AGrip's new Jib

As many of you know, I have been putting together my own Jib system for quite a while.

I wanted a Jib with a remote head that I could put together very quickly, speed was the key to my Jib ambitions. AGrip is a cinematography equipment provider that is well rounded, I have all of the equipment that you will need to achieve an amazing broadcast quality product. The Jib that I have built allows me to set it up super fast so that if need be I can go ahead and set up lighting as well.

At 10' the jib is a decent size and the remote head can be over or under slung which makes a big difference on the heights that this Jib can achieve. Also, the speed rail mitchell riser is adjustable and can be used to raise the jibs fulcrum which gives you even more height. The crane consists of, a 4-wheel steering cheeseplate dolly, an adjustable speedrail mitchell riser, an Intel-a-Jib and a Jimmy Jib Lite remote head. I have put together a couple custom parts to make this work, the entire system can be set up in 5 minutes; to put that in perspective, an 18' Jimmy Jib takes most operators over an hour to set up... That means that I can bring this jib out, set it up, get the shots, then move on to another location. Also, since this jib uses a 4-wheel steering dolly as the platform, it can easily be moved to different spots in your location. Jibs without electronic remote heads are still cool but I think that a good remote head puts you in a completely different world and the remote head that I have for my jib is totally awesome. This remote head is ideal for DSLR cameras however it definately can handle larger cameras. Depending on what lenses you are using, I am preparing this remote head to work with Red Epic cameras.

I just love this jib and I know that it is going to make a great visual impact on many of your videos.

In order to inspire some ideas about what kinds of shots that you can do with this piece of equipment, I have provided links to some cool jib shots in music videos. Check it out:

J. Cole video for Work Out. The very first shot in this video is a Jib shot. This location where J. Cole is performing infront of the chain link fence is intercut with lots of other footage from the video. My Jib is ideal for these shots. The shots that are being intercut with the Jib shots, you can get with my Steadicam. Skip to 1:13 to see some cool Jib shots looking down on J. Cole and his girl, they are sitting in lawn chairs. This was a great way to utilize the location that they were at. All they needed for this cool shot was lawn chairs, an ice chest, a boombox and the Jib. Colorful drawings on the ground give this downward looking shot even more character. As you can see the Jib was the key to this video.




Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg video for "Ain't Nuthin but a G Thang": Skip to :24 seconds to see a great jib shot that I call the "party arrival car roll up, camera jibs down" Also, Skip to 3:32 to see a subtle but classic jib shot that I call "The dazed morning after the party jib down on the car roll up"




This next video is "Still D.R.E." by Dr. Dre Feat. Snoop Dogg.. One of the main pieces of equipment that is used throughout this video is a Jib just like mine. The entire video is an example. There is a lot of car footage that you see in this video, some of it is shot from a vehicle that has a jib crane mounted on it, and other footage is shot most likely from a vehicle that is filming with a Steadicam. For the footage filmed from a vehicle with a jib mounted on it... AGrip has this underway, I already have the mounts installed in my truck and though I haven't tested this out yet, I am capable of doing these shots. However we are going to need permits and insurance to use this equipment in the locations that you see in these videos. As far as the steadicam stuff... I have a steadicam that you can use for those shots. I also have Car mounts, and night time lights w/a generator to rig into the car. AGrip can literally be your one stop source to make a video JUST LIKE THIS ONE and I ain't playin witchoo: (note: if you make a video exactly like this video, you might be a biter, its cool though, we all copy what we love to some degree):



This next video is, "California Love" by D.R.E. and Tupac. Skip to 1:23 to see a great Jib shot, I call this the "Jib down on a sign that is the entrance to the party." Also in this same video, if you Skip to 1:43 you will see a variation of this classic shot that I call the: "Jib down on a sign that is the entrance to a party with hot babes walking by and throwing their hands up cus they ready to party".



