'Love, Death + Robot' transforms red chili peppers into string dolls

Chad Smith remembers the night in 2003 when the Red Hot Chili Peppers played for an audience of around 80,000 in the middle of the gentle hills of the Irish landscape.

After a somewhat idle time in the mid-1990s, the experienced old rock band in Los Angeles resigned with the eight-fold platinum from 1999 and the follow-up from 2002 “Way”, which brought the chart toping single “Can't Stop”. In order to mark the moment, the chili peppers brought a crew to document their performance at Slane Castle, where they guided an entire music day, in which sets from Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age also took part, for a later concert film.

“Now everything is shot, but back then it was a big shoot,” recently recalled Smith, the band's drummer. “You can get a little confident. At the beginning I would know something that nobody would know, but We I would know -and somehow looked at myself, “he said about the bass players of the chili peppers.” We gave each other the 'Oh s -'. We laughed at it and I don't think I was thinking about it because the crowd was so engaged. The energy was incredible. “

Twenty-two years later, the Chili-Paprika bring this appearance of 2003 back on screens-this time they are string dolls.

“Can't Stop” is director David Fincher by restoring the representation of this melody in Slane Castle through the band. The animated short film is part of the just published fourth season of the Emmy-coated Netflix anthology series “Love, Death + Robots” and shows the Chili-Paprika-Smith, Flea, singer Anthony Kiedis and guitarist John Frusciant-Sale dangling puppets in front of a true Sea. When the band drives the Slinky Punk radio groove of the song, we see how fled some of his characteristic movements and Kiedis roams a fan's cell phone for a selfie. At one point, a group of women in the crowd even flashes their breasts on the front man.

The dolls are not real-the entire six-minute episode was generated computer. But the way they move looks amazingly lifelike, not least when the lighter of a fan accidentally sets fire to the wires of a fan.

Why did Fincher, the A-List filmmaker behind “Fight Club” and “The Social Network”, make his considerable resources work to work “Can't Stop”?

“An absolutely reasonable request,” said the director with a laugh. “First and foremost, I always wanted to have a flea bobbing – it started. But really, you know, sometimes there are only things you want to see.”

Why did David Fincher do the chilli peppers in puppets? “First and foremost, I always wanted to have a flea bobbing – it started. But really, you know, sometimes there are only things you want to see.”

(Netflix)

The 62 -year -old Fincher grew up to love Gerry Anderson's “Thunderbirds” series with his so -called supermarionation style of puppetry through electronics. But the Chili Peppers project also represents a return to Fincher's roots in the music video: Before he celebrated with the debut with “Alien 3” from 1992, he headed clips, including Paula Abdul's “Straight Up”, Madonna's “Express Yourself” and “Vogue” and George Michael's “Freedom! '90”. (Finch's Last Big Music Video Gig War Justin Timberlakes “Suit & Tie” in 2013. In addition to “Thunderbirds”, he wanted to remind “Can't Stop” on the 80s years of early MTV authors such as Wayne Isham and Russell Mulcahy -“This litter in Duran Duran, Duran, aesthetic.

Fincher said he knew that his puppet concept “a band that can only be identified from their movement” would require, which seems to be a fair way of describing the chili peppers. He remembered the first to meet the band around 1983 – “I think it was with Martha Davis in the palladium?” He said -and was impressed by a feeling of mischief that reminded him of the “elvesers” from the old Rankin/Bass -TV -Specials.

“I have the feeling that Finch has the spirit of mine,” said the 62 -year -old Flea, who has known the director socially for years. The bass player remembered to discuss “Can't Stop” with Fincher in the house of a common friend before they shot: “I talked about how I still jump around on stage and still work my body really well. He laughed.” An old man was happening where I am afraid to dive on my face. Finch went: 'Well, doll floh can do it.' “

Sketches by Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith and bassist Flea as dolls in Vol. 4 by Netflix '”Love, Death + Robots”. (Netflix)

After a day of the motion capture with the band in a studio in the valley, Fincher spent and an crew of animators from Culver City's Blur Studio about 13 months to “Can't Stop”. Fincher said the difficult part was the puppets a feeling of suspension.

“With the MO cap you capture the plot of a character that has self-determination,” he said, referring to a human chili pepper. “It's so much more difficult than it looks. But that was a kind of fun, you know? I mean, not for me,” he added with a laugh.

When asked whether the production was needed, Fincher said that this was not the case. “It is blurred – it is a point of pride for her,” he said. But he also shrugged that this question has become a kind of purity test for filmmakers.

A digital representation of the chili peppers as puppets.

(Netflix)

“It may be an interesting kind of Gotcha in the next few months,” he said. “But in 10 years I can't imagine that people will have the same thing [view]. The non -linear processing changed the world for about six weeks, and then we took them all for granted.

“I don't consider it necessarily cheating,” he continued. “I think there are a lot of things that Ki can do edges and red work and things like that. I do not think that the fundamentally ruining, which is intimate and personally in filmmaking, namely that we put on and hope not to be caught.”

How he reports on an English -language version of “Squid Game” and a sequel to Quentin Tarantinos “Once in Hollywood”, did he make “Can't Stop” Ladin -Fincher to think about the condition of the music video, since MTV is no longer in business to show the form?

“Well, the audience that MTV aggregated – in retrospect it was time and a place,” he said. “Remember, the Beatles made music videos – they only called it 'help!' There was no invention of MTV at all.

“What I miss – and I don't think we will ever see it again – was that I was 22 years old and would sketch it on a napkin: This is the idea of ​​what we want to do. And four days later, $ 125,000 were sent to the company with which they work and they would make a video in a week, and then they would shoot three weeks after the air.

“You are now making a television commercial and there are literally 19 people in folding chairs, all with their own 100-inch monitor in the back. The world has changed.” He laughed.

“I started my professional career more about forgiveness than permission, and it was very difficult to go in the other direction.”