THE MEETING OF NARRATIVE FILMMAKING AND MUSIC
Watch the music video “Dirty Work” by Titanic
Watch the premiere at the Coney Island Film Festival – Tickets HERE
BROOKLYN, NY | Sept. 16, 2022: “Dirty Work” by Titanic is more than a music video, it is a short film thriller, comparable to the Coen Brothers’ classic full-length film Blood Simple. Titanic, the appropriately named yacht rock Pop-Punk band that recorded the classic cover of “Dirty Work”, is a project created by Brooklyn-based musician/screenwriter Matt Ernst and his long-time collaborator Dave Klym. The band will be releasing an entire EP of 70s-era yacht-rock classics, all recorded and produced in the pop-punk style, being songs that the artists grew to love while growing up listening to AM radio.
Ernst, who is a first-time executive producer and co-director of the video, not only wrote the meticulous screenplay and storyboard but also assembled the all-star group of cinematographers, actors, and lighting directors to make what looks more like a short film you would see in a theater.
The storyline is simple, but with a classic twist at the last second of the video. The femme fatale, Elise (actress Elise Valderrama), and her two lovers, Chris (Chris Pio) and John (former boxing champion, John Duddy) are caught in a feedback loop of seduction, deceit, and murder.
Matt Ernst is not new to the film industry, he has worked for the last decade writing film and television scripts. At one point his original script, Backwoods, had the talents of Julianne Moore, Kristen Stewart, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan all attached. Like so many Hollywood projects, it crashed and burned after two years in development and just a few weeks before the scheduled start of filming.
After subsequent years of developing a series of films and television pilots for little or no pay, Ernst decided to take matters into his own hands and merge his passions for film and music. With the help of his partner, Audrey Costadina (an accomplished documentary producer), Ernst has created a dark vision of Titanic’s cover of the Steely Dan classic.
ABOUT: Titanic is a Brooklyn-based duo comprised of punk rock veterans Matt Ernst (The Bohemian Angels, The Tracys, WinWin, The Cash Registers, The Sparkles, Tee Tee Summer) and Dave Klym (Itch, The Mike Plume Band, The Populars, The Tracys, WinWin, Tee Tee Summer). Playing and touring together for years Matt and Dave share a love of yacht rock and have long dreamed of reimagining these smooth AM radio classics as hard-driving pop punk.
