Brothers, Bands, and the Role of Relationships in Filmmaking

Smoke machines and spotlights in rhythm with the stomp ‘n holler ballads pouring out of the band. Eclectic as individuals, variously clad in glasses or plaid or paisley or all black, they come together as one cohesive group: The Head and The Heart. This indie folk band plays to sold-out crowds of tens of thousands of whooping, whistling fans all over the country. They sing the harmonies haloed in purple stage lighting, almost larger-than-life when the chorus hits.

And there, in the wings, hidden by the pleated stage skirt, are two men with cameras. Brothers. Kyler McCormick and Kody McCormick bob and weave, frame up profile shots, and capture the humanity of the band, of the night. They’ve been with the band for hours, following their commutes, rehearsal, dinner, and pre-show jitters. The McCormicks know those raw, unmediated moments with a band, any tribe of people, really, don’t come from access alone. They come from relationships, meaningful, durable connections, a practice they’ve been dedicated to for their whole careers.

Getting started

It’s not hard to tell the two are brothers, even on a video call. Noses fill their face in the same way; their lips hold the shape of a joke the same way, too. Though they’ve built a career as partners, the McCormick brothers still play into their roles: Kyler, the mustachioed artist, and Kody, the even-keeled businessman. That’s how it started, after all.

"Kyler was the one running around with the camera as a kid," Kody remembers. "On his own, he started getting offers to do paid work, and the projects got bigger and bigger." So, his older brother hopped in to help. That’s how The Outbound Life, the brothers’ production company came to be. While their work today is more polished, more produced, their work was quite different in the beginning.

"When we started in 2014, influencer marketing was still new, hard as it is to imagine. Clients would ask us to be talent in the videos, and then we would build a whole production around it," Kody said. In one memorable shoot, a camping supplies and RV brand asked the brothers to "Capture the West," which sent them on a 2,000-mile RV journey around the Western United States. The brothers were on camera, exploring the beauty of nature, but they were also filming, photographing, editing, directing, and camping. It’s a lot of plates to spin, but the brothers see these challenges as important lessons in video production, both in front of and behind the camera.

"Everything influences everything else. It’s important to be comfortable with everything you do," said Kyler. "If you’re comfortable answering questions in front of the camera, you’re comfortable asking them from behind it. If you’re comfortable editing, you know how to find and capture great sound bites."

That ambidexterity infused their work with a weighty sense of realism. Whether they were in the wilderness or exploring a ski town in their home state of Colorado, the footage was immersive. That intimate, off-the-cuff work influences their bigger, more controlled shoots today. For both, it’s less about parsing the differences from shoot to shoot and more about taking what they learn and applying it.

"It all applies; experience is invaluable. You cannot replace years on set or in the wild. How the talent is thinking and feeling, how the producer might be antsy, what the editor would want when putting stuff together in post. It’s all valuable," said Kody.

"Everything we work on informs our other work," Kyler added.

The music connection

Indeed, that interconnected stitching led the McCormicks to their latest project, a short documentary about The Head and The Heart.

"A couple of years ago, I was obsessed with music videos, and we ended up working on a few. But I’ve started to turn towards work that’s a little less produced, a little bit more real," said Kyler. "I don’t want to carry around lights everywhere we go."

While the brothers had music on the mind, the Head and the Heart announced an anniversary tour. As long-time fans of the band, the brothers saw an opportunity to dovetail their creative, professional, and personal interests into a single project. They pulled a few strings and pitched the documentary to the band, who, in turn, loved the idea. The brothers set out to build a production schedule, got in touch with partners, like Sandisk, and started sketching out the project.

"We ended up shooting four shows: New York, Chicago, LA, and San Fransico. The tour was bigger, obviously, but we kept the scope small and found a solid rhythm. It’s not like we had to put on a show—someone else was doing that—which let us focus on capturing moments big and small," Kyler said.

Over a series of weekends, the brothers flew out, met up with the band, and captured as much footage as they could. While they captured the venues and the shows, they also found themselves at home studios, ballparks, and the ballet. Ad-hoc, emergent, and indelibly personal, these moments with the band were some of the most important for the project.

"One of the beautiful things about this project is that we’re shooting, editing, everything… We get to work in our favorite moments," said Kody.

Relationship building

Getting to that level of comfort took time, though, and was a principal concern for the brothers throughout the shoot. Sure, they could hide behind the camera and try to capture the band from the sidelines, but that wouldn’t give the project the intimacy it demanded.

"An early point of consternation was that after we had everything planned, we still didn’t know the band. Sure, we were fans and had that outsider perspective, but we didn’t know if we would gel," Kody recalled.

Forging a relationship with the performers became not only a production imperative but a mode of meaning-making. Like any relationship, a dearth of understanding, trust, and companionability would make the work suffer. To document the band, the brothers needed to connect with the people in around it. The performers, yes, but the crew, friends, and family, too.

Here is where their experience as on-camera talent and long-time filmmakers came into play. Navigating the para-social nature of their project, the brothers embraced a slow and steady approach. For every conversation they captured, they had three more without a camera in sight.

"As much as we want to capture great stuff, we want to know and get comfortable with these people. If there’s 1,000 excellent conversations but we can only capture 100 of them, that’s okay," said Kyler.

"The trick is choosing those 100, having your camera ready for those moments," Kody said.

Like silence in a heartbreak anthem, the measured decision to put the camera away and co-exist is what gives the documentary its weight. The brothers were there when the band took a bow in front of 20,000 people, but they were also there earlier, when one of the musicians rode the subway with their children. For every moment that made it into the film, there were another 10 left on the cutting room floor, another 100 ephemeral moments left uncaptured. An endless fount of B-roll means nothing if the connection, the relationship, isn’t there. The brothers know this.

"We don’t just show up with a camera, we’re relational," said Kody.

It’s those relationships that ultimately drive the documentary. They’re at the core of any compelling human-interest story. Who are these people, how do they relate to the world and their own audience, and what does that teach us about life? As seductively intuitive as it sounds, it can take years to understand those elements, even more to distill them into a song or a film.

Just ask the McCormick brothers.