rubberband. On Film, Fashion and Failure

rubberband. is one of the most exciting film duos you've probably never heard of and as always, the proof is in the pudding thanks to the army of clients they have under their belt including LCD Soundsystem, MoMa, Instagram and even Meta. As for fashion? They've also collaborated with brands like Moncler, Calvin Klein, Burberry, Cartier and Chanel, meaning their experience - whether it be in crafting music videos, commercials, documentaries, fashion film or editorial - remains resolutely unmatched thanks to their one-track approach that sees them consistently think outside the box, no matter the project, location, or even budget. Above all, rubberband. are staunch idea people, who instead of relying on technology to do the creativity for them, utilise it to help the idea-rich process even richer. Intrigued by their impressive catalogue (we all saw those Burberry vignettes with Olivia Colman and Barry Keoghan), SHOWstudio met with the two filmmakers to find out more about their unique approach to film and why - contrary to the popular belief that making mistakes can be the ultimate faux pas - failure is crucial to success.

Christina Donoghue: Thanks so much for speaking with us today. We have quite a few questions as we’re both big fans of your work, but I feel like we should start big. With that, we wanted to ask, who is rubberband.?

Sam Bassett: We also want to know how you both came into film… what projects did you take on individually before you started working under the name ‘rubberband.’?

Jason Sondock: Well, it’s an interesting question because the funny thing is, we didn’t really do anything professionally before. Neither of us have this ‘life before, life after film’ get up because film is all we’ve ever known. We didn't come from any other real backgrounds. I’m saying this because I can remember when I was around 10 years old in sixth grade, and I auditioned for this part in a school play which I didn’t get… Basically, my teacher found me crying, and I remember him saying, ‘If you can't deal with the audition process, you should probably work the lights', or something like that. I took it very personally, and so from that point on, I knew that was the one thing I wanted to do with my life. Simon and I met while in our freshman year in film school at NYU, and we’ve creatively worked together and been on this journey together ever since.

Sam: And when was that? What year?

Jason: 2011.

Simon: When we met, it was a really exciting time creatively to be in New York because there was just a lot happening, and I ended up at a party meeting the A$AP Mob. This is around the same time A$AP Rocky put this song, Peso, out. We did a lot of videos for ASAP Twelvyy, who's a member of the A$AP Mob. It was mine and Jason's first time collaborating and things just grew from there; a lot of other people saw [the video we did for Twelvyy] who were also artists and so they would come to us and ask us to work with them. We had a lot of fun because there was no real pressure and it was just about being creative for creativity’s sake, making these DIY music videos while soaking up that specific moment of time in New York City. A lot of those artists were also connected to fashion too, you know, so that became a bit of a thing that we fell into.

Jason: I would say the first project that we were proud of was probably the Jalil thing.

Christina: Who is Jalil?

Simon: We're really going back because we couldn't have been older than 17, 18 ourselves but there's this kid named Jalil who at the time had just put a t-shirt out. He was part of Kanye's The Rosewood Movement back in the day, which Virgil [Abloh] was also a part of, so he was definitely in that world. Jay Z wore the t-shirt on the flyer for this big festival, so it was a big deal, and we did a video for the t-shirt, which ended up being one of our first fashion films.

Christina: Was fashion something that's always interested you both? Or is it something that followed as your filmmaking style evolved?

Jason: I don't want to speak to Simon but for me, it’s definitely something that’s evolved. I didn't know how much I cared about fashion to a certain extent until I met Simon. He actually, in a lot of ways, influenced a lot of what I think, especially in the world of fashion. I look back at photographs of me in college before we met, and just think, ‘What the fuck were you thinking when you put this on?'

Christina: I think even people who are high up in fashion have those regrets.

Jason: Oh yeah. A hundred percent. I think it's a human thing, to always recoil at previous actions when you feel like you've grown and evolved. But to answer your question, we’re definitely interested in fashion - like we have collections that we love and shows that we love - but when working in the remit of fashion film, it just hits differently, it's more creatively freeing. Fashion film seems to, for the most part, give us the most latitude, especially when compared to the specific requirements you’re given when working on an advertising job or in the commercial space - where it’s not always so interesting. I think, broadly speaking, the work we like best and the work we’ve done that others tend to gravitate towards is in the fashion world because rather than being literal, it’s more about communicating an emotion and a feeling and that's an idea that never gets old to a filmmaker. So yeah, truth be told, there’s a lot more freedom in terms of narrative for filmmakers to explore when filming fashion as opposed to commercial work.

Sam: That's really interesting, especially considering SHOWstudio’s involvement in championing the fashion film space.

Christina: Can I ask why you're called rubberband? Obviously we have our theories, but I'm interested in the idea of anonymity that working under a name brings and whether that's an intentional move on your behalf...

Jason: Well, what do you think rubberband. means?

Sam: I've got a theory. I've watched most of your work, all the available stuff at least, and I see this integration of and interrogation of film and tech as a theme come up quite a lot and so, I kind of see you both as this plastic-y entity. Something malleable prepared to shift and move. Maybe I've just projected the literal idea of a Rubberband’s function onto you guys but yeah, your work is experimental and so there's a lot of creative bandwidth in the work you take on - I think the name reflects that.

