Watch This: Indoor Creature Follows Ben Franklin in “American Dream”

Indoor Creature's music video for "American Dream"

When brainstorming visual concepts to accompany Indoor Creature’s forthcoming video, drummer Travis Kitchen brought up L'Argent.

The 1983 French film tracks the tragic, far-reaching aftereffects of a counterfeit bill. Under a much goofier guise, the video for the local six piece’s “American Dream” follows a U.S. $100 bill – first magically created in a wacky science lab, then stolen, then gambled away, and eventually pocketed by a landlord.

A bummer ending fits the contagious track, a contrast in breezy grooves and darkly satirical lyrics off the band’s 2021 album Living in Darkness.

“I was writing about how American culture embodies wastefulness and not caring about community, but there’s a million takes on that as a sad song. So, I wanted to make this dance-ier and upbeat,” says lead singer Caleb Fleischer. “For the video, we kept asking ourselves, ‘How do you pass around money in 2022?’ For most people we know, if they won 100 dollars, they would be like, ‘Oh, this is going to rent this month.’”

Indoor Creature collaborated with director Bita Ghassemi, a film graduate of UT Austin and founder of the production company Pillarboxed. Behind the smooth red-white-and-blue imagery of “American Dream,” the team also included director of photography Tiger Hill and editor Ellen Culver.

“We really focused on telling a whole story in three minutes,” says Ghassemi. “Yeah, the money in the video came from a corrupt place, but you never know where it’s coming from in the real world. In the end, most people in America are just trying to pay for their basic needs.”

The director met bandmates Fleischer and Kitchen some six years ago in a musical Austin Community College class called “Rock Ensemble,” taught by former Spoon bassist Josh Zarbo. After the pandemic sent Ghassemi home early from graduate studies in China for the prestigious Schwarzman Scholars program, she linked with the band to create their last beachy video for “Ocean Blue.” The filmmaker has also worked with Texas acts like Splash Daddy, BluMoon, and PNTHN.

“Music videos have allowed me to experiment with different tones and sillier styles of filmmaking, whereas my narrative work is a lot more serious,” adds Ghassemi. “I’m Iranian-American, so I like to portray a lot of Persian stories onscreen. As a side note, when we were making ‘American Dream,’ I kept thinking about how as a 26-year-old woman in Iran, I would not be able to do what I’m doing. This is my American dream – I’m able to do what I love in this country, however broken the systems may be.”

Suited onscreen crooner Fleischer confirmed that the stacks of cash tossed around are indeed movie magic fakes: “I just have a lot of those bills loosely around my house now. Someone will come over and grab one like, ‘You can’t just leave this out!’ I’m like, ‘Take it man. It's all yours; I’m generous.’”

Check out the Ben Franklin-packed delight below, and catch Indoor Creature April 9 at Empire Garage with Australian act Vacations.