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From Nasty Little Man, December 17, 2018:
“My hope is that if there are kids being bullied—and there are… Maybe by listening to this song and watching this video, they might just think it’s not as bad… that it’s the kind of thing you can just stand up to and laugh off and get through.”—Paul McCartney
“Who Cares,” the newest single from Paul McCartney’s #1 charting Egypt Station (Capitol Records), has been reimagined as a musical short film starring Paul and Emma Stone. Shot on 65mm Kodak Film with Panavision Cameras, “Who Cares” features a message of universal positivity rendered in vivid colorful detail, an viewable exclusively at Apple Music for 24 hours. […]
To help the song’s positive message to inspire as many people as possible to stand up to bullying and negativity, Paul has joined forces with Creative Visions, a global nonprofit organization that uses the power of media and the arts to ignite positive social change. Creative Visions has partnered not only with Paul and “Who Cares” producers Subtractive Inc., but also with Facebook, Enso, Artemis Rising Foundation and the Blue Chip Foundation to launch #WhoCaresIDo, a campaign inspired by the song and film. #WhoCaresIDo hopes to reach millions, first raising awareness and engagement regarding the issues addressed by the song and film, then providing them with tools to take action through a network of experts and partners, empowering people to treat others with support and kindness.
The #WhoCaresIDo campaign draws upon the power of the song and film, as well as Creative Visions’ efforts over the last 20 years through its global network of creative activists. Creative Visions is currently building a global coalition of nonprofit partners that will create an umbrella of #WhoCaresIDo organizations and resources to bring compassion to homes, communities and workplaces. “Millions of people around the world feel silenced, subjugated–bullied– and believe that no one cares,” says Creative Visions Founder Kathy Eldon. “Our intention with this campaign is to put the power of the song to work and inspire us to show up and care–and let others know that we do care.”
“Who Cares” was directed by Brantley Gutierrez and Ryan Heffington. Director of photography was Linus Sandgren. The film was produced by Kyle Schember and Michael Abbott for Subtractive Inc.
Credits, from YouTube:
Starring: Paul McCartney & Emma Stone
Directed by: Brantley Gutierrez & Ryan Heffington
Produced by: Kyle Schember & Michael W. Abbott
Executive Producers: Kathy Eldon, Regina Scully, Jennifer Gross, Ann Gilbertson Haggart, Pat Chandler
Production Company: Subtractive Inc.
In Association with: Creative Visions, Artemis Rising, and The Blue Chip FoundationDancers: Nataly Santiago, Stephanie Crousillat, Heather Lang, Gabe Katz, Jesse Kovarsky, Nelson Chalas
Written by: Brantley Gutierrez & Luke Weinstock
Cinematographer: Linus Sandgren
Choreographer: Ryan Heffington
Production Designer: Leigh Poindexter
Costume Designer: Carol Beadle
Editor: R. P. Adams
Colorist: Tom Poole / Company 3
Make Up: Rachel Goodwin
Hair Stylist: Mara Roszak
Dancer Make Up & Special Prosthetics: Kabuki
If you’re lucky enough to get on a project like this where it’s good people, then it really doesn’t make it like work. It’s more like a family gathering and in the middle of it all you’re involved in creative art…
Paul McCartney – From paulmccartney.com
Interview with co-producer Brantley Gutierrez, from Paul McCartney’s “Who Cares” – 65mm, 16mm, and Final Cut Pro X (fcp.co), March 25, 2020:
Please tell me a bit about what style you were aiming for in Who Cares. Why the choice to shoot in both 16mm and 65mm film?
Brantley Gutierrez: In this video, I was going for an homage to vaudevillian theater acts and old Beatles-style psychedelia. My background is working with a lot of photography. I was working in film labs when I was pretty young. So my DP and friend, Linus Sandgren, suggested film and had the idea, “What if we shot 65mm?”. I was open to it, but it came down to asking the folks at Kodak. They’re the ones that made that happen for us, because they saw it as an opportunity to try out their new Ektachrome 16mm motion film stock. They facilitated us getting the 65mm at a very reasonable price and getting the unreleased Ektachrome 16mm film. The reason for the two stocks was the separation of the reality of the opening scene – kind of grainy and hand-held – with the song portion. It was almost dreamlike in its own way. This was in contrast to the 65mm psychedelic part, which was all on crane, starkly lit, and with very controlled choreography. The Ektachrome had this hazy effect with its grain. We wanted something that would jump as you went between these worlds and 16 to 65 was about as big of a jump as we could get in film formats. […]
How involved was Paul McCartney in the edit and in review-and-approval?
Brantley Gutierrez: I’ve know Paul for about 13 years and we have a good relationship. I feel lucky that he’s very trusting of me and goes along with ideas like this. The record label didn’t even know this video was happening until the day of production. It was clandestine in a lot of ways, but you can get away with that when it’s Paul McCartney. If I had tried that with some other artist, I would have been in trouble. But Paul just said, “We’re going to do it ourselves.” We showed him the cut once we had picture lock, before final color. He called on the phone, “Great. I don’t have any notes. It’s cool. I love it and will sign off.” That was literally it for Paul. It’s one of the few music videos where there was no going back and forth between the management, the artist, and the record label. Once Paul signed off on it, the record label was fine with it.
How did you manage to get Emma Stone to be a part of this video?
Brantley Gutierrez: Emma is a really close friend of mine. Independently of each other, we both know Paul. Their paths have crossed over the years. We’ve all hung out together and talked about wanting to do something. When Paul’s album came out, I hit them both up with the idea for the music video and they both said yes. The hardest part of the whole process was getting schedules to align. We finally had an open date in October with only a week and a half to get ready. That’s not a lot of time when you have to build sets and arrange the choreography. It was a bit of a mad dash. The total time was about six weeks from prep through to color. Because of the nature of this music video, we only filmed two takes for Paul’s performance to the song. I had timed out each set-up so that we knew how long each scene would be. The car sequence was going to be “x” amount of seconds, the camera sequence would be “x” amount, and so on. As a result, we were able to tackle the edit pretty quickly. Since we were shooting 65mm film, we only had two or three takes max of everything. We didn’t have to spend a lot of time looking through hours of footage – just pick the best take for each. It was very old school in that way, which was fun.
Brantley Gutierrez, from Paul McCartney’s “Who Cares” – 65mm, 16mm, and Final Cut Pro X (fcp.co), March 25, 2020
Last updated on March 28, 2021
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