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Brokaw: Seattle Rock Band Delivers the Money Shot

Posted by Nada Overlord January 24th, 2012 No Comments »

Pulling off an extended shot proves quite a feat. The payoff: it sticks on memory like a Red Fang riff.

And why not go for it? The masters do.

Who would dare walk out after witnessing Orsen Welles’s perfect extended shot in A Touch of Evil? Who doesn’t feel like their getting the V.I.P. treatment when Henry Hill takes his date KA-ren through the back door of the Copa and meets all the wise guys in Goodfellas?

Even the overrated and pretentious Jean Luc Godard can trick an audience into sitting through his painful Weekend with a brilliant extended shot.

Any fan of cinema knows the extended shot is Brian De Palma’s move, though. Just look at Snake Eyes and audiences will truly comprehend the meaning of polishing a turd.

And don’t you cinephiles out there forget the most bad ass, motherfucking face-smashing extended scene of the modern era: the fight Dae-su Oh brings to the fools who wronged him in Old Boy.

Yeah, the extended shot sinks its claws into a viewer’s brain, but these influential filmmakers had every resource at their disposal: crews, fancy cameras, and money.

Brokaw front man Mike Henderson had only his iPhone 4, a killer band, and a fog machine. Yes, FOG!

Listen to me horror filmmakers, when in doubt, add more fog.  FOG GOD DAMN IT!

I digress.

Starting an extended shot with Frank Zappa on the shitter foreshadows goodness.  In this case, the pay off is Brokaw! Henderson manages to capture everyone in action with surprising fluidity while perfectly framing himself in the process to deliver the vocals for “Boots Randolph”, thus creating the most slick and original no budget video I have ever seen.

That  formula again: extended shot + Brokaw + FOG = some bad ass, mother fucking shit.

Brokaw will kill your head. Their debut Interiors is out January 24 on new Seattle label Good to Die Records, a fact they’ll celebrate at the Sunset Tavern on February 3 with  Akimbo, Deadkill and Crawler.

Jerry Howard writes for the Seattle Rock Guy blog.