Moviemaker – Winter 2019

It’s not just about music, but about what dia-

logue she’s going to deliver, how she’s going to

look, and how the video’s going to look.

When it came time to make Lords of Chaos,

my experience as a music video director gave

me a lot to build on, because there were so

many characters in the film for whom I had

formed a mental image of their identities. I

gave Rory a guitar and a leather jacket a year

before we started to shoot, and sent him a

wig so he could get used to having long hair.

We shot Lords of Chaos in 18 days, so we

didn’t have any chance to re-do a take or

change our minds about key aspects of the

production. There needed to be no question

in our actors’ minds about who their charac-

ters were or how they would react to different

situations. I didn’t realize the effect that that

preparation had until we were done, when

Rory didn’t want to cut his hair. Seeing that

dedication is proof that, whether you’re an ac-

tor or a musician, committing to a character

makes it hard to separate from that character.

TRAIN TO SUSTAIN

It sounds weird to say, but to me,

Lords of Chaos is my first movie. During the

year I made Spun, I also made about 25 mu-

sic videos and commercials, and I built

my career on saying “Yes” to projects, having

fun with them, and trying to turn not-so-

interesting jobs into interesting jobs. With

Lords of Chaos, I spent 10 years in develop-

ment, and had 1,000 reasons why I shouldn’t

do the movie and only one reason why I

should: I believed in it. I also knew more

about what I wanted from a project, and felt

more ready for it than anything else I’d done.

Being a moviemaker is a lot like being an

athlete: The more you do it, the more you train,

the better you get at it. I’ve made six movies

now, but I couldn’t have made any of them if

I hadn’t done all the other music video and

commercial projects that have sustained my

long career. In each new project lies a lesson in

finding the seeds to make it bloom. MM

Lords of Chaos opens in theaters February

8, 2019 and On Demand February 22, 2019,

courtesy of Gunpowder and Sky.

for a while to do just one job at a time, to

see if I’d be any good at it, but it didn’t really

work for me. I became lazy and I wasn’t as

focused. When I’m in pre-production, post-

production, and shooting for different proj-

ects at the same time, that’s when I become

sharp. I’m sure other directors would tell you

differently, but that’s how I function.

I don’t know if it’s true, but they say you

have to spend 10,000 hours to get really good

at something. I spent my 10,000 hours in the

edit room very early in my career. I see every-

thing I do as preparation for the edit. When

I write and do my meetings and shoot, it’s all

preparation for my time in the edit room.

BUILDING CHARACTER

When you work on a feature, your actors

are usually trained to be on camera. The new

generation of musicians doesn’t seem to mind

it, but when I started making music videos,

most artists hated being on camera; they

wanted to perform live and on stage, not in a

manufactured setting. There was also a huge

debate in which some argued that musicians

are performers but not actors, and therefore

they shouldn’t be doing music videos. Luckily,

Michael Jackson and Madonna changed that

and made music videos part of the industry.

Later, artists like Lady Gaga began to show

up and they thought visually from day one.

Euronymous’ (Rory Culkin) nightmares and

flashbacks, during which he is haunted by vi-

sions of his late friend, Dead (Jack Kilmer).

Now that a 12-frame insert is accepted

as an important part of a cinematic story—

whereas 30 years ago it would have been

unthinkable—my take on this material can be

considered to be more traditional. When my

peers and I first started out, it was rare to see

such jolty flashbacks in movies, but today you

see a lot of it. As younger generations become

open to those techniques, audiences, in turn,

begin to register their effects very quickly.

PUT IN YOUR 10,000 HOURS
I’ve rarely gone a day without being in
production in many years, and that kind
of consistency helps build confidence and
knowledge. But it’s not like the process ever
becomes routine. You always have to be on
your toes, so you want to be wanted, to be
COURTESY OF GUNPOWDER & SKY / JONAS ÅKERLUNDbusy, and to keep your brain working. I tried

MOVIEMAKER.COM WINTER 2019 41

From Lady Gaga to

Lords of Chaos,

Jonas Åkerlund shares

how directing music

videos can make

you a better feature

moviemaker

BY JONAS ÅKERLUND,

AS TOLD TO MAX WEINSTEIN

L TO R: IN LORDS OF CHAOS, JACK KILMER,

JONATHAN BARNWELL, RORY CULKIN, AND

ANTHONY DE LA TORRE PAINT THE TOWN BLACK

AS THE MEMBERS OF THE NORWEGIAN BLACK METAL

BAND MAYHEM

ROOTS OF ALL EVIL: BLACK METAL PIONEER

EURONYMOUS (CULKIN) FINDS SOLACE IN THE DARK

FORESTS OF NORWAY IN LORDS OF CHAOS

DUKING IT OUT: ÅKERLUND (R) AND LADY GAGA

HANG ON THE SET OF HER MUSIC VIDEO FOR

“JOHN WAYNE”