U.F. – Uwe Flade (Director).
T.L. – Till Lindermann (Vocalism).
R.Z.K. – Richard Z. Kruspe (Solo-guitar).
P.H.L. – Paul Heiko Landers (Rhythm-guitar).
C.S. – Christoph Schneider (Drums).
C.F.L. – Christian Flake Lorenz (Keyboard).
O.R. – Oliver Riedel (Bass-guitar).
M.S. – Max Stolzenberg (3D Supervisor).
S.K. – Stefan Kessner (Compositing Artist).
S.S. – Survey Squad.
U.F.: The concept for the video is that the band plays fireman who haven't had an emergency for a long time. Next to their little fire-station is an enormous garage in which a two-storey-high fire engine is parked. They race through the city and do more damage than good and finally the rescue operation actually fails.
U.F.: (On shooting stage) So you're asleep, then you rub your nose. When the alarm comes, you open your eyes and sit up.
T.L.: (On shooting stage) All in one take?
U.F.: (On shooting stage) I'll tell you every take, except for the nose thing.
C.S.: This is the room, the fire-station, where the band sleeps and hangs out and basically waits for an alarm call. It's very dark and messy and smokey in there, and then the alarm call comes and it starts.
(Video “Benzin” on screen).
P.H.L.: The good thing about this video, and the reason I liked the treatment, is that there is no fire and no petrol featured. When you hear the track you think: Everything is on fire, even the TV could be on fire. I like the fact that nothing burns.
S.S.: (On shooting stage) Roll camera!
U.F.: (On shooting stage) Alarm! And sit up. Good! That's it. Thank you.
C.S.: The outfits are genuine. The trousers and the jackets... And the helmets
are definitely American. But we saw the original Berlin fire department helmets. I would have prefered them. Absolutely!
S.S.: (On shooting stage) Is that shot perfectly straight? Can I go a bit closer? Like this?
U.F.: (On shooting stage) Yeah, that's better.
S.S.: (On shooting stage) Roll video! Roll camera! And action!
(Shooting).
(Video “Benzin” on screen).
S.S.: (On shooting stage) Roll video! Roll camera! And action!
U.F.: (On shooting stage) Move forward! A bit quicker!
S.S.: (On shooting stage) Cut!
U.F.: (On shooting stage) Yes, I like it.
T.L.: The most important things are the beginning and the end. You need a good start,
a story in between, and a good finish. It's obviously very difficult to make a video than that for “Keine Lust”, because the idea there was so unique. And it's incredibly challenging to take this as a basis. The opportunity here lies in the animation, something completely new for us.
(Video “Benzin” on screen).
R.Z.K.: As a kid I always wanted to be the driver of a big truck. That was my childhood dream!
C.S.: I always wanted to be a fireman, a cosmonaut or a taxi-driver.
P.H.L.: In East-Germany, when you were 10 or 11 years old, you had to do an interview with the military. You had to go individually to the rooms in school and they ask: “What would you like
to be in the future?” I said: “A hunter!" And he said: “So you will work at the border!” “You always get fresh air and have a gun on your back!”
S.S.: (On shooting stage) Roll video! Roll camera! And action!
(Video “Benzin” on screen).
U.F.: (On shooting stage) You're on a country road and are only driving at 30 km/h! So there's not much steering. There's more action later though! I thought this was faster.
(Shooting).
(Video “Benzin” on screen).
U.F.: (On shooting stage) Brake! Cut! Great! Thank you!
P.H.L.: Choosing a single is always difficult. It often depends on so many factors and on what comes next. Recently though, we decided to choose tracks we all like. In this was the case with “Benzin”.
S.S.: (On shooting stage) We're ready to shoot! Roll playback!
(Shooting).
S.S.: (On shooting stage) And cut! Cool!
(The scene saves young lady).
P.H.L.: (On shooting stage) I'm ready.
U.F.: (On shooting stage) Then pick her up.
S.S.: (On shooting stage) Ready everyone! Roll video! Start the conveyor-belt!
U.F.: (On shooting stage) Look up! And you feel something is to your left. So you look slowly to your left... Now!
M.S.: I'm Max. I was in charge of the 3D animation on this project, and did a bit of it myself. The main issue for us on this project was the large amount of visual effects on the video. There were about 120 or more. And we only had a very limited time frame to work in.
S.K.: What we see here is a typical green screen scenario. We have Paul walking towards us in front of the green screen. This gives us the opportunity to simply replace the green. Additionally the band all have a particle-emitter effect placed on them so it looks as if the smoke is really pouring from them. This adds an extra layer to the overall look.
(Video “Benzin” on screen).
(Shooting).
S.K.: (Showing) Here's the original footage from the video shoot. We started with the clean-up work and took out all the cars from the shot as you can see.
M.S.: The particular thing about this scene is the dynamics involved. It's a very big object which crashes into the wall here! You can see that each of these particles breaks and really bounces. These interaction effects are the most complicated.
(Scene from video “Benzin” on monitor). You see that the pre-animation fits here exactly with what happens later on. And that is vital for sequences like this.
(Video “Benzin” on screen).
C.S.: (On shooting stage) You're the driver! You can't be lying out there! You should be hanging upside-down behind the wheel!
U.F.: (On shooting stage) And action! Now the guy points up. And you look up... Yeah, that's perfect! Stay there with the camera! Yes, good!
S.S.: (On shooting stage) Cut! Thank you. And action!
U.F.: (On shooting stage) Okay, you slowly come to life. Just a little bit of life! Slowly look up at the building, Paul! Schneider, move your arms.
P.H.L.: So we've just crawled from the wreckage of our truck, all of us alive. Then we realise, we've incidentally crashed at exactly the place we wanted to go! Now Till is going to call us and we have to spread out the safety net.
S.S.: (On shooting stage) Action!
T.L.: (On shooting stage) Over here! Come quick! What's up with you guys? Come on spread out that net! Alarm! Further over here! Come on! Over here! Over here, over here. And stop!
U.F.: (On shooting stage) So, quick movement! Look down at the net, and now up! Look down at the net. And now look up!
(Video “Benzin” on screen).
U.F.: This shot from the roof is the opposite of what we just filmed on the ground. It's basically the subjective view of the suicide victim. The shot is a bit tricky, because the camera has to pan out over the side of the building so we have to build a special construction. That's basically the principle here.
U.F.: (On shooting stage) I thought we could get a straight shot here. Go further right. Yeah, straight like that. No, straight. Go further. They should actually be standing here I think.
O.R.: It's definitely an opportunity to present ourselves differently, and to further create our image. On one hand, the people can come to our show and get a certain visual image of us as live performance artists. But we also use the visual element of music videos to allow us to express ourselves differently.
(Video “Benzin” on screen).
