Smashing Pumpkins announce music video details for “Owata”

May 11th, 2011

Grant Trimboli

Smashing Pumpkins have unveiled the fine details behind the shooting for their music video for, “Owata,” off of their acclaimed album Teargarden By Kaleidyscope. This music video will directed by Robby Starbuck. Look below to view the entire press release explaining what all is going into this shoot.

THE SMASHING PUMPKINS have announced they will be partnering with director Robby Starbuck (Metric, The Sounds, Escape The Fate) to film the music video for the newly released song “Owata,” from their 44-track opus, TEARGARDEN BY KALEIDYSCOPE. It will star famed wrestlers Cheerleader Melissa, Shelly Martinez and Raven (see photos and quotes below).

The “Owata” music video (release date TBA) will mark the first-ever video to be filmed with the Red Epic M camera, a landmark progression to the cutting edge of the music video industry. The Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan expressed the band’s excitement to be involved in such a landmark project, saying: “I have waited and waited to make the right video for the right song on Teargarden…, so I’m really excited that we are coming at this aggressively with the newest technology that’s out there. With the concept we have at hand, which is based on brutal Japanese style of women’s wrestling, we’ll need to get super clear close-ups to tell the story properly.”
After a meeting with Billy Corgan to discuss the project, director Robby Starbuck echoed Corgan’s enthusiasm for the project, saying: “To be on the forefront of the advancing technology in digital cinema is very special to me. These hand-crafted Red EPIC-M cameras are unbelievable in what they can do and we’re beyond excited to play with the camera and give the world one of its first chances to see what this camera can do. We look forward to always pushing the envelope in this industry on what we shoot on and the subject matter coming into the lens. We cannot wait for this video to be done so we can let the extraordinary images speak for themselves. It’s an amazing change in film when Peter Jackson, James Cameron and I are in the same sentence when it comes to available technology we’re all using–not bad company to be in and I couldn’t be prouder.”

Greg Ephraim, the Director of Photography for the video, sums up the anticipation for the production, saying: “I’m very excited to be using this revolutionary new technology for the Smashing Pumpkins music video. I may be mistaken, but it will be one of the first music videos shot using this camera, which has been in very high demand seeing as Red Cinema only released a limited number of camera bodies into the market as of yet. When Billy approached us with the concept and mentioned that he liked the small form factor of DSLR cameras to get in close to the action and get vicarious angles other cameras otherwise could not achieve, I knew I did not want to settle with DSLR for the Pumpkins–they deserve better than that. Since we were fortunate enough to get a hold of one of these high-demand cameras, we’ll be able to maintain Billy’s small form factor idea, but with a quality that is literally unmatched in the HD world. I’m very excited to use the technology to capture shots for this video that no other camera would be able to achieve. The resolution, latitude, size, and features are a filmmaker’s dream. The ‘moving image’ concept of film was invented on a bet over a horse, and I’m willing to bet that the technology encased in the Red Epic may very well be the best invention since then in the filmmaking world.”

Notable filmmakers James Cameron (Avatar, Titanic) and Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings, King Kong) are a select few that are utilizing the Red Epic M, for projects such as Jackson’s The Hobbit or Cameron’s rumored Avatar II. Cameron is said to have ordered a staggering fifty Red Epic M cameras, while Jackson ordered a humble thirty.