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News: Filmmaker on K$ (input, illuminati, celebs)
Member Since: 4/24/2011
Posts: 17,221
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Filmmaker on K$ (input, illuminati, celebs)
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What was the biggest change you noticed over those two years?
When we first started filming her, she had just "taken off" as a popstar. And she was 24. So, it was kind of a dream world for her. All of the things that make Kesha "Ke$ha" were magnified 1000%. Crazy parties. Hardly sleeping. Hunting for beards. Penis jokes. Blasting Iggy Pop at full volume.
2 years later, those things still exist, but she's matured into a more "self aware" artist. She's very hands-on EVERYTHING. She designs her own costumes, her stage sets, her props, and even her own tshirts. She doesn't just let assistants or managers take care of everything. She participates in every decision. She's learned how to be a boss. And a pretty good one.
It's a coming of age story. She was girl when I met her. And she's developed into quite a strong woman.
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How passionate is she about her fans? All artists claim that fans come first etc, but did you find this to be true in Ke$ha's case?
Great questions. And yes, her fans are like her 2nd family.
The 2nd day of filming, she gets on her tour bus and her assistant hands her a MASSIVE box of fan mail. She then opens EACH one, reads it, signs whatever memorabilia was included, and sometimes hand writes a note back.
She meets with fans at EVERY tour stop. In one case, a kid in England handed her a book he'd put together. He was shy and couldn't say much beyond "Please read the letter I put in there." She read it. It was about him being bullied in school and hitting rock bottom with depression. And then her song "Animal" came on the radio and he suddenly felt a bit hopeful and pulled himself together. The note ended "You saved my life Kesha". They both broke down in tears and embraced. To this day, she calls or texts him every once in a while to see how he's doing.
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I've heard she's actually very intelligent: supposedly she scored a near perfect on her SATs and was going to go to my dream school (Barnard in New York, which I'm still bitter about).
Does this image of someone very intellectual and thoughtful ever come out in person? From her music and partying, it just seems contradictory, so I'm very curious how prominent that is in her personality outside of her image.
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Like I said above, there is "Ke$ha" and then there's "Kesha".
"Ke$ha" is a wandering misfit, half drunk, half crazy, stumbling over hill and dale for the next party.
"Kesha" is sharp as a tack. Plays multiple instruments. Reads constantly. Writes constantly (I literally saw at least 300 full notebooks). And she knows EVERYTHING about her production. I often would see her on ProTools mixing a new audio cue, or designing new stage props herself. She designed a massive 12 foot glitter cannon for her live show.
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Why do you think she has gotten such a bad reputation?
I'll use myself as an example. Before shooting this documentary, I would never listen to pop music. And especially Kesha's music. When Tik Tok came on the radio, I quickly turned the channel. I just didn't "get" it. Wasn't my thing at all.
And then the first night of filming her I saw her live show. And it was addictingly amazing. Like remember the feeling you had the first time watching "The Goonies" or "Star Wars"? That sense of magic mixed with silly youthful lusts for adventure? THAT is how it felt watching her live show. And then suddenly, I found myself (secretly) listening to "Party at a Rich Dude's House" and so on.
There are preconceived notions about Kesha sure. But I'm glad mine at least, have melted away.
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Did you end up meeting any other celebrities during the filming of this documentary?
First night of filming Zach Galifinakus hung out with us at some bar. We couldn't film there, so I'll let Kesha tell that story if she wants to. It's pretty ****ing hilarious.
I saw Bono with his arm around Justin Bieber giving him a pep talk about the music biz. That was weird.
There is footage of Stephen Fry and Kesha chatting it up. I hope that surfaces one day. Love that guy.
Others: (we didn't film them really) Britney Spears, Rhianna, Psy, The Black Eyed Peas, Neil Diamond, Jay Z, Beyonce, Stevie Wonder, The Black Keys, oh god actually this list is long.....
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Does she do anything besides partying?
Oh god yes. She loves animals. She went to Africa to help rehabilitate injured lions, flies around the world investing in "save the whales", and her and her mom have adopted like 12 homeless dogs. She just won an award from the Humane Society for her activism.
She also is very very very very close to her family. So she's always hanging out with them. Giving her younger brother piggy back rides, going camping, or just spending the weekend doing "hillbilly activities" in Nashville (her hometown). She's a country girl, so she loves the outdoors, cheap beer, and jetskis
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Why is she famous?
Kesha's mom was a country music writer in Nashville. Her and Kesha wrote some songs together and made a demo CD of mainly Kesha playing acoustic guitar and singing awesome country music. However, the last song on the CD was a goofy pop track with her doing the "white girl rap" she does. The label that signed her loved that track. They brought her in. She sang backup on "Right Round" and then she wrote and recorded "Tik Tok". And people latched onto that big time.
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few short ones: a) Does she take the content of her songs seriously? "D-I-N-O-S-A-U-R" and "Party at a Rich Dude's House" seem to be jokes, as if they are making fun of people who take themselves entirely too seriously, almost like parody songs but not...
b) Is she intelligent? I'm secretly hoping that she when she's not performing, recording, or (seemingly) drinking anything within arm's reach, that she sits around reading books about subjects she's interested in, or somehow, is a Lisbeth Salander prodigy and no one knows it.
Yes, they are parody songs in a way. It's kind of like how Trey Parker and Matt Stone do South Park. They parody a lot of ridiculous things, but they always say, "If it makes us laugh, then we love it." That's Kesha. Sometimes she'll come up with the most hilarious lines and say "This has got to be a song."
And she's one of the smartest people I know. Constant reader and writer. And her wit is unchallenged in my book.
