Gap “blue” by Russ Lamoureux


color and band:

My color is blue, and the band is The Blakes, out of Seattle. The Gap went to five bands and asked them to write songs inspired by a specific color, so the song was already done when I got involved. It’s a great track, with a wonderfully bittersweet quality. The direction from the Gap was basically, “do something great.” We didn’t have to worry about branding, or even use any clothes from the Gap, for that matter. It was a purely creative endeavor.


on coming up with the idea:

I worked with my long-time collaborator and writing partner (Rich Oesterheld) to come up with something different for the form, a narrative as opposed to performance or visual repetition. And we didn’t want to do something that was too literal to the song lyrics.

There’s definitely a sense of loss and longing in the song, and we started talking about this Philip-Lorca diCorcia image I love, of a forlorn man looking out his window, which led us to the work of author/illustrator Edward Gorey, and his character Neville in The Gashlycrumb Tinies. Neville sits in the window looking out at the world from his lonely perch. So the story and the characters kind of grew from there.

We came up with a story about this teenager who’s separated from his fantasy by glass. In his reality he’s introverted and shy, but the fantasy he sees through the glass finds him being the kid he wishes he could be, with this girl he’s completely idealized. When he gets the chance to meet her we don’t know if he’ll take it our not. Maybe he doesn’t want to ruin the fantasy. Maybe he’s building up the courage to open the door. We were intentionally ambiguous to keep the story going in the viewer’s mind.


on the color blue:

I liked the idea of using blue to define the kid’s world. He spends most of his time in a daydream, so that’s where the color really works. When we see him in the real world (having dinner with his mom, or the ending where the girl comes to his door) blue recedes into the background. Doug Chamberlain, the cinematographer on this project, and I wanted to build as much of the look into the negative as possible so we shot tungsten balanced film outside half corrected back to daylight. It gave the film an overall cooler feel and drained a lot of the color out of the skin tones.


on the challenges this project presented:

The greatest challenge on this project was filming a compelling narrative in one day, and with no dialogue. We wanted to come up with a piece that felt more like a short film (as opposed to a pure music video), using the song as a soundtrack—a way to fill in the blanks.


on finding the perfect location:

I was in the middle of another project when this one came to me, and we were shooting in this amazing blue house, but just in the kitchen. Everything was blue: the carpet, wallpaper, furniture, it was everywhere. But the great thing was that as obvious as the color was, nothing really matched. I told my production designer, Kirt Johnson, about our idea for The Sound of Color while we were in the house. We immediately started trying to make the story work for this house. A few story points were altered to fit the house and Kirt found ways to downplay the blue a bit, so it felt more subtle. The location became as important as the actors, but I don’t think any of us would have felt like that without a visit to this particular house.


what’s next:

After 30 days the rights to the film revert back to me. And that of the song to the band. I’m hoping that the band likes it enough to release it as their music video. The song’s so great. It’s all the result of being given a little inspiration, and a lot of freedom.

In the meantime, I’m off to Vancouver to shoot a campaign for Wrigley’s out of AMV/BBDO, London. The scripts are great. Should make for some really visual spots, but with room for performance. My favorite kind.