thatsthespot.com Matt Barnes photography blog | The Sheepdogs

The Sheepdogs - Feeling Good

The music video for the Sheepdogs’ Feeling Good is a story of graft, as much as it is an exploitation homage and three & a half minutes of badass beauty. It’s the culmination of a lot of labour - labour prefacing the eight, sixteen-hour days that went into shooting this beast by several years. The real story starts when Matt, green, virginal & wafer-thin as a mint, was given a chance by Joel Carriere, owner/found of Bedlam Music Management and Dine Alone Records. Joel commissioned some band shots from Matt, materializing in their first project together for the band Moneen - shot out of a small studio in Toronto’s east end that doubled as Matt’s dwelling. As a result of these humble beginnings, Matt has been able to work with nearly all of Joel’s euphonious empire (a venerable who’s who of Canadian crooners and combos) leading up to the climactic point of this, a stop-motion short for the hairy pride of the Prairies.

The graft certainly didn’t stop with the start of this project, and will continue after it, but thanks to a tight-knit crew, as well as collaborator/Sheepdogs’ enthusiast Mike Rybinski of Spot Cinema, the toil and trouble were well worth it. You might even say that this undertaking has left those involved with a warm sense of sentiment - har, har.

The Passing Shot is just the spot to harbour the unofficial Director’s cut of the video, a version which may have been a bit sanguinary for the mainstream media. For more of an in-depth exploration into the making of the video, head over to Rolling Stone Magazine and enjoy some Director’s commentary alongside a few on-set snaps - but before you do, cannonade the jump for behind the scenes photos and video, as well as a full run down of what can be credited to whom.