we cooked. At first Dobbs concentrated on financial news, but throughout the years he became increasingly obsessed with putting down illegal immigrants. Even though my family came to this country legally, his rhetoric really struck a chord with us.

Feeling helpless, I decided to start writing to Dobbs, pointing out his many errors, and the danger his words could cause. I don't know how many emails I wrote, but needless to say, he never wrote me back.

Now, a decade letter, I'm taking another shot at talking to Lou Dobbs and CNN by making this video. I'm hoping this time Dobbs will respond...

White Rabbits Music Videos

2009-10-08T22:42:00.000-07:00

We had just moved to Los Angeles from San Francisco. A tough move for many reasons but specifically for the Take Away Shows because San Francisco is a walking museum compared to the Los Angeles landscape. In other words, we hadn’t found too many beautiful places to film. Out of the blue we decided on Venice Beach, California. A sort of confused playground where beach bums and old hippies collide.

The exact morning of the White Rabbits Take Away Show my best friend and lover broke ties with me. So you can imagine what a mess I was. Not knowing what to do, and with my mind and heart somewhere else completely, we met up with the White Rabbits.

The White Rabbits have as much percussion as they have testosterone. They’re happy, they’re fun, with out a worry in the world. A sharp contrast to my state of mind on that day. So with tears rolling down my face, and with sadness with each step, I tried to keep my camera steady as these blissful rabbits started to jump all around me.

After Rudie Fails we found a house that we really wanted to film in. Only two small problems: we didn’t have permission and we didn’t know who lived there. Fortunately, the guy who lived there was home and after the initial confusion rubbed off, the shirtless, surfer dude was more than happy to be our host.

Boom. Boom. Boom. They hit their drums as if they were seriously and bitterly mad. But in reality they were joyful. These wide eyed twenty something’s started cheerfully strumming their guitars and beating their drums as we approached the beach. Without hesitation and with no planning the words of Salesman began.

After we were finished “playing” on the beach, we parted ways. They jumped into their van with smiles on their faces and excited as could be. And for those few moments with the rabbits, I too started smiling - after all, how could you not when listening to this powerful band?!

But, damn, I’m still in love with that girl.

Drew Nix Music Videos

2009-08-02T19:12:00.000-07:00

Drew Nix and the Elephant Army, a quartet consisting of a guitar, upright bass, mandolin and banjo, is based in Brooklyn, creating foot-tappin' rhythms in both upbeat tunes and earnest melodies.

In the midst of tuning instruments, sound checks and last-second camera tweaks, the light in Drew's apartment fell just right and convinced us to do a song right then and there. The first song, starting with Drew in his apartment and ending on the roof, winds up flights of stairs and picks up the rest of the Elephant Army on the way. "Kill me now, Jesus Christ" is no love song, but a good one to have in your repertoire for when love doesn't exactly work out.

With the sun down in Brooklyn, so fell the temperature. This eclectic little spot, sort of bar/thrift store/cafe/junk yard kind of Frankenstein of a place called Goodbye Blue Monday, was the setting for "Colors and Sounds," a lullaby that will chill you to your bones. Seeing Drew's breath linger in the air allows the emotions of this tune to last.

We stayed in place for the last song, "Loosen up your shoulders." Pay attention to this one, its full of anecdotes and slights of hand. A special thanks to a special band.

Film in Jerusalem

2009-07-26T13:59:00.000-07:00

Just got back from Jerusalem where I shot and directed a new film. It was an eye opening, life-changing experience. It was my first time in the Middle East and absolutely fell in love with the people there. I’m editing right now and will hopefully have the short film finish by September. The piece is tentatively called, War in My Land. Stay tuned for updates!

White Rabbits Music Videos

2009-06-24T18:55:00.000-07:00

Just finished editing the White Rabbits music videos that I directed a couple weeks ago...

I think they turned out pretty good! Stay tuned to La Blogotheque to see them soon!

Margot Documentary

2009-05-23T21:41:00.000-07:00

Just got back from a beautiful two weeks with Margot and the Nuclear so and so's. We filmed music videos, live performances and, of course, the craziness the road. Not only are they AMAZING musicians but they are also kind and wonderful people.