This next video is "Ice Cream" by the Wu Tang Clan. If you start at the beggining of this video, soon you will see a lot of great jib shots. Skip to 2:03 and keep watching for about 10 seconds and you will see one of the most creative music video jib shots around. I call it the: "Jib down from a guy performing on top of a ice cream truck to a crowd and then another guy walks out and performs and you film him performing too." Daaaaayuum this shit is creative! This is a great way to go vertical with your video, and have two layers that you can seemlessly flow together without making a cut. Claaaassiiic. (hire aaaagrrrrriiippp if you wanna be faaamouuus)




Next video is Snoop Doggy Dogg - Who Am I (Whats My Name) This is another video that has quite a bit of Jib shots in it. Skip to 1:15 to see a great shot of Snoop Dogg performing on the roof. Watch this entire video and you will see that they got great performance shots of Snoop by incorporating Jib shots of Snoop on the roof, from a couple different angles. In some of the shots, they have the crane on the ground and they film up at snoop, in other shots, it looks like they may have moved the crane itself up to the roof where they get other angles; in editing they combined it all and it is a very dynamic performance. This type of roof top performance filmed from a Jib is its own thing; I call it the "Dude performing on a roof filmed from a Jib". Also, they did some Jib shots in this video with a crane that has a "Dutch Roll" kit on the remote head. You can see an example of a dutch roll shot if you Skip to 1:32. I call this shot the "Guys performing infront of a car filmed by a Jib that has a Dutch Roll kit on it." At AGrip, I do not currently own the Dutch Roll kit, oh but I will. If you hire, I might just buy it for your video.
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On an un-jib-related note: Skip to 2:33 to see a creative shot that simulates the POV of dogs running, this was filmed with a Steadicam in "low-mode".. I have a steadicam so I can do this shot too.



Arrested Development - Tennessee. All time classic music video. Skip to 3:01 for a shot that I call the "Jib up from the guy on the porch to the kids chillin on the roof". Damn thats intense. Also Skip to 3:01 for a cool Jib shot that I call the "God's view from Heaven", although the technical term for this shot is "Jib up on a lady singing".



Gym Class Heroes: Stereo Hearts ft. Adam Levine: This video has lots of jib performance shots in the street mixed with other footage, they are using the dutch roll head on the jib and getting creative with shadows:



Adele - Chasing Pavement: This video has a couple shots in the beggining from a high angle that may have been done with the jib locked in place, the high angle helps to frame the scene with the car in the background and the people. Skip to :51 to see the first great Jib shot.. What you see is the Jib arm getting a high angle view looking down on the people laying on the sidewalk. Dirty in the frame you see leaves from the trees; these trees are important to the shot because they give the shot a dynamic element as the camera slides over to the left, if the trees were not there then the shot would not have been as good. To achieve this shot, I have tree branch holders that can be attached to C-Stands and put tree branches, fake or real in place. I also have track and channel wheels that I can put the entire Jib set up on, I can lock the jib in place and then do that subtle dolly move in order to get this wonderful shot. This video has a lot of subtle but great Jib moves. Skip to 2:33 to see another example. Skip to 3:29 for another great Jib shot that was effectively used to bring this video to an end with a nice cadence.



Busta Rymes - Look at me now: This video is not a very Jib intensive video, however Skip to 1:35 to see a really cool string of interesting shots that utilize a Jib. Is that not awesome how they made Busta Rymes intro even more awesome then it would have been! I love it!
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On an un-jib related note: The fog that you see in this part is a mixture of fox machines, 1 of the fog machines is a regular fog machine and I have that, the other one is using a "fog chiller" for the heavy fog that is flowing down the stairs with Busta, I have that too. Infact I have everything you need to make this video.




If you have any favorite music videos that have cool Jib shots, please share them with me. Email me at: adamunruh1@gmail.com or talk to me on Facebook.

Heres some links to a few more cool Jib shots:

Cool shot of some babes, this could be good music video footage to cut in:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7oJCxzRrqM&feature=related#t=00m23s

This trailer has a lot of jib shots:
http://vimeo.com/9856236

This has a cool shot of the car going down the street then turning and coming back at the jib:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0elbsnRGVZM&feature=related

This crane probably has a dutch roll head on it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8CVG3lN3NM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr_XVyt393s&NR=1

Brad "Breezy" Hunt shoot for "Drop it like an 808"

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.

Upcoming music video, this Saturday for Brad "Breezy"

This is the link to the new blog entry about the making of this video: Brad "Breezy" Hunt shoot for "Drop it Like an 808"



I am gearing up right now to shoot a music video on Saturday for the artist Brad "Breezy" Hunt. He is the same kid that I filmed a couple music videos for, about 3 months ago or so. Breezy has flown to LA from Virginia and he is getting ready to shoot this video now.

