What a weekend. We shot a great music video!
After as much creative discussion as is possible over the course of 3 days with director Ryan Spencer, we developed a plan; Jason Haberman and myself both spoke with Ryan on the phone to help develop the concept and execution of the video. Jason took care of getting us our locations.
The Basic idea of the video was that, Breezy, an east coast guy, somehow and for some reason is on the west coast in Los Angeles for a day; somebodies girl had a crush on him and the Goons are hating on him for it, when they see him they chase him and since there is 4 of them he has to run, each time he runs, he manages to get away as he has a series of escapades, including going to a party and being the life of it. This video has day shots, night shots, action, comedy, romance, drama and SWAGGER; oh and it also has Planking and booty dropping. Breezy is a cool guy, I see him as a mixture of Will Smith, Scottie Pippen, Shock G, Bugs Bunny if Bugs bunny could do a 360 Tomahawk slam dunk while simultanously mackin on a P.Y.T.. AND, himself because I don't know if somebody could be a mixture of all those people (and cartoons) without being an original dude. I liked the idea of the goons chasing him because I thought it would be funny to have a personality like Breezy involved in this action stuff without being interrupted from having a good time.
The "Goons" that were chasing after Breezy were played by rappers Skeem Price, The Real Yung LA, D2ce and Rich Damone. I have to say that the guys who played the goons did a GREAT job! They really did.
I got to Jason’s house at 3pm on Saturday, the day of the shoot. My truck was loaded with equipment from AGrip.net that we would be using. Without notice the land lord decided to rip the front yard out of Jason’s house and put in a new front walk-way; the cement was drying, the location had character for what we were about to do. To walk into this location in the daytime you might not think much of it in terms of it being a music video set, but I knew that when the night came, the lighting we were going to do was really going to bring this place alive.
Jason and Ryan both arrived seperatley followed by Breezy, our Goons and some other people. Breezy hung out in the staging area that we set up where he had a completive game of basketball on PlayStation 3. Breezy is actually a 6'7 High School state champion basketball player, so it was cool to see him go in on some playstation basketball against another formidable competitor. It is funny to me, how many elite basketball players that I have seen sit in that same spot at jasons house, on the couch and play basketball on playstation 3.
Jason and I began to calibrate the Steadicam. This was the first video that we used my new Steadicam on. We have done lots of testing but this was the first official music video and I think it came off really good. We have 3 guys on our team who can quickly adjust and set up a Steadicam.
Our Thugs arrived and were hanging out, Ryan was talking with about their role as thugs and their motivation, as well as the psychology that goes into being a Thug, The "actors" really released their inner thugness in our video.
We decided to take a walk to the liquor store and start shooting the first scenes of the video. Jason and I walked with Breezy and filmed him talking on his cell phone. The sun was somewhat setting so we had some magic hour happening as we walked through this quant neighborhood. The Steadicam was working great, we worked our way down the street and filmed Breezy talking about how he kinda stole some guys girlfriend and he didn't mean to, then we showed all 4 thugs roll up on Breezy in a car. Ryan took the hub cabs off the car to make it more thugtastic. Our shots were filled with action and this part was a lot of fun to shoot even though it was a little hectic because the sun was going down fast and we wanted to make sure that we got everything we needed. We also had a huge old lady in a moo-moo complaining to neighbors saying that we needed a film permit to shoot even though we were just walking through the neighborhood really fast getting a couple shots; some people have no life.... We filmed a great shot, where Breezy is running and jumps over a fence as the thug car rolls up on him, then he runs through a neighbor’s house in order to escape the goons...
Meanwhile, in REAL LIFE, The actual party was starting back at the house, and lots of party people were starting to arrive. I started setting up track and dolly in the house and doing the lighting set up that we wanted. The party really started to get jumping and we brought in the main girl and Breezy and filmed a party scene in the house. We ran through different lenses and when we were done, I went outside and set up some lighting for the party scene that Jason and Ryan could use to get B-Roll shots of. I used a pink Gel on one of the lights that would mostly serve as a backlight and then I used white light coming from the other direction so that I could establish defined areas of white light and Pink Light. We used the fog machine outside and it looked really great when it was backlit by the pink fog. After I had set up the lights outside and got Ryan and Jason started on their B-Roll footage, I moved back inside and did lighting and camera support set up that looked the other direction in the room. I framed up a nice wall that had wooden paneling. When we were ready, we filmed Breezy and the party from that angle. But before we shot that, we shot the entrance of the goons into the party with the steadicam. It was getting hard to control the party people because they were starting to get kind of inebriated and very merry. I made a walk-way for Ryan to walk through with the camera as the thugs walked into the party; I wanted a wall of fog backlit by the pink light for them to walk through into the white light where they would make their grand entrance. We got a couple takes of this until.. The Police showed up!
The Police shut our party down; fortunately we knew all along that if the police showed up after we had gotten a substantial amount of footage that would actually be a good thing because the presence of the police at the party is actually talked about in the song. We got B-Roll footage of their cars. Then we moved inside and filmed the shots that I had set up with the remaining party people.
We filmed on Sunday night as well. This was the first time that I have used my new 2000 watt generator. We did some really fast and good portable lighting set ups with this unit. I was very happy. When we were done with did car mount footage that looked awesome over by LAX airport. We needed a location to film a performance scene of Breezy and the girl; Ryan, Jason and I drove all around looking for a good location, we decided to use the train station by Jason’s house. We needed to get in and get out before security or the police shut us down. I took only the equipment that we would need. We drove to the location and then Jason and Ryan parked in a parking lot and jumped into the back of my truck, we rolled over there and Ryan directed Breezy where to park the car. Jason and I set up the generator and the lights then we set up the dolly track. We began getting some beautiful dolly shots that incorporated the train arriving and departing in the background. I really loved this footage. When we were done, Ryan put on the steadicam and filmed some cool run around footage in the train station.
Even though this music video was scheduled a week in advance, Ryan did not know exactly what the budget was, or receive the song until 3 days before we shot the video on Saturday... for a last minute music video, Ryan, Jason and Myself really came together to make a strong music video. It was a lot of fun working on this project.
We showed D2ce (who played one of the goons in the video) the music video today and his draw dropped as he muttered something about this video being on 106 & park.
Right now I am sitting here next to Ryan while he works on his laptop, Jason is at his editing desk doing match moving on the video and putting titles in. Today is Wednesday and this video is basically done. Really be on the lookout for this music video.
