Shooting HD With Sigur Ros in Iceland

On Location for Heima with Alan Calzatti

When Dean DeBlois (best known as co-director of Lilo and Stitch) got a phone call from the manager of Sigur Ros, the Icelandic music group with the otherworldly sound, he was pitched anything but a conventional music-video project. An all-Icelandic crew had followed the band from village to village last year, photographing a series of performances that would be compiled into a concert film. Main problem was, once the footage was compiled, nobody liked the results. The band was ready to abandon the project when DeBlois — who had been in contact seeking to direct a music video for them — got the call for help.

After looking at the footage, DeBlois decided to hook up with cinematographer Alan Calzatti on a salvage mission. The two of them headed into Iceland and shot about 10 days' worth of new performances and stunning footage of Icelandic exteriors. The new shoot was combined with some of the existing footage with the help of editor Nick Fenton, who managed to draw something coherent out of the material. "Eventually, it came out better than I thought," says Calzatti.

The result is a reportedly stunning, trancelike documentary that combines the band's music with concert footage and awesome landscape photography. Calzatti is modest ("Obviously," he says drily, "we tried to stay away from making it look like a Travel Channel show") but reaction to early screenings is good, and online fan sites are abuzz with anticipation. Watch the trailer, below, then read the Q&A.

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