Updates on Alchemist + Armand Hammer: Falling Out The Sky with Director Joseph Mault

I recently wrote about “Falling Out The Sky.” I was lucky to interview it’s director, the amazing Joseph Mault, about the videos that he has directed. Following are select nuggets about “Falling Out The Sky.” I will be writing about his other videos in the near future.

(on his initial connection to [Armand Hammer member] Billy Woods)

You know, that record, “Today, I Wrote Nothing”? That had just come out. There was a bunch of stuff on it that I kept hearing and I was like, ‘I feel like we're reading the same books right now.’ I don't remember the name of the song now. But there was one song in particular where I was like, ‘if this isn't about that dude in the History of Seven Killings, I'll eat my own hat.’ And then I looked at the title of it, and it was. And I was like, ‘Oh, damn.’ So then at that point, I knew I had to, like, reach out to him. So I track down the Backwoodz Studioz¹ email. And we ended up meeting up and starting a friendship/collaboration. 

(on the amazing creative relationship between him and Woods)

Yeah, yes. I think so too. Him and Elucid² are, for me, the pinnacle of writing right now. There's a lot in there. There's a lot in everything those guys put out. I'm lucky to be working with them.

(on what drive’s the subject matter of their collaborative videos)

Usually, for me, it's lyrics. Their verses have pretty intense imagery. I feel like I usually have a lot of work with terms of like, where to go with the video. But a lot of the locations come from them, We were in LA working on a different project. We shot that Earl video³ at the same time. And then also, we shot this hour long Noon Chorus thing. And so we were kind of working on all that stuff out in LA at the same time. So following up with “Falling Out The Sky” was three portraits. Each of their verses was basically a portrait of them at a certain point in time.

A lot of that comes from three lyricists who are hearing each other's verses before they write. So you're getting this really good lyrical handoff. When the song is about looking back and forth through time and into the future. Earl’s verse is timeless, almost like cosmic time or geological time. Then, that's where like the oil field and Leo Corillo⁴ came into it.  Leo Corillo was that cave that's been carved by the by the tide. So Earl’s rapping in this image of a space that's been created over millions of years. Woods is rapping in this oil field. There's all sorts of jokey shit with that but there's a mining process happening there. And then Elucid’s part, we thought it should be shot in Upstate New York, a place he knew about from when he was a kid. So there's this more directly historical personal thing going on. Ideally the imagery is dope, but also it's giving proper weight to the type of stuff that they're writing, because there’s some high level writing going on here. So ideally, the visual backdrop, gives them something weighty to stand on top of or stand in front of. 

(on breaking his toe in Leo Carillo State Park)

I broke my toe in that cave too. I should mention that, though that story, right? Yeah, I jumped off. Me and Earl were climbing on the rocks. I was all worried about asking him, ‘Are you down to go up there?’ And he was like, ‘Dude, I skate. I don’t fuckin care.”  I jumped off a rock and I broke my toe. The rest of the trip. I was hobbling.

(on his technical work)

I shoot with old, old glass from like the 60s and 70s, which everyone does, I guess. But I shoot with a Panasonic that has a very, very, very sharp, sharp, sharp, sharp sensor. And I don't love that look. But I love the footage I get out of it. I'm not trying to go for this hyper ice cold, clean kind of thing. So I shoot with old Minolta lenses, old Rokkor lenses. So usually pretty wide open, generally on the more wide open end of things. So you're getting a lot of light players and especially like out in LA when there's that much sun. And there's so many surfaces just constantly glaring. I didn't want to  work against that too much. And then a lot of times, I'll like abuse these variable ND⁵ filter on the front. You've got a pretty drastic sort of, dark vignetting thing happening. In that video, the format was more of the thing I was thinking about. Woods, I captured in black and white. I didn't do it in post-[production.] I just made sure that I was capturing a mono image. So I knew what I was getting and it doesn't have any color work on it. That's just, sensor capturing black and white. And then, Elucid, the camera lets you record open gates just like the entire sensor. So you get that super tall image, just like a four by six photo. So there's little things that I kind of think about that stuff as being like not subliminal, that's probably too woo-woo for it. But it's stuff that you feel because you grew up with photos in your house. Also, especially in Earl’s part around the campfire, I'm probably gonna get a bunch of shit from people that shoot with, really, really sick cameras, but like, the cameras you can get now like, they can they work so well at super high ISOs⁶ that most of what I'm capturing is like documentary stuff. I'm rarely lighting things beyond shooting at the right time of day. Woods and I have gotten into some…. like in Jamaica, we were up very early to make sure that we are shooting in the right light because I'm not trying to drag around lighting kits doing these weird ass videos. Like, you know what I mean? The process is definitely like documentary. But then in the edit, it turns into some sort of like magical realist kind of thing. 

(on the amazing 80’s sitcom-esque group shot at the end of the video)

It felt weird not to have Al in there because, man that record,…. it's an Armand Hammer record and they're just like writing all over it. The features are crazy, and Chicarrones is amazing. It's like there's so many songs are just crazy like with great features but Alchemist’s production is just a beautiful, beautiful, dope painting.  There was no Alchemist verse, but he should be in it. He's as much of part of it as anyone. He's kind of like the backdrop to the whole thing. That beat!

(on Elucid’s gorgeous solitary lefty jumpshot)

He can definitely shoot. while we were shooting, it was definitely distracting. You could probably have a video of him just shooting around in here. But yeah, I wanted to put at least one in that because he definitely can definitely shoot.

(on the excellent circular shot of Elucid at 3:05)

I used  a gimbal⁷ for Charms because I had to, but I really don't like using gimbals at all. I feel like I'm probably being a douche bag here because it's a great tool. But I always feel like it's just like a tool where I feel like I have numb hands while I'm using it. I end up just like switching to like a wide lens and circling people a lot because I like seeing something in the round. Like I like knowing if we're in a space like that, like I want to see the whole space and be like, oh shit, like they're actually there. They're actually in this place like Yeah, I think it's sort of just a reflex of being in a place like that and always wanting to frame somebody against against some space against some depth, you know?

1. Label founded by Billy Woods.

2. Billy Woods and Elucid are the members of Armand Hammer.

3. Tabula Rasa, which I will feature soon!

4. The cave featured during Earl’s verse was in Leo Carillo State Park in Malibu, CA.

5. Neutral Density

6. https://photographylife.com/what-is-iso-in-photography

7. a camera stabilizer