Ryan Spencer is directing this one and we have been running ideas quite a bit for the last couple days. This is a super last minute project.. Ryan only got to hear the song about 4 days before the shoot, even though he booked me for this well over a week ago. I had my ideas and visions for the song and I shared them with Ryan; I think it is important for me as a lighting/grip/camera support guy to talk to a director with ideas about what we can do so that they know what is possible to do with the equipment that I have, we might not actually do the ideas that I propose in the video but it at least gets their mind stimulated and gives them an idea of what is possible.

Our editor for this project will be Jason Haberman, we might be shooting at Jason's house for this shoot and I have a lot of ideas for some cool party set ups. This is going to be a great shoot. I anticipate using my steadicam, as well as my new 2000W generator, maybe car mounts, fog machines... a lot is going to go down on this video so stay tuned to this Blog.

JNatural Feat. Medusa - They Want Sex

Call 310, we need an Emergency Music Video!

JNATURAL FEAT. MEDUSA - THEY WANT SEX from WHAT310 on Vimeo.

It was a sunday. I normally work weekends but on Saturday of that weekend, I rested. Now it was sunday and I had slept in an hour or two. I was hungry and I was on the move. I was in my truck headed to McDonalds for an egg McMuffin, then I was gonna come back to the house and take a shower, and then probably lay in bed for a while and daydream about what kind of story I wanted to write that day. All of a sudden, phone rings... Its Jason Haberman a.k.a. What310 on the line.. He says "man, what are you doing RIGHT NOW!" I said.. "uuuuhhhhhhhhhhh, going to get an egg McMuffin?" he said "bro, this chic called me up, this is an emergency! Her video guy flaked, she needs us to make a video, I told her I would do it if I could bring my lighting guy.." I said "yo, talk money..(note: I didn't really say that in real life) Jason said "she threw in your cash for the budget, you in?!"... I was like "uuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhh, (I like to kick it and have days off but chillin is overrated) So I said "WEON homay" ... he said "alright, can you be there in an hour?!?!?!" An hour?! Daaaym, this was really an emergency; I pictured Jason running with a camera bag and a boom box, possibly sliding down a firepole with his girlfriend, Neysa, already in driver seat of the car, with the car running while jason ran and jumped headfirst into the backseat through the open window like on dukes of Hazard as Neysa did a burn out U-Turn... anyways, I was like "oh mannnn, ..... Alright i'll be there in an hour!!"



We talked about what equipment we would need, it was just gonna be a simple simple kit. I ended up going and getting that egg mcmuffin, then coming back and getting a shower, then loading the truck; I didn't forget the sun block. Then, BAM hit the freeway, rollin on the I-5 north into downtown LA, got onto the 101 and then got off on Rampart, etc. etc. Parked the truck right next to the house we were going to shoot at. We got set up and put on our sun block. We were kickin it, waiting for the artist "Medusa" to arrive. I was talking to Jason's girlfriend about Bald Eagles.. then Medusa rolled up in her custom wrapped colorful hip hop van with her mohalk in full effect. It was kinda tough to park that van on the super steep front yard; I helped drive that thing into position with my van driving man skills. The boom box was hooked up, the girls were ready, the water hose was flowing, the camera was rollin', dolly was goin, I thought I saw a samoan, etc. etc.

a few minutes later, those shots were done. Then we filmed Medusa and JNatural drive by in Medusa's crazy colorful wrapped Van. BOOM, we got into our vehicles and drove down the street to a spot in Downtown LA. It was a cool little hair salon slash/vinyl record store; this place was really cool, it had a lot of vintage style.



I parked the truck close and we unloaded real fast. I set up a couple lights and then I set up the dolly and track outside, first we got the roll up in the van shot, then we moved inside. We filmed both of the girls pretty quickly, the longest part was when the make up artist was getting JNatural's new look ready for the performance scene. The indoor Salon stuff went really smooth, then we packed up the gear in the truck, filmed a couple more things outside, and then, ThAT WAS A WRAP!.

I really liked this song and I think that, for an extreme short notice video, we did a pretty good job. Jason edited this video and had it uploaded... that night!

WOW. I think we SH(#$d on that other camera guy whoever he was... hummmmm. anyways, it was a fun little video and a fun little day. I hope everybody enjoys our video!

Music Videos that are coming soon!

