Why Tomás Peña Is Making Music Videos That Will Give You a Seizure

Tomás Peña gives zero fucks about epileptics. What he does give them, however, is an apt Surgeon General's warning in the opening scene of his seizure-inducing music video for Ben Aqua’s “Reset Yourself.”

Epileptic aesthetics is hardly a new appeal in the music video world; we saw it in Kanye West’s eye-straining flash fest “All Of The Lights” and experienced abnormal brain activity while trying to keep apace with the heavy zoom effects in Bear in Heaven’s “Reflection Of You.” Where Tomás’s approach differs is in his sourcing of lo-fi 3D graphics and celebration of beautifully tacky pop culture iconography, exhibited in his use of golden weed medallions and dancing smiley faces.

In riding Ben Aqua’s machine-gun rave beat, Tomás launches the viewer into an endless procession of thrashing lights and erratic colors. If that doesn’t put your brain on the fritz, the Spanish director peppers in a potpourri of haunting imagery ranging from a menacing gang of Bart Simpson-looking droogs to a kicking steed with a pentagram inked onto its forehead. The whole oeuvre is one big dystopian tongue biter.

Although Tomás’s most recent body of work oscillates between ultra-bright lookbooks for cyberpunk fashion labels and dark shorts depicting the real life crime of his sleepy hometown of La Unión, his initial knack is for digital animation. In 2011, he directed “Love Without Regret”- an animated short film for Ridley Scott’s production company. Ever since then it’s been up, up and away for the rising young gun.

While on a shoot in Stockholm, we had a chance to geek out with Tomás on the inspiration behind his epileptic-happy video, the techniques he used, and the inescapable spell that weed has on him.

Motherboard: Your video for “Reset Yourself” gives me the urge to hide under the sheets but also to get up and dance.

Tomás Peña: Totally! It’s meant to be a sequence of nightmares and imaginary situations that will make people feel awkward while watching it. Even when I was creating some of the 3D scenarios, I felt quite uncomfortable and unsure if it was going to work or not.

Couldn’t help but notice the blaring advisory at the start of the video. Are you really afraid people might get seizures from “Reset Yourself” ?

When I finished the video, I passed it around to some of my closest friends in the animation industry. One of them had previously experienced epileptic attacks from time to time, and he told me to put that advisory sign at the beginning of the video because while watching, he had to stop it at least four or five times, out of fear of having a seizure.

What inspired you to go down this epileptic route?

I guess it comes from a big mixture of different references in my head-from David Lynch to Sega Saturn graphics, from Stephen King’s films to Gangnam Style. I also wanted to create something with a bunch of pop references that most of us have seen at some point of our life, so I mixed it all together with ideas I had a long time ago.

Did Ben Aqua have have much input on the direction of your video?

I started sketching some scenes before even knowing what music I would be working with. So after a few emails I got in touch with Ben Aqua, who was super keen for a collaboration and gave me 100% freedom to create what I wanted, even if he did not completely agree with some of the scenes in the video.

Love without regret on Vimeo.

I can’t make sense of what going on in “Reset Yourself” Is there a narrative to this video?

There is for sure some narrative moments along the video, but there is not an actual story to it. I will say that I wanted the audience to feel the story more than understand anything. There are fragments of a much longer story, all mixed in together, ignoring the concept of a story’s beginning and end.

What did you use to make this video?

I used a 3D software that is quite standard in the animation industry, along with some motion capture files that I bought on a website that creates characters and animations for video games. I got all the actions and characters I needed from online resources, then I made some of them wear a mask, created the scenarios and lights for all of them and played along with the cameras.

How’s this different than the usual live action shooting that you do?

I created all this moments as if they where on a theatre set, but with the advantage that in 3D you can freeze a moment in time forever and you can play with the cameras back and forth. I felt like I had some kind of advantage compared with the stuff I do when shooting live action.

Call me stupid, but did you use actual cameras to produce this?

Actually, I only used software to create this, but coming from a live action short experience and a bit of photography knowledge, I applied the real basis to the 3D cameras and lights so even if the render is so cheap, the environments look kind of realistic somehow.

I noticed a beautiful floating weed leaf plant. What’s your fascination with pot?

Smashing a golden chain and leaf of my favorite plant was done for a reason. I been smoking it since I was a teenager but I can't enjoy it as much as I used to since I'm really busy these days. The characters in “Reset Yourself” are always surrounded by clouds of white smoke. It’s not a coincidence. It kind of represents getting rid of something gold for you, letting that stuff crash on the ground while needing to keep moving ahead.

What do you think of Net Art?

Oh well, I like some of the stuff I’ve seen done by net artists, but this video, in its origin, was not conceived to be part of that movement. I have a few friends doing some sick Net Art projects, such as Cloaque.org who gave me so much support when they saw the early tests of “Reset Yourself” and they helped me a lot with the release of it.

I feel like “Reset Yourself” touches on some of the ingredients of Net Art.

To me, even if this video shares the lo-fi aesthetics of the Net Art, it has more to do with impressionism and its thick strokes and not so detailed images. But instead of a brush and a canvas, I use a computer and 3d software.

What’s your next project going to be?

Right now I’m working in a short story quite surreal to be shot in Mexico during next month. It’ll be like a short film squeeze into a music video. I’m working on the concept and early ideas together with the creative director Armando Cantu. Also I have to combine this type of more personal projects with commercial assignments that knock on my door every month, so the fun never ends.