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Now, I'm not a big conspiracy foil hat guy and I actually enjoy a fair few of her songs, but you ever seen some weird illuminati-esque **** go down? I'm prepared for downvotes just curious.
No problem. This will probably get asked eventually. I can tell you that 100% of any/all "illuminati" symbolism was probably put in because, no disrespect, people like you have coined "illuminati" a popular buzz word. Beyond that, there was zero illuminati **** going down. And Kesha's basically the opposite of what such a secret society would believe in.
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I have a handful of questions. I'm not really looking for specific answers, if you could answer them more generally and discuss the subjects, I'd be pleased. Thanks.
I saw her a couple years ago on her theater tour and enjoyed the show. She seemed to know the "limits of her talent" and had fun.
You talk a bit about her being frustrated learning a dance move. I found her dancing to be about on Katy Perry's level-- it was obvious her dancers simplified the moves when Ke$ha joined the routine. Other than learning the routines in her concerts, is she working with a dance instructor to get better at dancing in general?
One of the things I was impressed with was how when Warrior came out, it didn't try to be anything it was not. It was a strong Ke$ha album without many surprises. I'd describe it to my friends as "if you like her singles, you'll like this." Contrast with Gaga's sophomore album, which some would argue she's trying to do too much. Anyway, I notice Max Martin and Dr. Luke get a whole bunch of writing and producing credits. I'm sort of under the assumption you don't hire Max Martin or Dr. Luke unless you really want their help. So, my question is how much input did you notice these professional songwriters/producers have in her album? Are there songs you can hear Ke$ha's influence in more than others? Songs you hear Max Martin in more than others? While we're on the subject, I am a fairly big fan of a whole lot of artists Martin writes for, but I don't think I'd recognize a photo of him. Will we see him in your film? Did you get to talk to him much?
How much of her public persona is an act? She seems really weird and sometimes answers interview questions where I think she's playing dumb. I'm sure she's fairly smart.
When she got started, some were upset about how she didn't really "pay her dues" and was signed to a record contract very quickly. Do you think her quick rise to the top had anything to do with her mother, who was a professional songwriter for longer than I have been alive, getting her in contact with producers and less about her being "discovered?" Do you talk about this in your film?
Oh yeah: What the hell is going on with her and Guster? I've seen them both tweet about it. It seems like a weird pairing. Is there going to be a joint song or something?
Last one, promise: Did you ever talk to her about those nudie photos allegedly of her with jizz on her tummy and the guy going down on her? It'd be so Ke$ha if she leaked them.
No I lied: Will you talk a little about the process of selling your documentary to MTV? Did you show it at film festivals? Did you call MTV? Did they call you? Was there talk about a theatrical release or another form? Did they commission the documentary? How do you eat/keep the lights on for the two years you film?
Thanks! I can't wait to see the film.
Ok, herpants, I'm gonna answer your novel. :-)
1) She's been choreographing a bunch of new stuff lately. And she's got like 8 backup dancers now for the new tour. And we filmed a bunch of this and she really does pretty good. Learning dance moves for each song was WAAAAYYYYY harder than I thought it would be. A lot of work goes into it.
2) Kesha writes the lyrics to all her songs. Sometimes, after writing a song, some will help her tweak a word or two, but it's mostly her. As for music, she writes some and her producers write some. "Love into the Light" for example was composed by her on her piano at home while we filmed her. Dr. Luke and Max Martin both were intimately involved in helping produce "Warrior". And we filmed both of them.
3) Her definitely has a "stage persona", but most of that is just an exaggerated version of who she really is. Behind the scenes, she's one of the normal and coolest people ever. Well, actually, "normal" isn't the right word. I've never met anyone quite like her.
4) Yes we talk about all this in the film. But Kesha basically lived in her car for a while, did the whole waitressing thing, stole from the 99 cent store to eat, etc. Look, this business is all about who you know mixed with a bit of luck. I should know, I've made 4 films.
5) Guster was basically her favorite band long ago. The room she grew up in at her mom's house (which remains mostly untouched) has Guster posters and gushy fan notes she wrote them back in the day. Cute.
6) We cover this in the film.
7) We had 550 hours of footage. Editing it all into a single movie didn't make sense. MTV offered releasing it as episodes. That made a lot of sense. As for eating, both her brother and I had full time jobs and used up all our sick days and vacation days and finally had to quit our jobs to keep filming. Kesha pitched in some money to help us put food on the table. It was very very very guerilla filmmaking. A crew of like 4 people.
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More ahead on reddit. Bolded the important stuff
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ATRL Senior Member
Member Since: 8/1/2012
Posts: 27,547
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The thing about her texting her fan everyday is so cute 
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Member Since: 5/12/2012
Posts: 18,059
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I already posted it in Celebria but this AMA made me love her even more
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Member Since: 3/14/2013
Posts: 30,547
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She reads each letter by her fans  That's so sweet  and how he was comparing her to "Star Wars"! She surely is the "magic mixed with silly youthful lusts for adventure"
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Member Since: 5/14/2009
Posts: 34,871
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Member Since: 2/13/2012
Posts: 62,082
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Ke$ha is one of the most beautiful people I've ever known. It's sad to me that people don't know all of this about her immediately, it's depressing almost. Nothing in this surprises me but makes me love her more. She's amazing.
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Banned
Member Since: 3/22/2012
Posts: 26,321
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Let me say she saved my life and then maybe she'll follow me on twitter 
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ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 8/31/2012
Posts: 12,510
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The preconceived notions people have about her are all wrong.
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Member Since: 2/13/2012
Posts: 62,082
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Originally posted by Lil Misty
Let me say she saved my life and then maybe she'll follow me on twitter |
Unfunny.
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