How to work with an editor to keep your project out of the vortex by AGripRentals

The Music Video for "Cus I Got Tatoos" has just been released! Watch it in Full Screen and let it load first. "Sayne" has changed his name to "Ryan Pinky" since we shot this.

Ryan Pinky ft. Ben Frank "Tattoos" (Official Video) from Ryan Spencer on Vimeo.

Sayne - Cus I got Tatoos


This music video was a lot of fun to do. We shot this in Newport Beach. It’s a good song and I think we made a cute video. We had some really pretty girls for this video and we used a Tattoo parlor for our day interior. Also what is notable about this equipment is that we filmed a performance scene of a guy riding a Bicycle with my Bungee Cam set up for the truck. We also filmed on the pier. This video had to be cut short because we could not get together for the 2nd day of shooting so we ended up turning it into just a couple verses and choruses; I am hearing that this idea is actually working out maybe for the better and so I am very excited to see this video.





THE PLANET ASIA MUSIC VIDEO TITLED "BAR SEASON" HAS JUST BEEN RELEASED:


Planet Asia - Bar season
Bar Season is a video that I did quite a while ago. The artist was very happy with the video and they were saving it until they do some other videos so that they can steadily release all of them. I think that this is likely to be the best video that they will be releasing in their string of videos, watch their other ones though so that you can form your own oppinion! Ryan Spencer directed this one and the video was taken to What310 for editing. Joe Dilag was our DP and Camera operator and he was a good guy to work with. I built a special china ball and Pipe Boom Kit rig in order to get some fill light for the patio scene. We used a lot of AGrip tricks on this video despite it being filmed in such a short amount of time. I have actually written a blog about this video that you can find HERE if you would like to read about the behind the scenes of this shoot in further detail.

If you like this music video, buy a T-Shirt from the clothing company who sponsored it: ESBE Clothing Company.




THE OPEN MIKE EAGLE VIDEO TITLED "BRIGHT GREEN LIGHTS" HAS JUST BEEN RELEASED:
Watch on youtube: http://youtu.be/1OhobMZupEA


Open Mike Eagle - Bright Green Lights
I shot this music video on Thursday night. We shot in a very small apartment in Downtown LA. It was a little hectic to shoot this because we had to adapt to our change of location but I think we shot some really cool stuff here! I used my fog machine in this as well as my Kino Flo Break out kit that I put together for the 4Bank Ballasts... the Kino Flo tubes on the floor around the guy back lighting and up lighting the fog looked really cool. We also used a 650 Fresnel overhead with some diffusion on it for a key light. Originally we had planned to use a high hat sitting on the table to film "that 70's show" type pans on the table top, but we had no table to use! We ended up stacking some milk crates to the desired height and then ratchet strapping the high hat to them so that it would be secure. In post-production our editor Jason Haberman did some slow zooms. The second part of this video was filmed that night as well, outside of a warehouse in El Segundo. For this part we used my 12'x12' Green Screen and a classic truck as well as some cool ladies who came out.
At first it was really stressful making this music video because the first location was tricky to get into and I brought too much equipment that all needed to be hauled up 5 flights of stairs, I got a lot of help though and we all had fun making this music video. I really enjoyed making this video and it is probably one of my favorite music videos that I have done. I just like it a lot and I want to keep going and do MORE!




Original Blog
I have been VERY busy with AGrip for the past 3 months doing lots of rentals and music videos. Since I started AGrip 4 years ago, I have never had a quarter like the last quarter of this year, where I have had so many music videos in post-production or finished and waiting to be released. They are really starting to pile up.

This is a list of the music videos that I have done that I can remember, that are waiting to be released to the public:



Pusha T feat. Jigg and Breezy - See about us
This video is finished and is waiting to be released. It was filmed at Atomic Studios in Los Angeles on their big green screen cyclorama and White Cyclorama. I really like the song that this video was for.
I saw the finished video and it is really hot. The editor that was hired for this is from Aspen Colorado and he took a very very long time editing this project but it does look pretty nice. This video was shot with a Jib and the same remote head that I now own which is for DSLR Cameras with Canon Lenses. This remote head can handle focus/zoom and Iris control of the camera. I can't wait for this video to come out. This is probably the biggest video that I have done that is completed and waiting to come out, and that I am including in this list.

