Artist at Work

A music video with a twist

By Lara Ehrlich | Photo by Mara Casey

“I was elated and devastated all at once,” the band Father Tiger croons in its song “First Love.” Film director Michael Medico (’94) puts a story to the angsty lyrics in a music video with a twist: A little boy falls for a little girl and woos her as they grow up; though they become best friends, their relationship never blossoms into romance. At the end of the video, we learn why. Take a look:

Father Tiger released “First Love” in June 2013, the day before the Supreme Court rulings ended the Defense of Marriage Act and Proposition 8, and the band has donated a portion of its iTunes proceeds to the fight for marriage equality. Esprit goes behind the scenes with Medico to talk about the making of the video.

How did you and Father Tiger meet?

I liked Father Tiger on Facebook when I saw them singing Adele’s “Set Fire to the Rain,” and I liked their easy, upbeat sound. I met the lead singer, Greg Delson, after one of the band’s gigs, and we became friends. Their videos had a great visual style, but they were missing a story—so I told Greg I wanted to take a crack at directing a video for them.

Did Father Tiger write the song with a specific relationship in mind, or did you come up with the video’s twist ending?

I didn’t talk to Greg about what he had envisioned before pitching my video treatment. As I listened to the song, the whole story just unfolded in my imagination. The lyrics that most intrigued me were “I was elated and devastated all at once,” and I began to think about the different ways one could fall head over heels in love, and the reasons that love sometimes doesn’t work out. Since the video was released, I’ve heard a lot of talk about the wedding; as much as I’m an outspoken supporter of marriage equality that was not the focus for me. The video is about the love of two lifelong friends. The wedding twist is crucial to this story because it allows the audience a newfound understanding of that central relationship.

What inspired the story that unfolds in the music video?

My best friend from BU, Leslie, and I have always been kinda sorta in love. Like most people in love, we’ve had our highs and our knock-down-drag-out lows. Plus, as actors we knew a thing or two about passion and drama. So, you may ask, if we’ve been so in love, why aren’t we married? Simply, we’ve never been sexually compatible.

When I married my (now ex) husband, everyone placed bets that I would not make it through the ceremony without crying. Well, I didn’t cry during the vows, or the kiss, or the walk back down the aisle, but after the best (wo)man’s toast, Leslie and I bawled our eyes out. It felt like the end of “us.” Not “us” as friends, of course, but “us” as a couple, because we were in essence life partners. (Just for the record, Leslie married the most wonderful guy and she has two incredible kids.)

Love is strange. There’s no rhyme or reason. There’s no formula. We can’t choose who our heart skips a beat for. Just like I didn’t choose to be attracted to men, I also didn’t choose to fall in love with Leslie. It’s just what happened. I wanted to capture that love on screen.

You had fewer than three minutes to tell this story, from the characters’ first meeting as babies to the wedding day. How did you decide which moments of the friendship to highlight?

When I first listen to a song (or read a script), I pay close attention to the immediate ideas and images that run through my mind. I write down my first impressions before my brain suppresses my natural instincts. The “First Love” lyrics had a nostalgic quality, and I wanted to capture the brazenness of youth.

The scenes for “First Love” played out in my head during that first listen almost exactly as you see them in the video. The only major difference is that I had originally planned for the scene where the boy gives the girl a love note to take place in a classroom. Since we were shooting the whole video in one day (the babies, nine-year-olds, teens, wedding, and band footage!), we didn’t have time to move to a second location or the production design budget to turn one of the rooms in our location into a legit-looking classroom. Necessity became the mother of invention!

You are no stranger to organizing huge nonprofit efforts, like the Hot in Hollywood benefit. How did you solicit the more than 50 volunteers who donated their time and services to this video?

First, I should say that Greg was paying for the music video himself, so I didn’t want to break the bank. We budgeted about $3,000 for the whole shoot. It’s pretty challenging to pull off this size of production for that little money, so I needed reinforcements. When I was doing Hot in Hollywood, I met a ton of super-talented people with big hearts, and many of them have become my closest friends here in Los Angeles. I put out the Bat Signal, and everyone responded to the video’s story.

I needed a lush garden for the wedding scene, plus seven other locations all in the same house. A Hot in Hollywood board member has a home that was the perfect location for the video. I pitched the idea to her, and she loved it. She was so sweet to let us shoot there and it was her idea to donate her location fee to the Gay and Lesbian Center of Los Angeles.

What inspired the band to donate a portion of the song’s iTunes proceeds to the fight for marriage equality?

The song came out one day before the fall of DOMA and the repeal of Prop 8, so marriage equality was on the forefront of everyone’s mind. The story is a celebration of love in all forms, and the band and I believe that marriage between two people in love should be an equal right of all Americans.