Jason: Well, that's a much better answer. Sure, let's go with that.

Christina: So what's the real reason? I'm interested that you operate under a name, because I think, you know, a lot of duos in fashion don't. I'm specifically referring to photography here, but like, you have Inez & Vinoodh, Mert and Marcus, Pierre et Gilles etc. And these are just the ones that spring to the top of my mind. But these are all duos in the creative sphere of fashion, photography and filmmaking that work under an 'umbrella', but the binding force is their names, whereas you guys don't go off your names, it's under rubberband. Why?

Simon: I wish that we could say it was an intentional decision or one that represents something bigger but really but it just sort of came about. The name had come from an idea for a different creative endeavour that wasn't going anywhere but we liked the name and it was pretty intuitive. But, to the point you're raising, there is something I think that is really nice about experiencing work and not thinking about the individual who makes it, you know? For us, the idea or the goal, hopefully is to always make interesting work that lives on its own, separate from us.

Jason: This wasn’t even our intention, but I think that maybe the most beautiful thing to come out of operating under this sort of anonymous entity that doesn't involve our individual names is that there is much less ego involved in the process as a result. It’s never ‘Jason’s idea’ or ‘Simon’s idea’ - it’s always rubberband’s idea. In that sense, we don't have any individual authorship over it. We like to think of us having this hive mind. It doesn’t matter who has the idea. Just as long as there is one.

Sam: Would you say that's the main benefit to being a duo?

Jason: No, there's so many other reasons as to why two are better than one.

Simon: Ultimately, I think we're best friends, you know?

Jason: We're in our apartment right now actually.

Christina: You live together?

Simon: Yeah we do, which helps because I think having someone to celebrate with when it goes well is always a massive perk. But in addition to that, it’s also nice having someone there to share the burden with when things are not going so well. Also, in simple terms too, I think when you work in a group, like when you have a team, it allows you to do more. There is this sort of creative companionship that emerges that not only makes the process a lot more enjoyable, but I think allows us both to arrive at places we wouldn't individually.

Jason: Being in a partnership is great for obvious creative reasons, especially when you want a separate perspective - something that always benefits you creatively. But beyond the fact of having someone to depend on… emotionally speaking, being in a collective means experiences are always shared. We’re now in a place in our career where we are relatively established and so people usually come to us because they want something that they believe is within the style or the canon of what we do and it’s great to be a part of that with someone else. Equally, there’s a lot of failure that comes before success and the burden I think is much lighter when shared with somebody, like Simon said. There was a lot of rejection for a really long time and we were broke for a really long time. But I often compare being in rubberband. to being married and this thing - this reputation we now have in being called that - is sort of like our child. You know, because we love each other and we basically grew up together. We have to navigate personal stuff with the career and that’s a lot easier than if we were a single parent, metaphorically speaking.

Christina: I think it's really interesting that you've both actually touched on failure because not many people do. You said something really poignant about how in order to be successful, you need to have a certain amount of knowledge, and knowledge I think, can only ever really come from failure, otherwise you're not really ever learning, you're just kind of going on this high, which will never really last, and I think if you don't, fail, you don’t learn. Failure is always an opportunity to learn. I know that sounds really optimistic, and privileged, even, but we’re so used to looking at other people being successful and comparing ourselves thinking ‘they don't understand what it's like to fail’ but if anything, failure is crucial to success, so they understand more than anyone. You can't really be successful unless you've experimented and just tried everything. Is there a project you've worked on you feel taught you a lot?

Sam: Separate, from failure, that is...?

Jason: There are different categories for different things in terms of favourites and projects that taught us a lot, but something that comes to mind immediately and is maybe the most artistically gratifying project we have done is the Don'T Go Tellin' Your Momma film we did with our best friend Topaz Jones and quite frankly a whole community of other people and friends. In certain ways, that project is head and shoulders above everything we've done. From a creative standpoint, it's for sure the most interesting and fulfilling thing we've worked on because It was one of the first times we were able to do whatever the hell we wanted. We didn't have any guardrails, except for the ones that we imposed on ourselves, and because of that, the project ended up showing all of us to ourselves, everyone who made it got to see themselves in it. The other I would say is the first Calvin Klein campaign that we did with Solange; it was our first ever big budget project and experiencing that with not only Simon but my younger brother Josh [Sondock] because he was the producer on that job, too, was really great. We were just coming off this small job and had no idea what we were getting into but the amount of trust blindly given to us... we couldn't believe it.

Simon: Do you guys have a favourite?

Sam: Mine's somewhat of a curveball. I like a lot of your stuff to be honest, but the one that feels really different - especially in its texture - is the Bakar music video for his song Alive!

Jason: Oh yeah that one’s a live video.

Sam: I like it because it could have so easily been such an average video. But the way the edit was handled, I thought was really good. The sense of documentary and reality coming through was really beautiful. It's probably one of your more simple ones in a way. How was that for you both?