Breezy - Young Love
This is another video that I shot around the time that I shot the Pusha T Video. Breezy is an artist featured in the Pusha T video that I did which is called "See about us". Breezy is a young guy from Virginia who is pretty talented. He is 6'7 and was on a state champion basketball team; he got a scholarship to play for Stanford but he can do more then just play basketball; musically he is very talented. This video was directed by Ryan spencer. Ryan directed 3 Videos that were part of a packaged deal for the artists Pusha T, Rashon Jigg Perry & Breezy; out of the 3 videos this "Young Love" video is the Directors favorite one. I think that this is a really cute and fun video. We filmed this music video mostly around the venice beach area and on a green screen as well. The music video was edited by my partner Jason Haberman.
Jason did a great job cutting this music video and he also did some very stylish and impressive green screen compositing. I can't wait for this video to come out. Notable AGrip contributions to this video are: The dolly moves with the girls in the park; also we used my 8'x8' checker/ultrabounce lame scrim to get fill light onto the girls and on Breezy when he is infront of the hot dog truck. I really liked the jib shots that we did in venice beach infront of the "Pink's Taco's" truck with Breezy and the girl playing his young love. This video is cute, laid back and has a lot of style.



Rashon Jigg Perry - Love Show
Rashon Jigg Perry is a big time up and coming artist. He can rap, sing and perform but he can also make some really great beats. Rashon is actually the guy who made the music for the Pusha T video that we did which is called "See about us". This music video was shot in a night club in San Diego.
It was a very stylish night club and we shot in quite a few different rooms. This video came out really nice. We did not have very much time to shoot in this club and so I think the collection of gear that I brought worked out pretty well because I was able to rig track and dolly as well as slider movement and lighting in quite a few different locations of the club so that the production could move from room to room without having to wait for set ups.





Suni Blac - Kiss of Death
This music video is for King Suni Blac and the main video was filmed in 1 day, with B Roll and pick up shots filmed on a second day. The song was sent to me by the artist, Rashad McCants and I got some visuals in my head of how I imagined it. I hired Jason Haberman to direct this video and Ryan Spencer to film it as well as myself of course, doing lighting grip and Camera support. This video came out like I wanted it to, it is very clean. We chose a rooftop in West LA which had a nice view of the sky scrapers in downtown LA.
Then we carried some straight track and the dolly up there. Near the ledge we put down some full apple boxes and had Suni Blac stand on top of them so that we could have him be higher and we could get a framing that was clear of the ledge in the background. We filmed him performing from the track and dolly. He was wearing a white blazer and it really popped against the sky. we filmed another performance part of him on the tile roof that was close by as well. Then we moved down to the truck, and we set up the car mount on his Black Mercedes. We also went to downtown LA and used the sunlight in the background as well as B-Roll of the city and the trains. This video came out really chill. I like it. Stay tuned for this video!

Focus - Married to the Game
This is the most recent music video that I have shot. We filmed this in a popular night club in LA.
We did not have very much time at all but we got some cool dolly shots and performance scenes in the club. The idea for the lighting was to use lights gelled purple to light up the back ground and then have a regular tungsten light for the key light on the artist. We also shot in Hollywood that night with the car mounts. We used quite a few car mount configurations and we used a somewhat shallow depth of field for these night time car mount shots. We lit up the people in the car with my LED Lite Panel lights. We are shooting another video for the artist "Focus" this coming Sunday 6/19/11.


There are a lot more music videos in the works but as you can see, I have been busy so stay tuned to my facebook page and to my blog and you will start to see all of these videos drop.

Discussion about the Production of Dr. Dre - Kush Music Video

Tube look by AGripRentals

A friend of mine (Dir. Ryan Spencer) posted a music video on my facebook page and he said in the caption:

"Just when you think you are getting good at directing, this comes out"..

The video that he was reffering to was the new music video by Dr. Dre, which is called "Kush" ft. Snoop Dogg & Akon.

This is a link to that music video:
youtube.com/kush

AGrip has the Grip, Lighting & Camera Support equipment to make a video for you that captures a lot of the great elements of this video.

For the purpose of this Blog, please open this video in another browser window so that you can go back and forth between watching the video and reading what I am saying about it. I recommend watching the entire video all the way through right now.....

