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LAS VEGAS — After producing their very first music video, a Utah filmmaker was asked to direct and produce the latest video for Emmy-award winning Imagine Dragons.
Highland resident Matt Eastin said he met the band in 2011 when Imagine Dragons was first making a name for themselves and performing at Velour in Provo.
“It was very obvious they were going places, even though they were barely getting by,” he said.
Eastin shot their first music video, “It’s Time” and continued to work with the band on the BYUtv show, “AUDIO FILES.”
In 2013, he shot their music video “On Top of the World” after the band had signed with Interscope Records.
“That’s probably the biggest video I’ve ever done,” Eastin said of “On Top of the World.” “That was really fun… I did their first one before they had a following… and it kind of in some ways like went viral for them. What’s cool with those guys is that they remember that and appreciate that. That’s why they are calling some guy in Utah to do videos for them when they could have whoever they want do these videos.”
The band went to Vegas for the May 17 Billboard Music Awards and Eastin said he got a call from them two days before the ceremony. Eastin said the band wanted to do a new music video for a remix of their song, “Shots” on their “Smoke + Mirrors” album.
“They gave me a call and said, ‘Hey, we’re going to be in town for a couple of days… and we want to do something fun and simple’ and they were open to ideas,” Eastin said.
With only a 3-hour window for filming, Eastin decided to do the video at the Las Vegas Stratosphere. Originally, he said he was just going to have lead singer Dan Reynolds go on the rides, but when the rest of the band heard what they were doing, they were excited to join.
Eastin said he strapped GoPro cameras to each of the four band members and captured their reactions while they were plummeting on the 855-foot drop. He said the bassist, Ben McKee, was terrified during the ride and Reynolds asked Eastin to include outtakes at the end of the video.
Matt Eastin
“Ben really was terrified,” Eastin said. “He was just so scared. He made the whole video.”
Eastin also had Reynolds sing the lyrics to the song while riding the rides. He said during parts of the video, Reynolds was wearing headphones and listening to the song to help him stay on sync. However, because they were afraid the earbuds would fall out during his free-fall drop from the Stratosphere, Reynolds just went off memory while mouthing the lyrics in the last scene of the video.
“He hit it exactly on, every beat,” Eastin said. “Like perfect sync, jumping off and mouthing the lyrics… He nailed it. He’s such a pro.”
The music video, “Shots (Broiler Remix),” was released Thursday. Eastin said he has some potential projects with the band on the horizon.
