MEGAFORCE x Is Tropical is a love story that lasts.

After producing an astonishing video for their single “The Greeks”, the four guys of MEGAFORCE pulled off a brilliant follow up with “Dancing Anymore” that echoed the web thanks to its humor, fresh sound, and so much more. We won’t say anything else except that it’s a perfect music video for the summer!

Banned from YouTube in more or less 25 minutes, Kitsuné decided to take on the challenge so we uploaded on Vimeo where it has been staying put since : victory! So, for your enjoyment, first watch “Dancing Anymore” and then read the exclusive interview we did with the coolest MEGAFORCE!

First of all, we want to know : it is the second time you realise a video for them so how is it to work with Is Tropical ?
It’s the easiest thing ever because they blindly trust us. I think if we’d had said that we wanted to film a shot of a goat eating cotton candy in a bathtub, they would have been like “Yeah! Awesome! Let’s do that”!

What about your creation process : do you try to follow a kind of line for your videos? For example, is “Dancing Anymore” the follow up of “The Greeks” video? Or do you work according to your instinct and inspiration at the moment?
We clearly had in mind to do a diptych with the Greeks when this new idea came up. However, we had no idea on which track to do that, so we waited, and when “Dancing Anymore” came up, we thought, “This is it! That’s the one!” The planets were finally aligned.

How did you find a boy/young man willing to play this role? Wasn’t he concern about how his friends will think of him in high school for example? Or on the contrary, did he think he’d be cool?
We knew it was a tricky thing, but our casting director is a really talented guy. We saw a shortlist of about 15 guys and we called back 4 of them. We needed someone who clearly felt at ease doing such a thing, and who didn’t take it seriously. It was important to keep it light and fun. When we saw Louïs Irault, we were like “That’s him! That’s my bro!”. Also, the fact that he was half french half japanese was a funny wink to Kitsuné.

What about The Greeks, we know you talked a lot about how the children acted all natural and really got into their roles, was it easier to film with children in the end ? 
For this video, we opted for a light way to film with very cheap cameras : this way, it was easier to catch childhood wildness. We were right in the middle of the action and could give directions while holding the cameras. In a way, we had to play we them, to be kids as well.

Is there an artist in particular you want to work with? And a song you wish you’d made the video for? And could you make a video for an artist you don’t like?
There are many artists we’d like to work for; unfortunately we can’t do a lot of music videos because we do it for free (except for big artists like Madonna). So when we do a shot we have to be 100% sure that we love the track and the artist.

Your work is very eclectic, some videos are really dark (Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Sacrilege), some very fun like “Dancing Anymore”, you also make ads, etc… Where do you find inspiration for all these different atmospheres ? 
We like Nagisa Oshima’s approach about directing, we don’t want to develop a particular style. We want to work on every project with a fresh eye, and let the idea guide us instead of impose our style on the idea.

We always try to fit the mood of the track. “Dancing anymore” has a strong teenage feeling, “Sacrilège” sounds more cinematic and dark, Dizzee Rascal’s “Baseline junkie” is more a comedy… So inspiration can come from everywhere.

Does each one of you have a special role in Megaforce or do the four of you work on everything, on every parts of the projects?
We’re all directors and have an eye on every project. We try to keep that synergy all the time. However, we work on pair for the shootings.

Finally, did you think the video would encounter such a success? How do you explain it? 
We dreaded the censorship and it had been toughest than we expected. It had been banned on YouTube 25 minutes after the release. Fortunately Vimeo had been more welcoming. I suppose there are many different reasons to like or dislike the video so we can’t really explain its success.

However, we don’t take the number of views as a sign of quality as there are so many shitty videos beyond the billion views!

“Dancing Anymore” single will be available on May 13th and is the first the single to be taken from their forthcoming album “I’m Leaving”, available on May 20th.
Pre-order their sophomore album on RoughTrade!