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You may have to watch this video a few times to pick up on the clues of how it was made. There are some visual effects in this video and while I am not a visual effects expert, I have done quite a bit of work with Green Screen and compositing and so I can offer theories as to what is going on. Mostly I want to address the look of this music video. Getting the look that you want in your music video is really what AGrip is about.

BTW, I love the song for this music video; it is difficult to do a great music video without a great song and this beat is as hard as they come.


I will start the video and immediately pause it at :03 to take a look at this frame. I see Dr. Dre holding the lighter. I know that he is sitting inside of the Lamborghini. I would estimate that this was shot with a pretty fast lens with a longer focal length that was wide open. There is a key light hitting Dre from camera left. I think that this is a Tungsten source, obviously with a Gel on it. I am not exactly sure which Gel this is but it looks like it may be a Lee Mallard Green 325:

cinemagadgets.com/mallardgreen325


Whatever Gel this is, it looks like it has a low transmission percent, which basically means that you will need a pretty powerful light in order to punch through it. They were probably using about a 2000W Light. As I let the video play for a few more seconds, I see the camera dolly back and the door opens. I see that there is a light in the car shining onto the interior passenger door. I think that this is artistically a cool look because Dre is a certain color in the forground and the inside of the same car is a different color. I really like this seperation, but what kind of light are they using for that? I think that this light is a kino flo bulb, 2 footer, with a gel tube sleeve on it; if it is a kino flo bulb then they probably took the bulb out of the fixture and have a harness and ballast cable running from a ballast splitter to just this bulb. AGrip can do this kind of lighting because I have the Kino Flos and I have the ballast splitters, etc.

Here is a link to the Kino Ballast Break-Out Kit:
cinemagadgets.com/breakoutkit


Also, at around :06 seconds into this video, I do see some kind of a light specifically hitting Dre on his hand. this is a red light comming from somewhere in the background... I honestly do not know what this light is... Whatever it is it is extremely focused and tight. I think that this light might be a lazer... It seems like it is not very bright for a Lazer but they may have controlled the intensity of the light by going really far away with it. As the camera dollies back, and I am still at :06 seconds, I see that the Lamborghini seems to be very dull, the paint on the Lamborghini is not glossy and reflective. I am not sure if that is the paint job of the Lamborghini, but I think that what most likely happened is, they used dulling spray on the Lambo. It looks really cool. Also at :06 I see a tubular looking reflection in the passenger window that could be a clue that the light in the back seat of the car is infact a kino flo tube. Lets watch some more..


Now that I am at :08 seconds, I pause it. My theory of the dulling spray is more apparent now I think, because I have never seen a Lamborghini that had a Matte finish on a few of the body panels but not all of them. I see that the fender on the passenger side of the Lamborghini has a glossy finish. When they applied the dulling spray, it looks like they were careful not to put any on that fender; to me it looks cool that they didn't put it on that fender because it gives the car a more dynamic look for this shot. Another thing that I notice at this point is that there is a kino flo bulb underneath the car. I think that this is probably a 4' bulb, and I think that it is probably straight tungsten, no gels.

Pressing play again, if you look really closely, just after :08 seconds, in the driver side floor of the Lamborghini underneath Dre's feet, you can see a tubular light.. that is a 2' Kino Flo bulb with a gel tube on it. Also the light beside the passenger seat that is lighting up the door looks like a 2' kino flo.

When we cut away from Dr. Dre in the Lambo, we get our first look at a visual effect that is the main effect in this video. What we are looking at, at about :11 of the video, is a mini cooper car, people standing around, a girl smoking, etc. The lighting, first of all, is mostly motivated by 4' Kino Flo tubes on the foor, which are causing cool and unusual shadows. The visual effect that we are seeing is something called "Bullet Time"... Bullet Time is the effect that was developed for the movie "The Matrix".. the name, Bullet Time, is actually trademarked by a company that specializes in doing this effect. The effect is achieved by placing lots of identical cameras on a path, ussually a rail (in this video it is probably a curved rail a lot of the time), the cameras are hooked up to controller software that synchronizes the their photography. This is what you have to do in order to pause the motion and bring a camera view around because it would be impossible to realistically move a camera that fast. Also, it is impossible to put that many cameras on the path... so the companies that specialize in "Bullet Time" use software that helps them blend frames from one camera to the next. This is high end cinematography.