Here's a look at what the full-length music documentary will look like:

Thank you to the band and stay tuned for more information on the film!

The move to Los Angeles

2009-04-26T08:50:00.000-07:00

After almost three years in San Francisco, I recently decided to make the BIG move to Los Angeles. On April 15th my friend Joel and I hit the road to try to quiet those aching voices inside of our heads that say, "We have to do this". Are the stereotypes true? I guess we'll have to find out, but so far so good!

One of the first things that I did when I arrived in LA was to shoot Aerial shots for our friends at Invisible Children. On April 25th they did an amazing 100 city freedom bus tour across the states as a way to promote peace in Uganda.

Promoting peace? Artists coming together? Ahhh, what could be better?

Cuba!

2009-03-05T08:17:00.000-08:00

After much talk and exploration I've decided that Cuba will be the setting of my next film!

Can't talk about it too much and many of the details are yet to be determined. All I can really say is that many things are still up in the air but we're working on piecing the project together. Vincent Moon and Joel Sadler are attached to the project as well, so it's exciting! This journey will take several months, so stay tuned!

A Take Away Show with Delta Spirit

2009-02-16T15:48:00.000-08:00

"What are the only mobile national monuments in the United States?"

Without giving anything away, l'll just say that we did a Take Away Show with Delta Spirit on one...

It started out absolutely insane then settled to a peaceful whisper. I've never seen any artist get into a song like Matt Vasquez got into "People, Turn Around". It was beautiful. It was painful. It was perfect.

Check out LA BLOGOTHEQUE to see the entire collection...

CNN Piece

2009-02-09T21:20:00.000-08:00

CNN did a story about my film "Abilities". It was broadcast nationally!

Check it out:

NYC

2009-01-16T07:03:00.000-08:00

Just got back from New York City where Joel Sadler and I shot a new Take Away Show with Drew Nix. It was a very cold day in Brooklyn, but the music videos turned out great! I think it’s some of the best stuff I’ve ever shot. We’ll get to work on them and hopefully they’ll go up on La Blogotheque soon!

Also got a chance to meet up with Vincent Moon who recently moved from Paris to New York City. And on our down time Joel and I met up with GREAT friends, and did awesome/silly things, like:

I think this one is called “They’re all Liars”

um... Pulitzer Award.

2009-01-12T18:22:00.000-08:00

So The Pulitzer Center flew ten finalist and I to Washington DC this weekend to announce the winner of Project:Report.

I guess I should backtrack and explain what this is.

Last year I kept seeing advertisements on the web saying that The Pulitzer Center and YouTube were partnering up to find the best documentary filmmaker on the internet. So I shot a short called “8,000 Miles Away” and submitted it. This film made me a semi-finalist for the prize. Check it out:

Then they asked us semi-finalist to shoot a film about “a local issue with a global impact”. So I shot “Little Change... Big Difference”

Then they narrowed the field to five and asked us to shoot one final film about an “underrepresented community”. So I headed to Santa Cruz California and shot “Abilities” with the help of the amazing people who live at Camphill California.

After three rounds, months of directing, shooting and editing, last night they had a glitzy award ceremony and gave me the award! Plus, $10,000 to shoot another film!

Thought that was pretty cool!

When one door closes…windows open.

2009-01-01T10:49:00.000-08:00

Hello world and welcome to my blog!

Today I joined the online revolution and I have to say… I’m kind of liking it. I guess I should start out by saying why I’m writing a blog now.

Yes, good place to start.

I feel like this is a great place to keep all the happenings around the different projects that I’m involved with in one solid place. For instance this is a good time to let the world know that I’m no longer going to actively promote “WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE?"

Dramatic, I know. But I feel like I’m letting go of my first-born child. Three years of shooting, producing, directing and editing a feature film have come to an end… sad, but exciting. It was a fun ride! We got to show the film at festivals, we got lots of REALLY GREAT PRESS and we even had a cool online following! Plus we accomplished everything we set out to do. You see, we made this film as a way to make politics a little bit more sexy and exciting. And while I don’t think we had as much of an impact as our newly elected president, maybe we inspired some folks a little along the way…

So as this door closes, I’m excited to say that windows are opening!

More to come…