ACTION AUTEUR ILYA NAISHULLER DIRECTS NEW PROMO FOR LENINGRAD

'EVERYTHING WAS UNEXPECTED'

Singer, actor and director Ilya Naishuller was the man behind the hugely viral BITING ELBOWS' BAD MOTHERF**KER video ( as featured in Future-Rocker's first edition ), which was later crowdfunded into an expanded concept, becoming last year's cult cinema hit HARDCORE HENRY. Never a man to rest on his laurels, he now serves up another bar-raising promo classic, this time for the band LENINGRAD. Check out the spectacular results, and then scroll down for an update from the man himself:

FUTURE-ROCKER: Your Leningrad promo - at what point did you decide to do this backwards, or was it intended to be backwards right from the early planning stages?

I wrote the actual script backwards.

And did you storyboard it forwards to check that it would be coherent, then reverse everything?

Nope, storyboards were always drawn in reverse. But everything was filmed forwards, and we edited right on the set to check for how it works backwards.

It looks incredible - what percentage was green-screen, and what percentage was in-camera ‘real’ effects?

Ninety percent was in-camera, real stunt work.

So after having done a big budget film such as Hardcore Henry, was there still anything unexpected that you hadn’t foreseen while filming ‘Kolshik’?

Too much to mention, really. Everything was unexpected, with no references, as I was doing something that was never done well before. And of course, the jump from a five minute video to a ninety minute feature is a very interesting one.

What was it like working with ( DISTRICT 9 star ) Sharlto Copley?

Awesome! He's a true collaborator and works hard to get the best material possible.

So, Ilya, have you been been offered any other movies, off the back of that?

Yes.

Give us a scoop, then!

Top secret…for now. :)

NEW! ILYA NAISHULLER PREMIERES 'HARDCORE' - 'THE WORLD'S FIRST POV ACTION MOVIE'!

We got there first, folks! Back in 2013, Future-Rocker interviewed musician / director Ilya Naishuller about the groundbreaking and spectacular 'Bad Motherf*cker',  a pop promo that very quickly went viral on the internet. Now, two years later, he is premiering his debut feature-length sci-fi action spectacular, HARDCORE, at various film festivals around the world. Using the same vertiginous point-of-view photography, it looks absolutely tremendous!

BITING ELBOWS - 'BAD MOTHERFUCKER' - VIDEO AND INTERVIEW

INTERVIEW WITH SINGER / DIRECTOR ILYA NAISHULLER

The jaw-dropping viral promo from Russia's Biting Elbows - subtitled Insane Office Escape - is a wildly inventive and sprawling gangster shoot-em-up, with a nifty sci-fi element. Future-Rocker had to call up the director Ilya Naishuller and find out how they did it.

Future-Rocker - The Biting Elbows video is, quite possibly, the greatest pop promo I've ever seen. The band is not known yet in the West - how long have Biting Elbows been going?

Ilya - We've been around in our current form since 2009, and this is our third release.


- It's a pretty high-energy track - what are the band's musical influences?

- Everyone in the band loves different stuff, like Sublime, Rancid, Pixies, Violent Femmes, Smiths, Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, The Clash etc.

- Did you study at film school? The video is amazing!

- No, I haven't studied film-making anywhere. Rodriguez and Woo were an influence, but only among many others on a long list.

- I would definitely recommend Rodriguez' classic book 'Rebel without a Crew'.

- I'm gonna sound pompous but I read that book in '95 or so..!

- Ha-ha, I'm putting that in the interview! So how long did the video take to prepare?

- We had a total of nine shooting days, however, it took almost a year to make, as a lot of time was invested into planning and finding finances.

- I was going to say that all the actors all look like professional stuntmen. Was it very expensive to shoot?

- All our budget went into stunts. We had one professional stuntman - he is the guy running away from the main character - and he was also directing the stunts. We had a group of four professionals behind the cameras making sure all the stunts ( jumps, falls, etc. ) go smoothly. The main character is performed by Sergey Valyaev, who is a parcour performer. The rest were just friends.

- Was it complicated to choreograph?

- The choreography was difficult indeed, and was a result of many trials and error. You come up with an idea, then find a location, then come up with an idea again; then come up with a filming crew and come up with yet another idea... And every time you have to look and change, look and change, and so on. The only simple scenes are those where it's just running.

- Thanks for the interview, and congratulations on a great piece of work!

- Thanks Alexi, and good luck out there - !

BITING ELBOWS WEBSITE

Breaking News: There will be an announcement from Ilya soon, regarding a full-blown feature film. Stay tuned!

- Interview by Alexi K with Ivan Borisov.