The Bullet Time shots that are in this video are composited together with footage that has been very carefully shot and lit in order to maintain continuity. Also, some of the "Bullet Time" shots, I think are immitation bullet time, which is basically, where everybody just stands still! Some of these, you think you are looking at Dre in Bullet Time, but then he starts moving! It can be hard to tell but watch the video closely and try to detect if you are seeing real Bullet Time or immitation Bullet Time.

Watch closely to see the differenet layers of video plates that are seemlessly composited together.

Having explained "Bullet Time" a bit, as I press play and watch more of this video I see the overwhelming amount of compositing and bullet time that was artfuly done. This video has a high degree of awesomeness.

As we see Snoop Dogg get out of the car, we see his foot step in water and in extreme slow motion there is a splash; this was filmed with a Phantom High Speed Camera. We also see things like, Fog that is backlit to make it pop (AGrip can bring Fog machines to your shoot, and backlight them too). We may be looking at 3 plates for a second when Snoop gets out of his car, I think that 3 plates are: the building in the background on 1 plate, the car and smoke with snoop dog and the kino flo bulbs on the ground that you can see in the reflection of the car as another plate; and the girl spilling the martini (This plate has had the "Bullet Time" effect done to it). I am not sure if the building in the background and Snoop Dogg are on different plates though...

At about :24 we see Dr. Dre Performing at a party on the streets downtown, with lots of pretty girls around and exotic cars. I am not sure if Dre was really there for the filming of any of this footage, but I can tell he was composited in, in certain parts. I do believe that the director of this shoot did a good job putting this party together. He brought out a couple of grip trucks, with generators. I think that there are some big, soft sources overhead; this is one thing that makes me think that Dre was not really there because it doesn't look like he has a soft source over his head. Dr. Dre may have been standing amidst a bunch of 4'x4' Floppies to keep all that light off of him though, but I doubt it. The soft source overhead at this part (:24)could be a Lighting Balloon that they flew up there. AGrip has the "poor man's" version of this, that I have built and can bring to your shoots.

My current version of this overhead soft source, is 2 big 15' long Pipe Boom Kits that are wired with China Balls, 6 of them, all hooked up to Dimmers to give you some control of their brightness. These can set up quickly and be placed in a few locations to help provide a little fill light for your night time outdoor party scenes.




Of course.... The lighting trick that really sets this party off, as well as the whole video is OF COURSE, the 4' Gelled Kino Flo Bulbs that are placed around on the ground! It looks really nice. Dre is being hit by a Gelled Hair Light, maybe a 1000W Fresnel that is boomed out on a Telescoping Baby Boom. Dre is also getting some uplight from Camera Left, maybe from a Gelled Kino Bulb.

At :27 we see a dolly shot moving past cars with girls leaning on them. We can clearly see the Kino Tubes in the shot. Dre walks through an alley of cars. This is a great shot that the director came up with to mix in with the Performance footage. It looks like Dre has been composited into this plate becuase the people seem to be in "Bullet Time" while Dre is moving normally. The Director of this video was careful to get the same dolley movement on both the Plate, AND Dre who was probably walking in a green screen studio.

As we get towards the Middle of this video, again we see a major theme in the cinematography of this video, which is, Kino Flo bulbs taped and mounted in creative places, and often times low to the ground sending light from their unusual shape onto the pretty girls and artists. One of the things about this lighting is that, the shape of a Kino Flo bulb and the quality of light that it puts off, is something that you will never see in nature and in the wild. That gives this lighting style a very dream like, otherworldly tone. The way that it is uplighting people is really cool and is something that I have done a lot of experimenting with and love to do. As you watch this video, try to notice all of the Kino Flo tubes that are placed around in different spots; so cool.


At 1:40, we see Snoop Dogs performance scene. The lighting is cool in this room of the Club. 1 of the things that stands out here, is the table infront of Snoop with the drinks on it.. This is a glass table, lights are placed underneath the table and gelled an orangy color which really gives the table an eary and cool look. As the Camera moves on a dolly movement, we can see the dynamic element that these objects being placed in the forground of the shot, provide. Of course Snoop is not in Bullet Time, and most of the people around him are. That is cool. This club section of the video is just a collage of Bullet Time shots and it looks like they had a lot of fun doing this.

