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| Ben (above) and Julien Decaillon earned a 2012 MTV Video Music Award. |
Two of Oakland University’s “filmmakers-in-residence” just earned a 2012 MTV Video Music Award for Best Visual Effects for their work on the Skrillex video, “First of the Year (Equinox).”
Julien and Ben Decaillon, known professionally as the “Deka brothers,” have travelled from their native France to spend a year at Oakland, offering expertise and professional experience to students in OU’s cinema studies program.
The Deka brothers, along with the video’s director Tony T. Datis, took the VMA award from a field of nominees that included Katy Perry for "Wide Awake," Rihanna for "Where Have You Been," David Guetta featuring Nicki Minaj for "Turn Me On," and Linkin Park for "BURN IT DOWN."
“It's great to win this award,” said Ben. “Of course, we are sharing this award with our friend Tony, the director, and the rest of the crew. The work they did on set was tremendous, so it was easier for us to know what we had to do to create the visual effects. This particular video was produced with the energy and the motivation of the crew and I think it shows in the final result.”
For the music video, the Deka brothers provided the post-production work, including conformation, visual effects and color grading. To view the award-winning video, click here:
mtv.com/artists/skrillex.
Officially, the brothers began their work at Oakland this January, and will continue through the end of the year. However, the Decaillons have been including OU students in their work since 2010 when they first began to collaborate with filmmaker Michael Mannasseri on projects based in Michigan.
Along with Mannasseri, the Cinema Studies program’s third artist-in-residence, the brothers provide hands-on film and video training, professional mentoring, workshops and also help students earn professional work and internship experience on music videos, commercials and feature films.
“On every one of our Michigan projects with Michael Mannaseri, we bring OU students on board so they can gain a real understanding of what it's like to work on professional film sets,” Julien said. “It's a terrific opportunity for them to work on these kinds of high-profile projects that get millions of views worldwide. And from the students' perspective, these are what I would call "cool projects." They get to see very specific creations, both artistic and technical. I wish I would have had that opportunity back when I was in school in France.”
The experience shows, as several Oakland students have already graduated into paid roles on film shoots, and have expanded their networks into the professional realm. The brothers have introduced many opportunities for OU students, including recent work for another Skrillex music video, “Make it Bun Dem.”
“We'd like to thank Michael Manasseri, Andrea Eis and Kyle Edwards and all the people involved in the cinema studies program at OU who brought us in to be "Artists in Residence" this year,” Ben continued. “We're in a terrific environment to be creative and to continue exploring new ideas as artists. We really support the energy of the people involved in the creation of this program. We think it's a terrific program for students.”
For more information about OU’s cinema studies program, view the website at
oakland.edu/cinemastudies.
