Strange Tenants, the band many consider to be the godfathers of Australian ska, recently released a new music video “Who Mines the Riches.” The band dedicated the song to miners around the world, as a salute to the difficult work and conditions they deal with day in and day out. All the members of Strange Tenants come from working class backgrounds, and celebrating the working class culture is a continuing theme in their music.
Shot on location at an abandoned gold mine in Smeaton, Victoria, the clip was produced/directed by Jeff Bird and shot by cinematographer Edward Goldner using Lemac's Aaton Penelope camera setup in 2-perf configuration.
Bird and Goldner decided film was the best choice for telling the story of Who Mine the Riches.
“Given the haunting, cinematic feel of the location, film was the obvious choice from the outset”, notes Bird. “We wanted the clip to have a Western look, a frontier feeling that captured the spirit and harshness of mining through the generations.”
With a limited budget, the filmmakers opted to shoot 2-perf in 35mm format. “Shooting in 2-perf cuts your film and processing costs down by 50%, while maintaining a beautiful cinematic image,” explains Bird
Goldner chose KODAK VISION3 200T 5213 film stock. “Film not only looks beautiful,” he says, “but it’s also fast to work with, which was important for a clip that had to be shot in one day.”
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