30 Seconds to Mars - Capricorn (Director’s cut)

From the Director - 

Well this video was my hey day….my apex….the day I went Erich von Stroheim…

I got a call to work with Jared Leto’s new band. He came to me with an idea about kids hearing something from the ground……about mud. I was heavily into Koyanasquatsi and Baraka. I also new that Sam Bayer had done a Smashing Pumpkin’s video like this. I was feeling like the whole concept was too close for comfort. My agent and the $500,000 dollar budget said other wise.

I made my first compromise in film. I would do it, if I could have a riot scene in it with police, to make it different from Sam’s video. They accepted and the madness begun. I still never got my helicopter shot.

We shot 2 back to back 18 hour days in 110 degree desert heat…..we tore apart the set from Little House on the Prairie. It was so bad that I feared the mud kids would leave….I let them cover me in mud as well….to go through the suffering with them.

It was crazy. Jared’s running around in the tank I had rented…..kids were having sex in the port-o-pottys. And Rachael is digging a hole so deep, we had to shoot around 150 ft mound of dirt.

I always wanted to thank the kids that endured the heat that day. It should have been 3 days with normal hours….but the EP’s thought differently. I am just glad no one died that day. I remember the noble 5 that stood with me at 5 AM in the morning. After being in mud and heat for 2 days….they volunteered to get shot with fire hoses until the sun came up.

In the end it was fun…and muddy madness. Thanks again to everyone who was apart of that shoot. They stayed and worked so hard……for me…..if I ever see anyone from that shoot on the street….I owe you a drink at the nearest pub.

2006 Paul Fedor

₪ ø lll ·o.