[Friday] Behind the Scenes: The Making of Berlin's "Animal" Music Video

It's the summer of 2013 and I'm knee-deep in pre-production on my then upcoming feature film Strange Blood when I get the call from longtime acquaintance and legendary music video director Dean Karr.  He tells me he's sending a job my way that he can't do for a little band I might have heard of.

Berlin.  Yeah, THAT Berlin.  "Take My Breath Away" Berlin.  "Metro" Berlin.

Um.  Holy shit.

I get an email later that day from 101 Management's Andy Lurie.  Can I meet with he and Berlin front-woman Terri Nunn for lunch?

Yes.  Of course yes.  Is this real life?

As a teen in the 80s, I had a HUGE crush on Terri Nunn.  I mean, really, who didn't?  And now here I was, having lunch with her at a small cafe in Sherman Oaks.

Terri was everything you'd imagine she'd be:  still stunningly beautiful, funny, very sweet.  She told me their new song was called "Animal", and that she wanted to do a BDSM/Club vibe with the video centered around her and drag queen Raven from RuPaul's Drag Race.  

The budget was tiny.  Berlin, after all, was well past their hey day.  No one was throwing money at them.  I met with producer Mary Taylor and we secured a tiny dungeon space from Goddess Soma in Downtown Los Angeles to pull off our little video.

The day of the shoot was pure chaos.  Space inside the room was at a premium:  The makeup and hair artists had to share a space on the queen-sized bed with the wardrobe people.  The rest of the room was filled with about 30 background extras dressed in their finest fetish clothing, making it really difficult for the crew to set-up.

Terri soon arrived and was fitted into a racy leather corset number that turned every head in the room.  Raven and his entourage arrived.  Not far behind, the legendary Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence joined in.   KROQ's Jed the Fish made an appearance to say hello as well.  It was a complete circus.

Sometimes things don't always go as planned.  One of the models had a panic attack when her wardrobe malfunctioned during her fitting.  The hair stylist went into full diva mode.  My director of photography and I did not see eye to eye on the shots.  

But, three hours into our day, we finally were ready to shoot .

That's when disaster struck.

Mary pulled me into the hall to inform me that the landlords of the building had caught wind of our little unauthorized production and were about to call the fire marshal and shut us down if we didn't send everyone home ASAP.

After about 10 minutes of panic and argument, we decided to risk it by shooting the dance floor scene (in which the bulk of the background extras were needed) as quickly as possible.  We nailed the shots in about 20 minutes and quickly dismissed as many of the people as we could while still having enough to shoot the remainder of the video.

The ruse worked.  The fire marshal was never called and we were able to finish out the day without any further drama.

Even though it was a rough shoot, overall it was still a lot of fun and Terri was absolutely amazing through all of it.   

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View all 210 BTS photos here:  

http://thechadmichaelward.com/bts-berlin-animal/

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The "Animal" Music Video:

https://vimeo.com/91587758