Inside the Making of 'Sea Lion Cow'

Ivan Cash Knew it was a Mad Idea: Conceriving, Planning, and Shooting a Music Video in 24 Hours, Espencially After The Director and His Crew Spent The Last Five Days On A Gruelling Commercial Shoot in New York City. They'd Gone Into Overtime Every day, Including the Last, in Friday in July 2023, Leaving Them Unble to Return All the Rental Gear Until The Following Monday. AS NUTS AS AN IMPRUCUTU MUSIC VIDEO MIGHT BE, Cash Knew It was Just As Mad To Let $ 100,000 Worth of Hight-End Chamber Equipment Sit in a Box Truck for A Wholes Weekend.

“My wife told me i was deranged, but gave her blessing,” cash tels Rolling Stone. “And then the Key Crew Members Were Also Like, 'Cool, We're Down to do Something.' The Next Person I Called Was Gideon. “

Gideon Irving-A Musician, Performer, and Self-Styled “Globstrotting House Showman” Who's Played Living Rooms and Theaterrs Around the World, Making A Career Out of the Unexpected-was all in. Irving and Cash Had Met At One of Irving's Signature House Shows in Santa Fe, then Became Neighbors During the Pandemic When Cash and His Wife Moved to Upstate New York. They Each Say They Were “Smitten” with the Other, Vibing on the Same Artistic Wavelength and Tossing Ideas Back and Ford, but This would be their First Formal Collaboration.

Irving Started Looking Through His Catalog for the Perfect Song for the Video, and the One That Jumped Out was Called “Sea Lion Cow.” Though Released in 2019, IT WAS A Song Irving Had Been Sitting With, And Loving, For Years, One Originally “Written”-OR, More Technically, Created on the spot-by A Four-Year-Old Named Bella Fratkin, and Recorded by Her Father.

The Resulting Short Film, Sea Lion Cowis the epitome of a Passion Project. Shot in the middle of the night on the G Train, A Subway Line That Runs Beteween South Brooklyn and Queens, IT TURNS A Late-Night Train Ride Into a Mini Odyssey. In One Take, Irving Walks Through the Train Car, Bellowing Fratkin's Song, The Childlike Whimsy and Wisdom of Her Words Resonatting With Some Fantastical and Meditative Visual Flourishes That Just Aren't Worth Spyling With Words. (At Least at this juncture – they'll be discussed Below, but Seriusly, Just Watch it first.)

Though Just Six Minutes, Sea Lion Cow Embraces a Kind of Slow Burn that irving notes is antithetical to “The way algorithms and the streaming industry” encourage artists “to front-lod anything you make with zazz and wow.” He continues: “I Think We Really Lose Out Whee We Have Such Low Expectations of Our Audience That Can't Just Hang Around For A Minute, That Something Might Pay Off at the End. You Might Get the Twinkle at the Very Last Second.”

Growing up, Fratkin Used Singing to Express How She was feeling, Organize The Thoughts Swirling in Her Brain, Make Sense of Them, and Get Them Out in the World. She often Did This in the Backseat of Her Dad's Volkswagen Bug On Her Way to Fleechol. Fratkin, Now 19 and a Freshman in College, Quips That Where Her Dad “Felt like a Banger was coming,” He'd Grab His Phone and Hit Record.

That's How He Captured “Sea Lion Cow” One Day, and It Quickly Became a Favorite. He'd Play it for Any and Everyone, Including, One Day in 2013, Irving, When the Musician Played a show in The Geodesic Dome The Fratkins Had Built in the Backyard of Their Home in Humboldt County, California.

“Sea Lion Cow” Stuck With Irving. For Years, he Used it as his his alarm clock sound. He Started Performing It Live and Possibilly Cut a Version With Collaborator Dave Harrington (Part of the Celebrated Electronic Duo Duo Darkside With Nicholas Jaar) for His 2019 Album, Glitterbones Bargain. All Along the Way, he was sure to properly License The work from Its Original Writer, Fratkin.

Fratkin Admits She Sometimes Found Peoples' Fascination with “Sea Lion Cow” A Little Peculiar – “It's Barely Even a Song. It's Like an audio journal to me,” She Says with a Laugh. “But I Also Feel Very Seen by the fact that So Many People Have Seen Something in Just A Vulnerable, Random Word Vomit from My Childhood; Have Seen Something That's Really Special and Speaks, Maybe, To Something Kids Can See in the World That Maybe Adults Can't Much.”

