Spotlight: rubberband.
BRINGING A MINDSET OF GRATITUDE, CREATIVITY AND A SENSE OF OPENNESS - director duo rubberband. carry a strong sense of self and passion through their work. Comprising of Jason Sondock and Simon Davis, the New York based duo has had the pleasure of working with an abundance of talent including ZHU, LCD Soundsystem, Goldlink, Glass Animals, and Topaz Jones as well as brands like Calvin Klein, AUDI and CRMENS. Though all of their projects bring a refreshing edge of creativity and something new, their artistic touch, though effortless, always lets you know it’s their work. With an ability to create and capture scenes that convey a feeling and moment that resonate with their viewer, their visuals tend to linger on your mind after the first watch. Whether it’s a four minute long video filled with bright colors and effects or a simple toned minute commercial, rubberband.’s projects always radiate that special touch.
Beyond their eye and talent, these directors bring an important attitude to the industry and recognize the privilege they’ve been able to have both in their career and during COVID-19. Though the duo has built an incredible portfolio and have grown tremendously since meeting in college, they know there’s always more to learn and the value of each person they work with holds. Their latest project with Lewis Del Mar showcases their skill beyond just directing as Sondock and Davis lead the creative direction for a plethora of elements from the website to merchandise to the visual end of the project.
In our chat with the duo we talked about everything from what 2020 has brought to how they approach their projects. Go down the rubberband. rabbit hole to see for yourself the artistry this duo has crafted and read below to learn more about Sondock and Davis.
LUNA: How you guys are doing and how has COVID shifted your workflow and creative processes?
SIMON: To speak for both us, we’ve been all right. It's been a really edifying time, clarifying what really matters. I know that sounds cliche, but being reminded or finding the time to pause and reflect on why we got into this in the first place, getting reacquainted with yourself creatively, remembering what really excites you. I think it’s easy to get locked into a pattern of thinking and it’s been nice to break away from that, even though something so deeply tragic facilitated that experience.
JASON: I also think that there's a certain thing of what do you do when you no longer have the regular source of motivation you've created for yourself? Which is to say, people who took time and took care of themselves, that's very important, and everyone should do that. It's just different things for different people. I think that trying to figure out how to motivate yourself and where that fire comes from, is also a very interesting thing that we had to sort of understand in all of this. As creatives, you don't have a very standard schedule for the most part anyway, and then also you're by yourself in your house, and then you also can't go outside and within these limitations, you start to have to understand what you can do, what stuff you actually want to make, and things that you don't, become irrelevant.
JASON: We're also incredibly privileged that we were able to take the time and be able to think about creating stuff while the country is such a mess. People can't even feed themselves and so there's definitely such a degree of privilege that everybody who had this time to sort of think about and be introspective benefited from. That’s worth noting, it's pretty important to state that and express that profound gratitude.
LUNA: We've seen like a weird balance in the creative community of people have been really hit hard, but then there's also a weird bit of opportunity that other people have been able to tap into.
JASON: Yes, and I think it's scary. If you have the time to do the thing that you love, are you actually gonna do it? Do you really love the thing? Do you have to sort of displace your energy maybe into something else?
LUNA: Shifting gears, you're signed with SMUGGLER for the US and UK, and BWGTBLD for Germany, and you recently signed with FRENZY for France. What value have these partnerships have brought compared to being completely independent?
SIMON: We’ve been with a few production companies in the past and not to say anything negatively about them, but it’s sort of like dating where it's not necessarily that one person's flawed, but it's just about finding the right match. To go from let’s say relationships that didn’t work out to finding three places that all truly feel like second families where we have a relationship that goes so far beyond a professional relationship, it feels pretty amazing. There's so much more there and that’s something we've been kind of searching for and to find it unilaterally across the board has just been the best feeling.
JASON: I also want to say we're not really independent artists. Everybody comes from a community of artists, we're only as good as our producer and our all of our DPs, our production designers or editors, or our colorist, like everybody. So to use the word independent, it's like, what is that? What does that mean? Independence is sort of irrelevant. Sure, we're independent artists, but like every other freelancer, we just have people that attempt to help us get work, but beyond that it's the same thing. I think finding a family, in the people who you work with, whether it's the people that represent you, or the people who just work on a day to day basis is the most important thing ever. Not only do we get to do what we love, we get to do with people that we love, and that's the most important thing. So that's the only thing I would say about the companies that we signed to they're just more people that we love.
