Coachella Parent Company Threatens Filmmaker with Lawsuit after Making Recap of Frank Ocean’s Set

Saying Frank Ocean’s April 16 Coachella set got mixed reviews would be an understatement. Originally meant to include an ice skating rink performance with backup dancers, the one hour and 20-minute long fiasco instead only saw half-hearted singing from Ocean, where he only stood on stage for half of that time.

Later in the week, it was revealed that plans changed once Ocean broke his ankle riding a bike before his scheduled performance. Ocean would eventually cancel his Coachella Week 2 set due to this.

So, in order to encapsulate what it was like to be in the crowd for Ocean’s Week 1 show, which was his first live performance in over five years, renowned filmmaker Brian Kinnes released The Rebuild Cut. Putting together clips taken by dozens of festival attendees, The Rebuild Cut gives multiple angles and perspectives of Ocean’s set.

Although many of those who watched the set live insisted it was a disappointment, Kinnes’ film aimed to show the good and bad parts of the show, which he expressed in a statement to American Songwriter on Monday (May 1).

“As I started stringing the 2023 set together I developed an aesthetic idea of portraying the show as if you were watching from hundreds of different perspectives all at one time attempting to create a version of the performance as an experience,” Kinnes wrote. “There was something fascinating about the range of positive and negative reactions to the show that I felt I could absorb into my film by including all these different perspectives.”

However, after putting out the film on YouTube and his website on April 25, Kinnes received a cease and desist letter from AEG, Coachella’s parent company. In the letter, they demanded that Kinnes “remove and destroy all audio and video content of musical performances from the Festival,” clarifying that “anything short of full compliance with this demand will lead to the initiation of immediate formal legal action.”

Immediately, Kinnes took the video down, even though he spent nearly 80 hours working on it. Although he is not going to provide any more links or files of The Rebuild Cut to anyone, he is aware that others may already have possession of it and could distribute it without his permission. But, he does not feel like that is his problem, considering he did everything AEG asked of him.

“AEG sent their cease and desist hours after the film was released and I have since removed my uploads of the film from the internet and will no longer promote any way to access the film,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned it no longer belongs to me and does not exist online.”

AEG’s gripe with Kinnes is mostly over copyright, considering the video clips display Coachella advertisements and a performance that was not made available to non-attendees. Curiously, YouTube did not air Ocean’s set, even though it live-streamed Coachella performances for every other artist from both weekends.

To err on the side of caution, Kinnes has since consulted with a lawyer and feels good about his current standing. After all, he did not profit from the release of The Rebuild Cut and never intended to. Instead, he made it as a passion project and hoped to compare it to a similar movie he made in 2017 for Frank Ocean’s set at FYF Fest, which was Ocean’s most recent festival set before 2023 Coachella.

“I was inspired to make The Rebuild Cut because I wanted to improve upon the ideas I created working on my 2017 version for Frank’s FYF performance… Crowdsourcing footage for a film like this which I’ve labeled as a ‘found footage concert film’ is just a matter of knowing where to look and moving quickly. I started ripping footage from Twitter as Frank [Ocean] was still on stage then spent the next 24 hours nearly glued to my computer grabbing any footage I could find as it was uploaded across Youtube, Twitter, and TikTok.”

Although Kinnes and Coachella/AEG did not see eye to eye on the matter, Kinnes is still a fan of Frank Ocean and believed his 2023 Coachella performance was a special moment.

“My message to Frank Ocean would be this: There is indeed beauty in the chaos and I believe I captured that,” Kinnes said. “Thank you for being the uncompromising artist you are.”

(Photo by Josh Brasted/WireImage)