Grace: How did you both meet the Rocky River Nightmare Band?

Trevor: The main singer of the band, Cody, is one of my best friends. I’ve known them since I was fifteen. When we were in high school, I’ve always wanted to make something for them, and it finally came to fruition. We were in a class together and he came to me asking, “Do you want to work on this video for my friend’s band?” Right away I was like, “Yeah, absolutely.” 

I knew Tate was a very creative person and that I wanted to work with him. We got to know each other through the project, and I knew he’d be someone great to work with. We became a really great duo for the project. 

Grace: What would you guys consider to be some of your inspirations?

Tate: I know for me, I’m really inspired by graphic design. There’s various specific visual elements and principles that seem to be consistent throughout the work that I create. 

Trevor: I personally feel inspiration from people in general. Subcultures are very interesting to me. People have different backgrounds and different ways they see the world and what they enjoy. It’s interesting to me. 

Grace: What was the production process like for this project?

Tate: Trevor and I met up at least four times a week. We did a lot of conceptual discussion where we would discuss ideas and get the concept set in stone. That took at least two weeks and was pretty hard. After that, we shot in Boone. We went up and stayed with Trevor’s friends and did the VHS sequence with the line animation. A month later, we shot in Wilmington- the band, Cody and his girlfriend, all of the rotation shots, and everything else- in one day. It was a lot, but it was really, super fun. 

Trevor: We were hammering away at it, trying to figure out how to get everything to work exactly how we imagined it. Storyboarding and conceptualizing was an important thing to us. We did tests of sequences beforehand to make sure we got everything right. We were very lucky with how it came out, but post-production was a whole other animal. 

Tate: Yeah, post-production took forever because Trevor was graduating, the pandemic had started, and we didn’t have the time to meet up and have a lot of issues. We figured it out though. 

Grace: Was there anything you filmed unexpectedly that made it into the final film?

Trevor: The VHS Sequence, but really everything happened serendipitously. For the film itself, everything happened effortlessly and everything aligned exactly how we needed it to happen. I think that was due to our solid planning. 

Grace: How did you both go about managing the audio and ‘cinema’ side of this film?

Trevor: During pre-production, we played that song over and over. We thought to ourselves, “What would be cool?” and broke down the chorus and verse and so forth. Everything had its own little section. With the VHS and the rotation sequence, we knew we wanted those to repeat and we were trying to make them blend amongst each other. The narrative came from that. 

Grace: Do you feel like everything in the video is a conglomeration of your creativity?

Tate: I think we did a great job of melding them together. The ending is definitely more your [Trevor’s] style, because you and Rifka share that very colorful style. 

Trevor: I say that the VHS and the line animation is more my aesthetic. 

Grace: What excites you guys about being in Visions this year? 

Trevor: It’s a great opportunity to put your project out there, something that you’re most proud of. It’s something you can be like, “Hey, this is what I made because of UNCW.”

Tate: The spring of 2017 I went to Visions and thought it was really cool. Being a part of it is really exciting. It feels like a good way to cap my senior year. 

Grace: What other projects have y’all worked on? 

Tate: We’ve tried, and we’re still trying. We’re both very driven and determined people, which is why I think we work so well together. We’re also both huge perfectionists. So, it’s like a blessing and a curse. We were working on another music video in Boone, and it was going really well. We were experimenting with tangible, hand-drawn stuff. 

We started doing it, and we got 20 seconds in, and it had already been two months. We realized how brutal it was going to be. Then I got really busy. I was working on another project for my sister, and I ended up doing the same type of animation on that video. I got really behind.  

Right now, we’re working on a project for my senior seminar. I’m doing a documentary for my girlfriend’s clothing brand that takes upcycled goods, resells them, and gives them a second life. We’re doing a portrait documentary on her. We’re going to stay productive for sure. 

Grace: Is there anything from your films that you guys learned and took away from?

Tate: I’m so happy that we messed up so much because it was a good learning experience. We were ahead of the game with pre-production, but we weren’t ready for post-production. What I’d like to tell other people is to go do it, do it yourself. We did this with no money; we had to put everything into it and that sucks. Once you get it done and after you put it out into the word, it’s euphoric. 

It’s cliche, but just do it no matter what your situation is. Just create. Make sure you have a solid team that you’re working with and that you can trust. You need to have a strong community when you’re working on something that you like. If you’re going to create, do something that you’re truly passionate about. 

To learn more about Tate and Trevor, follow them on Instagram: @p.e.e.c.h.y