Josh Goleman films Leithauser video with Ethan Hawke

Chicago director Josh Goleman teamed up with Ethan Hawke and Hamilton Leithauser, former frontman of The Walkmen, to create an absurdist teaser for Leithauser’s song Here They Come.

The promo was shot in one day at the legendary Cafe Carlyle Jazz Club on New York’s Upper East Side, where Leithauser had just concluded a five-night residency.

The story centers on Leithauser sharing his new single with friend Ethan Hawke, after explaining how he is inspired to make music about the private lives of his friends. However, his friends are often perturbed by the discovery.

Is Ethan about to discover Hamilton has been airing out the skeletons in his closet?

 
JOSH GOLEMAN
HERE THEY COME | HAMILTON LEITHAUSER | PROMO

 
ALSO READ ETHAN HAWKE LIVES UP TO SISKEL CENTER HONOR
 

Backstory
“Hamilton reached out to me about creating a video series of him interviewing some of his friends by playing them a song and talking about their thoughts on it,” explains Minimal director Goleman. “Basically, to have friends talk about the lyrics, arrangement, and what they liked or didn’t like. So we kicked around ideas, wrote questions, and talked through who might be cool to interview.”

A week later, Leithauser received a text from Goleman containing what would be come the final concept. “Ethan Hawke is going to listen to one of my songs and just beat me up and throw me through the table,” the message read. “No interview. Haha.”

“So, that’s what we did instead,” says Goleman.

The creative relationship between Leithauser, Goleman, and Minimal producer Kris Rey-Talley formed years ago with a shared love for untraditional promos, discovered on a music video production for one of his early singles.

“From my standpoint, I wanted it to be funny, unexpected, and to showcase the song as best we can,” says Goleman. “Make it fun to watch, and then you realize you’ve heard almost the whole song. A music video of sorts. We shot the project really really fast. I think we had Ethan for about two hours and finished early. Once you start breaking things, the process really speeds up. Ethan is such an excellent collaborator and absolute dream to work with. He added so many ideas and made the process so fast and creative.”

Other than a rough outline of the story sketched out the day before filming, the video was entirely improvisational.

 
About Minimal Productions
Minimal is a boutique production company and creative studio. Their name is their philosophy. Doing more with less, Minimal makes great work while keeping the process intuitive and simple. Minimal is what a modern production partner looks like: collaborative, nimble, and highly creative.

 
Credits
Directed by Josh Goleman
Written by Hamilton Leithauser & Ethan Hawke
Produced by Kris Rey-Talley & Lia Mitchell
Shot by Josh Goleman & Olivia Booker
Production Design by Parker Redford
Sound by Colin Alexander
Edited by Shelby Smith
Color by Jacob McKee
A Minimal Production

 
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