Simon:  It’s funny because the shoot itself was 12 minutes, we’d never done anything like that before. Every day for a week we studied traffic patterns and picked out camera an gles… It almost felt like our own little British spy film mission. There was something very fun about preparing for that - it felt almost military.

Sam: What did you shoot it on?

Jason: Five super 16 cameras that were planted all around Piccadilly Circus. I operated one, our DP operated one, and then we had an operator on the roof of Lillywhite's. And then we had two guys on really long zooms, one planted near that newsstand on Piccadilly and then down the block towards Soho. Nobody at the label could see what we were shooting, we couldn't really see what the other cameras were shooting - it was a whole show stopper, quite literally with all the traffic that we blocked too.

Christina: I'm being slightly biased because I covered it, but I really like the chatFOS project you worked on, mainly because I think it's actually aged really well in terms of AI. You filmed it when really, we were only at the tip of the iceberg regarding AI - we still are - but there's a lot of damming reports about it, especially if it falls into the wrong hands. So many creatives are hesitant and even the ones that are using it... don't really know how to or where to start, as proven by the fact that - correct me if i'm wrong but you were actually commissioned by Zara to make this film then they dropped it for being too 'controversial', right? Regardless, you could've fed into the doom and gloom attitude many people have towards new technologies but you didn't, you dove right in when many people are still too nervous to work with AI. The film also had a very human element to it too so really, tick, tick, tick.

Sam: Can we talk about Burberry?

Christina: Ooh, yes! Our editor, Hetty Mahlich, did a breakdown on TikTok of the different vignettes you did for Burberry, mainly from the brand's perspective and how they individually speak of this embedded sense of Britishness, but can you talk us through the project from your end and how it came about?

Jason: So, an agency called Frosty, whom we know well, approached us with this campaign. The owner and CCO Greg Stogdon and the lead creative director, Rachel Crowther were instrumental in sort of refocusing the identity of where the brand was about to go. Their main feeder idea was that they wanted to reclaim was this idea of Burberry as a British brand. They knew who they wanted to cast and they gave us scenarios and settings for where these films could take place but, they also gave us a lot of freedom and trust, and while they laid out the concepts specifically they let us write the screenplays and develop the arcs of the stories. After Greg and Rachel reviewed them, all the talent involved received our screenplays a couple days in advance to memorise lines and so we approached it as if we were shooting a small film rather than a fashion campaign. We’re both very proud of those films because they have real narratives, which is a nice change because often fashion films tend to be more abstract, more of a poem of sorts. Instead, the Burberry vignettes are like little stories with a beginning, middle and end. Also, when you’re working with people like Barry (Keoghan) and Olivia (Colman) - it's kind of hard to fuck that up.

Sam: Yeah. I thought it was interesting how you're both from the US but the sense of Britishness communicated is so strong, which I think speaks to your versatility as filmmakers. And I think fundamentally, to be a good filmmaker, you have to be a bit of a chameleon; to be able to pick up on these different cultural discourses, even if you are not necessarily from that place. When I watched them, I thought ‘this feels so British’, you know, everything about it. Also, the way a lot of technology is weaved into your work but left out in the Burberry films, it’s very you but it also isn’t and that’s clever.

Christina: Yeah, on that as well, Sam’s right. The use of technology is very prevalent in your work but so is collage and other effects. Do you identify with the term 'filmmakers' or do you see yourselves as mixed media artists?

Simon: Yeah, I know what you mean. I suppose this is another nice thing about being in a duo is that I don’t necessarily identify strongly with any kind of singular descriptor. What’s most important is that we ask ourselves the question of ‘what is the most interesting or meaningful conceptual proposition that we can kind of arrive at?’ And this is the space we like to work in, because it means we end up figuring out new ways of trying to push our art.

Jason: To get philosophical about it. We’re technically making a film together right now, right? There is an  audio visual recording. You could save this, send it to people, they could watch it and interpret it, much like any other “film”. So, in one way, film is purely a time capturing device, right? It’s literally recording a segment in time to be saved and watched. Another way to think of film as an art form is where you consider the things about film as a medium itself that only it can do. For instance, in film you can skip about in time and also directly in perspective, i.e. the director literally gets to decide what an audience sees and when they get to see it, no other medium does that. Film is interesting because it's a recording format - a means to an end - but it's also one of the purest mediums we have in a sense because of the many parameters of control, sometimes too many. There’s a dichotomy there and my interest in that dichotomy is the reason why I work with film. Yes, we’re interested in technology, but first and foremost, we're interested in how we can use it to our advantage to make a point. Technology is always the result of the idea, it’s never the idea. Simon always says this but the main grounding philosophy to rubberband. - if there even is one - is that it’s always about the idea. Whether we’re working with a fashion brand or a toilet paper brand or ultimately on our own work, if we have an interesting concept, something worth exploring, then we will do it, no questions asked. And we’ll sort out what is the best use of all this stuff (technology) to make it. Ultimately, filmmakers are problem solvers first, the actual filmmaking part comes after.