A new challenge: find a music fan who hasn’t watched a video of The Bloody Beetroots on YouTube. Hard to find. But who makes them? I got the chance to meet Bennet Pimpinella, director of ‘Romborama’ and ‘Domino’ at the AB in Brussels, where The Bloody Beetroots played an awesome gig later that evening.
Romborama must be the most underestimated video of 2009, if not in the whole decade. This 4 minute video takes the viewer to a whole new level. It’s a visual piece of art, and it’s even more impressive if you watch the video on a big screen.
This piece of art took 3 months to make. The Romborama video consists out of more than 15.000 frames, which Bennet made himself. That’s what I call: endurance and dedication. The video, made on 35 mm clips, is the result. Loneliness, graffiti, fear and inspiration. Romborama is a story between me and The Bloody Beetroots, a clash between colours, beats and scratches.
For the people who are curious how Bennet looks like: just watch the video. He’s in it. The Bloody Beetroots didn’t have time at that moment to star in the video so Bennet just did it himself. He even made the masks himself, with needle and thread.
Pimpinella himself looks like a real Italian with his tanned skin and dark hair. He admits himself that he doesn’t speak English that well. It’s only when he starts to speak in Italian, that it becomes clear how passionate he is about his work as a director and photographer. In his dressing room, that he shares with Tommy Tea from the Bloody Beetroots, he proudly shows me the Romborama video on his iPhone, while Tommy and Bob are busy planning tonight’s show. Although it’s steaming hot in the dressing room, the sweat was dripping down Bennet’s face, he answers my questions enthusiastically in broken English, a friendly gesture knowing I only know some Italian words that are in relation to food. The young filmmaker contacted The Bloody Beetroots himself, as he was a big fan of their music. Bob Rifo was immediately interested and that’s how it all started.
His latest work for the Bloody Beetroots is the black and white video for ‘Domino’, of which he’s very proud of. You can’t tell that it’s a low budget music video. According to Bennet, it’s made with a couple of friends, shot in two days. Since its release on YouTube, the video received a lot of positive reactions. (…)
Right now, he’s working on a documentary featuring our dear Bloody Beetroots. Pimpinella travels along with the band as there playing all over Europe with their ‘Bloody Beetroots Death Crew 77’ tour. Every night, he’s standing on stage filming The Bloody Beetroots, but he doesn’t say there. He films the gig, standing in the middle of the crowd. He then climbs up to the balconies from where he can film 2000 people having the best time of their live.
Opera
2 mei 2010
Fantastic…really nice work…remarkable