Cameron Duddy of Midland is an accomplished director, having directed videos for Bruno Mars, Jennifer Lopez, Brittany Spears, One Republic, and of course, all of Midland’s videos, including their latest for “Mr. Lonely.” But when the star of the video is accomplished actor, Dennis Quaid, what kind of director’s notes did Cameron offer him on the set of “Mr. Lonely”? He says, “The only notes as far as directing goes. It was just like, ‘Umm … that’s too Wile E. Coyote or like, too Looney Tunes. Let’s bring it back.’ That was really the only kind of conversation that we had on the set was like, Is this too zany?’”
Cam co-directed the video with his brother, Collin, and the only real creative disagreement they had was with the whipped-cream pie Dennis gets in the face toward the end of the video. Cam says, “My brother was very anti the pie-in-the-face thing. And Dennis was like, ‘We’re doing that.’ And Collin was like, ‘It’s too zany and you can’t see his face anymore.’”
Dennis ended up getting the pie in the face, which is not surprising, since he insisted on doing all of his own stunts in the video, which involved a lot of physical comedy, and Cam says, “Retrospectively, I feel like it was the right move, because you think it’s going to be Dennis Quaid back in his heartthrob days and it devolves into like something straight Looney Tunes. So, there’s not a whole lot of directing on that thing, other than trying not to hurt people.”
“Mr. Lonely is the first release off Midland’s new album, Let It Roll, which has been out for a little less than a month, and don’t miss the band performing Tuesday night (9/17) on Late Night with Seth Meyers.”
Midland – Cam directing Dennis Quaid :37
Cameron Duddy – “The only notes as far as directing goes. It was just like, ‘Umm … that’s too Wile E. Coyote or like, too Looney Tunes. Let’s bring it back.’ That was really the only kind of conversation that we had on the set was like, Is this too zany?’ And looking back on it, my brother was very anti the pie-in-the-face thing. And Dennis was like, ‘We’re doing that.’ And Collin was like, ‘It’s too zany and you can’t see his face anymore.’ And retrospectively I feel like it was the right move, because you think it’s going to be Dennis Quaid back in his heartthrob days and it devolves into like something straight Looney Tunes. So, there’s not a whole lot of directing on that thing, other than trying not to hurt people.”