Sach Baylin-Stern with his Emmy Award | Photo: Antler Films
Four years after his nomination for a Grammy Award, Sach Baylin-Stern, BA (psych.) 06, has won an Emmy.
The accolade is for the Concordia grad’s producer role on indie band Arcade Fire’s slick interactive video, Just a Reflektor, from their last album, Reflektor.
Awarded for Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Media, Baylin-Stern says his Emmy was a “collaborative effort,” with key individuals including Studio AATOAA Director Vincent Morisset and Creative Director Aaron Koblin of Google Creative Lab.
Google Creative Lab, Studio AATOAA and Unit 9 handled interactive aspects and creation of the seven-minute video, conceived by Morisset, and shot in Haiti and Montreal.
Morisset conveyed news of the award before boarding a Montreal-bound jet from Los Angeles last August. “It’s a bit surreal,” says Baylin-Stern. “It was something that I wasn’t expecting.”
“There were a lot of amazing people who contributed to this project,” explains Baylin-Stern, executive producer at Antler, a production company he founded in 2010. Antler was responsible for the video’s live action and film production.
Just a Reflektor is the story of a young woman who travels between her world and our own. Viewers can interact with the film in Google Chrome at justareflektor.com.
Like Arcade Fire’s previous interactive short film, 2010’s The Wilderness Downtown, it’s a remarkable work of digital art.
Antler ran the four-day Haitian shoot, where more than half of Arcade Fire’s video footage was captured three years after an earthquake killed more than 200,000 in the tiny republic.
“Haiti has not rebuilt itself fully,” says Baylin-Stern admitting “there were production questions around the feasibility of shooting there.”
Baylin-Stern, who minored in electroacoustics, enlisted the support of Ciné Institute, a North American-backed Haitian film school, to help bring the triumphant project to fruition.
“I said, ‘We’ll find a solution.’”
Baylin-Stern’s crew — a dozen in Haiti and 10 in Montreal — did. They spent two months’ preparation for the Caribbean shoot.
Baylin-Stern says his Concordia degree played an important role in his latest success. “Believe it or not, psychology was a very appropriate degree for what I am doing. I love creative problem-solving and working with people.”