Indie 5-0 with Jeff Hilliard
Jeff Hilliard is a remarkable comedic talent. He’s won multiple awards and worked with some of the industry’s best. His video for “Consensual” won Best Music Video at the Hollywood Shorts Film Festival and his videos for “Mulletude” and “Silicone Wave” won Best Music Video and Production awards at numerous film festivals across the country.
He not only creates funny videos with a provocative point of view on the dark, twisted reality of modern-day society, but he’s also an actor. His film credits include opening Paul Schrader's Dog Eat Dog film starring Nicolas Cage and Willem Defoe. He also played the main antagonist, Officer Banks, in Bernard Rose's award winning film Frankenstein starring Danny Huston, Carrie-Anne Moss, Xavier Samuel, and Tony Todd. Recently, he starred in Traveling Light along with Stephen Dorff, Tony Todd, and Danny Huston.
We got a chance to speak with Jeff Hilliard about his career and his latest musical comedy project, “Abandon,” in this edition of Indie 5-0. So, without, further ado, let’s dive in:
How did you get into musical comedy?
Well as a kid I wanted to be in Van Halen or on SNL. So I created my own version of it.
What does it take to create a music video? What's easy and what's hard? How do you approach it?
Well it takes a lot of money to start with… the easy part for me is coming up with the concept the hardest part is trying to figure out how to pay for it. I approach it by first having a great song then I have to get my cinematographer on board to shoot it, and figuring out how to make it happen. The goal is when we finish shooting it and we are editing it with Bobby Hewitt, it’s difficult because there’s too much great footage to choose from. That’s what I’m always going for…
Your most recent project, "Abandon," features Lee Miles, Bobby Hewit, and Rod Castro. What was it like to work with them?
Lee Miles produced this song and helped me write it along with Jeordie White who did the music. Rod Castro did the brilliance solo on this song Bobby Hewitt edit it and John Orphan what is the cinematographer. Dave Pino play the guitar player in the music video. Lee Miles played the bass player and Bobby Hewitt played drums.
How did you come up with your character in "Abandon"? Is he based on anyone in particular?
We thought I’d be funny to do a shitty 80s metal ballad first Jeordie and Lee did the music kind of based it off of Cinderella meets Def Leppard ballad. Jeordie and I were laughing about ridiculous lyrics and we came up with the shadow direction on the wall thought it was really funny. That kind of took the direction of the song I like to do juxtaposition. Thought I’d be really funny if the song was about an uncool character that lived at home with his mother and had been rejected by a woman after a one night stand.
What does "Abandon" mean to you compared to your other works?
What I really love about “Abandon” is that it’s different from the rest of my music videos. The main character, Dwight, is the most relatable one I’ve made. Everybody knows this person, has been this person, or has had an encounter with them.
Connect with Jeff Hilliard: Website // Instagram // Twitter // Facebook // TikTok // YouTube // Spotify
