How we shot the Phoenix video in one take at Loftroom13 with an iPhone and a gimbal — and the one shot that went wrong.

The video for „Phoenix“ was shot where the album was made: Loftroom13, our rehearsal room and studio in Ludwigshafen. No crew, no rented location — just an iPhone 15 Pro Max on a DJI gimbal, with Christian Kurtz operating the camera.

The idea was simple. Stefan walks into the rehearsal room while „Phoenix“ is already playing, crosses the room, and sits down behind the kit just in time for his entry. The viewer enters with him: you meet the band and the room at the same pace he does, in one continuous take.

Only one thing went wrong, and it went wrong in the shot that mattered most. Since Christian Kurtz is behind the camera for the entire video, he had to appear on screen at least once — during the walk-in, as Stefan passes him — or the illusion falls apart. So Christian Jakobi took over the camera for that scene and filmed it in portrait mode. We only noticed in the edit.

Everything you see and hear on The Laydown Road Recordings was made this way: recorded, mixed, produced and filmed by the four of us, without a label.