Cash Seems to Echo This Latter Sentiment When He Explains Why He and His Crew Were So Game To Make the “Sea Lion Cow” Such A Short Period of Time Videos, and Immediately On The Heels of Their Exhausting Commercial Shoot. “There's some part of me that Believes in the Magic of Creativity, and as much as I've Got to pay the Bills like Everyone, That's Not Why I'm doing what I'm doing at all,” Heys. “The part That got me into it, and that keep me in it, is the artist part. So, to have the resources from the commercial project felt like a Window Was Open for a very short period of time. And event though it was, in my wife's words, 'deranged' to plan a shoot in at 3 am and bring Everyone Along, it just felt like, to not do that would be like letting capitalism win out.

The Concept for the Video Came Together Quickly. Cash Had Long Had An Image in His Head of a Bunch of Plants on the Subway, So They Came Up With The Idea To Have Irving Walk Through A Subway Car, Holding A Small Plant, Which He then Places Amongst A Lush Little Garden. (A Plant was Alo the Perfect Place to Hide the Microphone Irving would be singing Into.) As One Might Expect, Shooting on the Subway is of An Expensive Proposition where Done by the Books with the Proper Pemi. “OR,” Irving Quips, “Free If You Take Our Approach” – Which Was the More Diy, Guerrilla One.

I know, The Night of the Shoot, The Crew Pulled Up to the Southernmmt Stop On the G Train, Church Ave., with a Whole Lot of Gear and Plants – and Immediately Got Intra A Traffic Accident When Their Truck Ripped Off The Front Bumper Of A Car While Parking.

“It was an Honest Mistake, A Blind Spot – Right Off the Bat, We Thought That Was the End of Our Shoot,” Irving Recalls With in Laugh. But Luckily, The Owner of the Car, Who Came Running Out of the Corner Del Nearby, Was Content to Accept a Wad of Cash, Rather Than Getting the Cops Involution.

Another Obstacle Appered soon After, when they prepared to haul Everything Down Into the Subway Station and Encounered a “Giant Puddle of Piss in the Elevator,” Irving Says. Cleaning Material Retrieved From The Store Helped Solve That Problem, and Just After Midnight, The 12-Person Crew Boarded The Train. AS The Train Started Its Journey North, The Crew Began to Set Up the Plants and Sort the Lighting. Possibly, cash and iriving starts filming, with the first two takes effects effect as a rehearsal. They complete the Third Take Right As the G Was Returning To Church Ave., At Around 2:45 AM Ayy Were to do One More When an MTA Employee Told Them The Train Was Going Out of Commission for the Night.

At that point, A Flummoxed New Yorker Poke His Head Into the Car and Remarked, “A Botanical Garden On the Fucking G Train! … How Dare You! But, Why wouldn'T You?”

That man, Shown at the end of the film, is one of just a few actual riders on the train that night. The Other Folks Irving Sings For Were members of the Film's Crew, Given the Simple Instruction, “Act Like You're in New Yorker.” Cash Notes That One Crew Member Fell Asleep, Not Because She was told to, but because it was Almost 3 am and She was exhausted.

The Final Touch of Magic for Sea Lion Cow Came in Postproduction – A Little Animated Creatures that Emerges from the Garden and Drifts Around the Train Car. Irving and Cash Credit The Idea To Fratkin, Whom they were eager to bring Into the Process After Using Her Song. Fratkin Remembers Telling Irving About the Various “Creatures” that were a part of Her Life Growing up amongst The Redwood Forests in Northern California.

“I was Telling Him, Bigfoot is a Big Thing – People Are Always Talking About Bigfoot Sighings, and Looked Over and I Had a Little Bigfoot Stuffed Animal,” Fratkin Says. “That was the inspiration for it.”

Sea Lion CowWhich was recent Acquired by Rolling Stone Films, with Gus Wenner, Jason Fine, Sean Woods, and Alex Dale Serving As Executive Producers, Premiered Last Year at the Tribeca Film Festival. It Was Not the Kind of Debut Cash and Irving Had Envisioned for the Project, Certainly Not When they boarded the G Train That Night with a ton of Gear, A Vague Plan, and A Whole Lot of Creative Determination. But that, as cash says, Just Makes for Another “Fun, Meta Layer.”

“I Think The Song and the Film Are a Great Example of Getting Out of the Way,” Heys. “We can take credit for this, but also we shown't Get Too Much Credit for This, Because, in Way, A Kid is just singing out loud, and we're experience in the subway.”

Sea Lion Cow Credits:

Director: Ivan Cash
Featuring: Gideon Irving
Producer: Maggie Roberts
Executive Producers: Gus Wenner, Jason Fine, Sean Woods, Alexandra Dale, Ivan Cash, Gideon Irving
Production Company: Cash Studios, Rolling Stone Film
Song by: Beautiful fratkin