I Am Heath Ledger Page #6

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command he was of everything.

Heath was a one-man

force of nature.

He would do lights, the colors,

the texture...

He would help

with the choreography.

It was super important to him

it wasn't a dance video.

It couldn't be something

you'd seen before.

Sun is burning

I was just amazed

at his prowess with the camera.

Like, he was

calling out numbers

and, you know,

and apertures and the angles.

He had command of his vision.

With hopes

of better days to come

It's a morning yearning

Morning yearning

He proceeded to make

the best music video

I've ever had

in my 23 years

of making music.

Morning yearning

The Morning Yearning video

was shot at this place,

Little Radio, downtown.

Had a soundstage,

not too big, not too small.

They had a pirate radio station.

They'd do underground shows

for underground bands,

and it was just on the edge.

The place had a photo booth,

and we took a bunch of photos.

He was constantly

revealing the next cool thing,

but, I mean, I should've known

about Little Radio, you know?

That's my business.

Morning yearning

It's a morning yearning

When I saw the Morning

Yearning video

for the first time,

I thought to myself,

this guy is going to have

a lifetime behind the camera

as well as in front of it.

Heath decided that he wanted

to establish his moviemaking

company with me.

All the people

that he had met,

Matt was one that he trusted

and he'd actually learned from.

The fact that we decided

to do this together...

I think a big surprise

to a lot of people, actually,

to the people that

Heath was doing business with,

people that were offering

him deals at studios.

When it was time to get

an office for The Masses,

we made sure

that it'd be a place

where Heath could

maintain his privacy.

We didn't want anybody to know

that this was Heath Ledger's

new office.

He would enter through the back

on his motorcycle,

of course,

cloaked in his helmet,

and it was like being home.

"The Masses" is a cool name

because it's not meant

to be exclusive.

Everyone has the capacity

to tell their story.

And they had

the whole floor of a building.

You knew as soon

as you walked up those stairs,

you were going into, like,

the hubbub of creativity.

Heath had a little slogan,

and that was "Keep It Real."

To do something surprising,

mess up the frame a little bit,

to not be so symmetrical...

To try something.

Our profound love of music

encouraged our idea

to have a music company.

I work with bands.

I direct music videos,

and I run

a small independent label,

The Masses, and it's with

a whole bunch of my friends,

who are all just young creators.

My friend, Grace, she'd been

doing just some recording,

like, very basic kind of

like solo recording

in her bedroom...

My dad wrote four words

on a tiny piece of paper

These are the stages

you'll go through

And I emailed him and I said,

"How cool is my friend?

Listen to this song of hers,"

and, literally within,

like, 24 hours, I get a reply.

Acceptance will come too...

"She's amazing.

Can you put me

in touch with her?"

and I was kind of a bit, like,

"What? Oh, yeah, okay. Sure."

Or for that matter, rewind

And though you said

that time was blind

Now you're in a place

that only exists in my mind

Literally a month or two later,

she was on a plane to L.A.

He went very quickly

from hearing her voice

and wanting to get her

into a recording studio.

Ooh...

I knew

that it was still

a young company, The Masses,

and I almost feel like,

in a way,

they almost weren't

prepared for it either.

It was like one minute

we were emailing,

and the next minute,

a 17-year-old girl

from Australia

is on their doorstep

with a guitar.

I got a call from Matt Amato

asking if I could come

to the offices of The Masses.

I was gonna be having

a conversation with Heath.

"Yeah, she's here

for another week,

and we wanna make

a whole album and a video...

And she has some of the songs,

but not all of them."

I was down.

"Let's just go do it right now."

Heath styled it,

he found the locations,

he storyboarded it,

and I would just say,

"Yeah, that sounds amazing."

I just trusted him.

I just knew he had this vision.

What we ended up doing was

kind of developing her songs

and kind of just improvising.

Heath was very much a part

of those sessions

with Grace and Carlos,

and, I mean,

he financed it himself.

Heath came in one day

to come and listen

to how it was going.

We were working on a song.

We wanted a male vocal in there,

and he was there,

and I was like, "Why don't you

do whatever comes to mind,

like, just have

a couple of takes

and see what comes out,"

and Heath got all nervous,

but he just...

he almost became a character

in that moment.

Wheels keep on turning

Oh no

And he just

took on this persona,

and he had this, like,

incredible deep tone.

Dee dee dee dee

There she is,

going through the door,

teardrops falling

from her fingernails.

She's hiding, gone forever,

somewhere

in a California dream.

Afterwards, he was like,

"Is that okay?

Is that all right?"

I was, like,

"Of course it is."

I'm outta my mind

- He could do no wrong.

I don't know

where I'm goin'

There's not enough time

Yeah, the wheels

keep on turnin'

I would describe Heath's energy

as being absolutely limitless.

He was tapping into

something completely different.

That was just him.

He just had too much energy...

Too many thoughts,

too much to do,

too much creativity.

When you feel that good,

you don't sleep.

He spent so many hours awake,

it was like he was 50...

Based off living, awake years.

The stories I hear

from all these different people,

I'm like, "Man, he did that

with you too?

He used to call you

at this time?

He did that?"

How many people

was he like that with?

We talked so many times a day,

you know, on the phone,

if we weren't in the same city.

If something

caught fire with him,

he would hit me

in the morning with an idea,

and he'd become, you know,

mildly obsessive.

Midnight, one in the morning...

and this was land lines,

you know,

in the day of like, you know,

when people

still had land lines,

so it would be that loud, like,

ring!

It's Heath.

Like... "Hey, man,

can I call you at, like, eight?"

Or he'd show up for breakfast...

show up at, like, six.

He'd be waiting

outside my house

at 5:
30, 6:00 a.m.,

ready to go.

Like, literally,

not a text, not a phone call...

Just "I'm at the gate."

He'd crash our breakfast.

He never slept.

He never re...

His email...

His email was

l'llberunningaround

at something something

dot com...

and he always was.

You always wonder

if people sense

their own mortality.

Certain people

have that power...

and if anybody did, it was him.

Talked about Nick Drake,

a musician that he was

absolutely passionate about

and wanted

to tell his story,

how he died

and his process

of creating music.

It was all about Nick Drake.

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