LUNA: The nature of your work is going to be collaborative of course. What's a key lesson that you've learned from this variety of collaboration you've had over the years?
JASON: The first thing is that all your collaborators in film, they're all filmmakers. You call them a production designer, but they're a filmmaker. You call them a cinematographer, but they're also a filmmaker. Everyone is responsible for the thing, maybe you're steering the ship, but you need every part of the ship to function in order to complete the journey. So I think treating everybody on your crew and in your team with respect, and gratitude, because they're there and in the best situation, they're there because they want to be there.
A friend of ours always say you can't pay anybody to care. You can pay someone a lot of money, but doesn't mean they're gonna care about what you're doing. Respect and gratitude for everybody that does anything with you, or for you, is so important. This industry is built on favors, and we did a lot of favors. We continue to do favors for those who do favors for us, so it's kind of like it's this never ending communal handshake that's going on. So gratitude and love and respect for everybody and respecting everybody's ideas. If a PA has an idea on a set, we aren't gonna be like "Fuck you you're a PA!" What does this person have to say, because their value is as good as their idea and also as good as they are as a person.
LUNA: You've been that person too.
JASON: I'll let Simon expand upon this, but he always says, the best idea that you can come up with is one that you're excited about, but also that works in collaboration.
SIMON: There's a reward in making something that you find creative fulfillment in, but if you're engaging in a collaboration, I think there's a ceiling to how good that can feel, and how fulfilling that can feel if the other person who you're making something on their behalf doesn't fully see themselves in it or even worse dislikes it. So for us, we want the person that we're working with, or collaborating with, to be as excited as we are, or else I don't think it can be viewed as the highest level of collaboration and that's what we aspire to.
LUNA: How do you balance the client's vision and their expectations with your own vision and expectations?
SIMON: I think that it is the responsibility of a director, or anybody who's in that sort of a position in a collaborative context is to be able to articulate their vision and how they see something in great detail. I think we in no way are arrogant enough to say that there's a set way of doing things, like "that's the way it works and that's the only way", I think for us, we just have our experiences and in those experiences, we've found what's successful for us, and that seems to be valuable to share, but we're not sharing that in an authoritative, instructional kind of way.
For us, it’s just important to be very open and really discuss the idea. Like hey so there's going to be a part that might make you a little bit uncomfortable, this is the part where we're going out on the ledge, this is the part where we're going to get experimental stylistically— if you walk somebody through that vision you can help them get excited about creative risks. Then there isn't that sort of blow up that everybody fears at the end of the road.
JASON: I also think that, something we hold very close to ourselves, is knowing the project you're getting involved with, right? If you're making a commercial for a big brand, or you're making a commercial for a small brand, or a weird brand, at the end of the day, you have to really think about whether this is a job I need because I need to put like food in my mouth and pay my rent? Or is this job about creative fulfillment? Oftentimes, it's a mixture of both to different degrees but sometimes it's just one or the other.
Being very aware of your priorities when it comes to how you're going to make something and how you're going to deal with intellectualizing the project, you can let go of stuff and understand that whether you're making a toilet paper commercial, or you're making a music video, there's stuff to be learned, regardless, and there's nothing to sort of stick your nose up at. Or at least there's nothing for us to stick our nose up about quite yet in our career, there's stuff to be learned from everything. It's as much the role of a director to execute the project as is to determine the priorities of the project for ourselves.
LUNA: To the point of picking up things sometimes for money, the reality is that this is your career, this is how you have to make a living. Not every single project as to be a passion project and there's no shame in that.
JASON: 100%. Life is just about those compromises.
SIMON: We were talking about this last night actually, and I don’t know if it’s conscious or we can help it but we bring that mentality to every project that we do. As Jason said, sometimes you're doing something more for the creative outcome other times to sustain yourself. There's just a certain level of artistic integrity that we just couldn't imagine not bringing to the projects that we work on. I think you can let go of that feeling once you've done the thing, but in the process of making something I don’t think it's a bad thing to feel deeply connected to the project and to want to make it as interesting and meaningful as possible, regardless of what it is. Ultimately, time passes and next thing you know, it's like, " Oh, I haven't watched that video I made four years ago in four years." But inevitably it has a life that goes beyond your relationship to it so in my opinion it's cool to approach things and view them through that lens.
