Celestial Shore - “Weekenders” (Official Video)

Celestial Shore’s video for Enter Ghost track “Weekenders” is inspired by Stanley Kubrick and office drudgery. Against a backdrop of Celestial Shore’s floaty, ephemeral psych-pop, Ava Nicolai stars as a bedridden patient who is transported to a surreal church sanctuary inhabited by mimes who subject her to such vices as drink, smoke, and glitter. I’ll let band member Sam Owens and directors Patrick Gilfether and Max Kopelowicz take it from here. First here’s Owens’ take on the clip:

I met Max and Patrick at a bar in Oberlin. They were talking about Lynch and Kubrick. We talked about the moon landing, and the NASA lens that Kubrick used to film the candlelight scenes in Barry Lyndon. Patrick had recently acquired a film camera, so I asked them to make a video for one of our songs. I wrote weekenders shortly after seeing Barry Lyndon, a fool-as-hero tragedy filled with empty accomplishments. At the time, my day job was grinding me into a Midtown curmudgeon. It all sort of came together in that song.

Now for the directors’ statement:

Our process was pretty kaleidoscopic, we kept proposing images to one another that were conjured while we listened, and slowly the video began to take form and developed a narrative as we went through the variations. We both saw these two lovers, one on their deathbed and the other promising them everything. The empty promise before one’s own demise has this tragic and uplifting duality to it where it shows that the person cares and wants to help so badly even though they are ultimately rendered useless by the inevitableness of the situation.