Pop Quiz: Beastie Boys

Pop Quiz: Beastie Boys

Aidin Vaziri | After seeing a fan's grainy camera-phone clip on the band's message board, a flash of inspiration hit the Beastie Boys. Three days later, the veteran rap trio handed out 50 hand-held cameras to concertgoers at its Madison Square Garden show with one simple instruction: Start filming when they hit the stage and don't stop till it's over. The resulting footage, shot in October 2004, was originally intended for a live DVD, but it was so good, it became a concert film that will hit theaters nationwide next week. Catch an advance screening of "Awesome! I F -- Shot That" Thursday at AMC 1000. Adam Yauch (known as MCA in the band, but who inexplicably prefers to go by the nom de plume Nathanial Hörnblower when he's behind the camera), acted as de facto director, whittling down 100 hours of raw footage with 6,732 edits into an action-packed two hours. What was he thinking?

Adam Yauch of Beastie Boys
Q: Are you too cheap to hire a real camera crew?
A: I hadn't really thought of it that way. No, it wasn't really a financial thing. I just thought it would be a cool way to document a concert. I had seen this piece of footage this kid had shot on his camera phone and uploaded onto our Web site. Something about the way it was handheld and all grainy and lo-res, it just felt like it had this energy. A lot of concert films that are shot in much fancier ways, like sweeping boom shots and HD cameras, don't capture it as well. It seemed like an interesting idea.
Q: You got all that out of a camera-phone clip?
A: Yeah, it just kind of gave me an idea.
Q: How did you come up with 50 cameras?
A: I just tried to come up with a number that was in the realm of "a bunch." We were trying to find Hi-8 cameras, which is kind of an outdated format.
Q: How many cameras did you lose that night?
A: None. They all got returned.
Q: Are you totally sick of the Beastie Boys now?
A: No, not at the moment. There were moments during the editing where I needed to take a break.