The Rolling Stones: Find out how a music video with Sydney Sweeney was made

You Rolling Stones are back and have already released a music video starring Sydney Sweeney for the new “Angry”. François Rousselet was responsible for directing the audiovisual work and told Rolling Stone USA What was the creation process like?

He was inspired by the book Rock ‘n’ Roll Billboards of the Sunset Strip (2016) — from Robert Landau —, which shows billboards of rock bands spread across West Hollywood between the 1960s and 1980s. Rousselet gathered footage of Rolling Stones and digitally inserted them into current Sunset Strip ads. He portrayed 109 billboards, totaling 39 remakes of current street posters. While technology helped, it also hindered:

Unfortunately, most billboards are being replaced by digital screens. There was a gigantic screen Barbie on top of a building. That’s sad, because that whole beautiful, creative era with the billboard, the way the ads stood out and were so cleverly done, is over. What you see in the music video is what’s left, there are about 70 of them.

Sydney Sweeney

“Mick said, ‘Should we have someone’s point of view? Who is driving? Who’s watching?'” he recalled Francois. “I explained that Robert He took his photos on the sidewalk, but we would drive by. Everyone was like, ‘We should put it from someone’s perspective and give it a little context.'” That’s how they started looking for actresses to act in the recording and came to the conclusion that Sydney Sweeney would be the right choice.

The artist was honored by the invitation: “I freaked out, called my family and brought my mother,” she told the press. Rousselet had only one day to take the images with Sweeney. “The original idea was to drive casually, observing what’s happening around, pointing to some places and showing her eyes reacting to the billboards up close. It would just be her sitting in the back seat of the convertible. During the filming, she did a lot more than this: She’s spinning in the car in three dimensions. She almost tried to be [outro] member of Stonessinging along and even playing the parts of Keith“, stated the director.

The team was escorted by a police officer who helped empty the street. There were those who took some photos, but, being in Los Angeles, coming across Hollywood stars is not that difficult.

Post-filming

Most of the files Rolling Stones It was recorded on 16mm film, so Rousselet He also chose to use film, this time 35mm, in the new images. However, the Artificial Intelligence was not enough to make it appear that the band members were actually playing and singing “Angry”.

The director looked for excerpts from songs by Stones in which they say the same or similar words, such as “angry” and “pain”, for “windowpane”. The movement of the mouth Mick Jagger it needed to fit the lyrics of the new song. “I know it’s not 100% perfect, but it serves its purpose. And sometimes it’s a little disturbing to see a Mick Jagger young man singing the lyrics”, he confessed Rousselet.

Even though he didn’t record “Angry”, the drummer Charlie Watts appeared in a few moments: “Mick said everything was fine in terms Charlie. So we put him in a few wide shots and a couple of close-ups. We wanted everything to be true — the look, the band lineup — just like a real album,” he concluded. Francois.

The album Hackney Diamonds will be released on October 20th.