JASON: Take things seriously but take them seriously with a grain of salt. Care, but don't lose sight of reality.
LUNA: Since you guys are working on both branded projects like commercials and music videos as well, how does that approach vary with branded projects versus music videos?
SIMON: I don't think the approach actually ever varies. For us the way that we think about things is we try, to the best of our ability, to distill the idea, or a vision for an idea, into the form that if we came across it, it would inspire us and excite us. That might sound pretentious but the process of getting there together is actually a lot of fun. Once we agree on that vision, all the subsequent decision making extends from that central idea. And whoever is on set with you, artist or agency or label or creative directors— whoever they are, it just becomes about making sure they’re aligned with that vision. I'm not gonna take off the commercial hat and put on the music video hat, you know? What's the most exciting version of what we’re making? Let's chase that.
LUNA: All of your work, regardless of if it's a music video or commercial all has the same sort of feel, and hearing your creative approach it definitely makes sense as to why. What led to you guys finding that signature feel/look? Was it something that was intentional, or just over time?
JASON: People ask us this question a fair amount and I think it's kind of funny because I don't think we ever think about it at all. We're never like, "We'll do a rubberband. thing." Maybe we do it like in a jokey sort of way, but it's never something we're actively trying to do. If we have a style, that's great but if we have one it’s because that's just how it gets all pooped out of our heads. It's not a thing that we think about. I'm sure that Wes Anderson dreams in symmetry and all those things but it's not like that for us.
LUNA: Definitely been some weird times, but y'all have still been able to work on some really cool projects, which is awesome. What's been your most memorable project of this year?
SIMON: It's tricky to talk about, because it's not done yet, but I'm looking at the Premiere session open this big monitor in front of me funnily enough. I think what we can say is we worked on a visual album with a number of our best friends for an artist named Topaz Jones. He introduced Jason and I, he's the longest running collaboration I have in my life and he’s our best friend. We've all kind of been on our respective journeys and this feels like a very cool culmination of a lot of late night conversations and dreaming we did together throughout the years. It's cool to be here, now, realizing that we’re getting to those kind of youthful aspirations. Pretty vague, but there's a lot of elements to it that make it unique and special and meaningful to us.
JASON: Something else that we had a lot of fun doing in quarantine specifically was our creative direction for Lewis Del Mar. We've never really done anything with animation to that extent before. We made the Ceiling video literally in my apartment with five people and it was just like a weird idea that we had no idea was going to work until we made it. So it was great to sort of try something that was totally different that we had never done before, very outside of our comfort zone and see what happened. Also just to remember coming out of isolation the first time in two months, just like being around four people and how amazing that was— eating ice cream on my floor as the camera was going by in the middle of the night. It was just like a crazy experience to be reintroduced to people and have something that we'll always remember as a result. So that was really amazing and whole project as well as that night in particular was very memorable.
LUNA: Are there any upcoming projects you're wrapping up?
SIMON: Yeah, it's a short film, for their album August. We've done in an unofficial capacity a lot of creative direction for artists but as Jason said this was the first time where we really top-down from website to merch to photos to music videos did the whole thing. So that was obviously an incredibly long winded process and this film, which is a distillation of the album into something in-between short film and documentary and visual album— or I don't know, all those titles feel maybe limiting and not quite right. It's pretty unique and we’re excited about it. I think it was cool as a sort of a synthesis of this entire long journey— like it all culminated somehow into this piece, it just felt kind of right. So we're really excited about that.
LUNA: What do you hope the upcoming months and end of the year bring for you both?
JASON: I want to just be happy, safe, and I want there to be some sort of sigh of relief for the country in general, that would be great. I'm good right now. I tend to be a depressed person, but right now things in almost every part of my life feel okay, I feel content as a human right now. So I'm going to give my wish to the better good of everybody.
SIMON: It's pretty hard to wake up these days and think solely about yourself. To echo Jason, I'm good. I don’t need anything. I just hope that people are staying ok out there, and find peace and bliss in whatever realm they need it.
JASON: I have a lot of good friendships in my life, I have good projects in my life and I feel that we're fulfilled. We're in a very privileged and precious spot. I'm very, very grateful for all of it. I hope the world gets better.
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