CASE STUDY

AWOLNATION
THE PHANTOM FIVE

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEREMIAH SCOTT
SET BUILDING AND MODEL CASTING BY JEREMIAH SCOTT
WARDROBE BY RYAN CLARK
”I AM HAPPY” MUSIC VIDEO DIRECTED AND EDITED BY RYAN CLARK
FILMED BY RYAN CLARK AND JEREMIAH SCOTT

Being the five-piece band’s fifth album, AWOLNATION mastermind Aaron Bruno’s idea was to represent the album title with a crew of five anonymous misfits. How exactly to actualize the concept was our nut to crack.

After locking in the smiley-faced “5” icon, and a number of illustrated cover attempts, we decided instead to take a photographic approach. With the band’s iconic “A-N” logo as the centerpiece, we would shoot five kid-sized rebels in matching sweatsuits, Converse, gloves, and paper maché skull masks as they posed on the large wooden structure that they’d presumably built themselves. Were they part of a cult—a street gang—or just neighborhood kids messing around? The mystery behind who these kids were—and why they built the giant “A-N” monument—was the concept itself.

We enlisted our talented friend Jeremiah Scott to not only photograph the scene on his property outside of Nashville, TN, but to build the structure based on our very rudimentary design. Jeremiah’s own kids and extended family members would be our mysterious models.

Directing the photo shoot remotely over Zoom allowed us to ensure we had the coverage we needed without having to be there in person. Instead of attempting to wrangle five kids at once, we decided to shoot one-at-a-time and composite the image in post.

We handled many aspects of The Phantom Five project including overarching direction, branding, vinyl and CD packaging, tour admat, animated and static social assets, lyric videos, merchandise, and a music video for “I Am Happy.”