The coolness in this video starts to become startling and overwhelming, Especially as Dre is driving in the Lamborghini. I do recognize him driving over the 6th st. Bridge which I have shot cars on before and it looked amazing when I did it. Also I see him in Tunnels in LA that I have shot in. There is a compositing trick at play here to make the Lamborghini be mobbin through the city the way it is. We also have Aeiral Helicopter shots.. super cool.... Indie Aerials is a good contact for those types of shots. They charge about $525/hour. Not a bad price I think. You could probably get some effective footage in the LA area for about $2,000.



Anyways... What a great video and song. Hopefully after having read this Blog entry, you will have learned some valuable things; and know that you can hire AGrip to achieve the look in this video, or you can rent the equipment that you will need in order to get this look and many other awesome lighting schemes from AGrip.net

Yung LB Shoot w/What310 and Andrew

This Blog entry is for my music video shoot on Sunday April 10th 2011. The name of the Artist was Yung LB. This video was directed by Jason Haberman and the Camera Man was Andrew "Stretch" Patterson.

I have embedded the video that this blog entry was written about, onto the bottom of this Entry; please scroll down and enjoy the video!



Jason Haberman, AKA What310 contacted me a week in advance to ask me if I would be available to shoot this video.

Jason has a cool website that he put together, check it out:
http://what310.com/

Feel free to contact & hire Jason. He is a very professional person who will make a great asset to any project and team.

We were planning on doing a 1 day shoot, multiple locations, mostly outside. That meant that we needed a minimal amount of equipment and we needed the gear to be fast. When I shoot with Jason he likes to incorporate a lot of movement into his videos, also, he wanted a cinematic feel for the video which meant that we would not be doing any hand held shots. For Camera support I brought Track and Dolly, as well as a Speed Rail Camera Slider.



This is a complete list of the equipment that was used on this shoot: (All of this equipment is available for purchase at www.cinemagadgets.com, and for rent through myself at AGrip.net)


Camera Support:

3x 6' Lengths of Straight Track
1x Channel w/Wheels
1x Cheeseplate Dolly
1x 8' Speed Rail Slider w/Low Boy Stands and Full Apple Boxes
1x Special AGrip Car Mount Kit

Lighting:
2x Diva 400's with Tungsten and Daylight Bulbs
1x Arri 650W Fresnel

Grip:
5x 40" C Stands
2x Baby Light Stands
6x 20Lbs. Sand Bags
1x 8'x8' Frame
1x 8'x8' Silver/Ultra Checker
2x 4'x4' Breakdown Frames
1x 4'x4' Ultrabounce
1x 4'x4' Black/White
1x 4'x4' Highlight
1x 4'x4' 1/2 Soft Frost
2x 48"x48" Floppies
2x 48"x48" Gel Frames w/Opal Diff
2x Furniture Pads
5x Stingers

This is about the least amount of equipment that I will use on a music video shoot. In the morning at 7:30AM, the truck was loaded and ready to go. I got in the truck and headed west towards Inglewood/El Segundo which is where Jason lives. When I got to Jason's house, Andrew was already there. Jason's place has a cool vibe, he has a shack behind the main house where he has his room set up. He has his editing work space set up there and even though the space is somewhat small, it is really cool how much utility this little room provides. Jason's work space is somewhat coastal and close to the beach, so the weather is always nice over there; it has a laid back, beach feel. Whenever I go over there I feel like I am in a place where we are about to get serious about doing some Art; and we do.



This morning was no different; I came in and sat down on the couch next to Andrew as he was going through the Camera equipment, showing me what lenses we would be using. Jason was talking about some things and we were listening. These are two of my favorite guys to work with, because the environment is laid back and yet we are all very serious about doing our best. When it was time, we went to the vehicles and headed to the first location. We headed to a really nice neighborhood and house in Palos Verdes, near the Ocean. I backed the truck up as close as I could get it to the house to make unloading easier.

Quickly we unloaded 2x sticks of track, the dolly, wheels, 2 Divas w/Daylight bulbs, and some stingers. The house we were shooting in was very nice and had wood floors. We laid down Furniture Pads to protect the floor and then we laid our track on top of that. The light stands that I use have rubber feet. I used an all daylight Diva near the window to supplement the light coming from that window and to also give a slight amount of wrap to the artist that we would be filming who was waking up on the couch in the living-room of the house. For a fill light I used another Diva from camera right, with 3 daylight bulbs and 1 tungsten bulb. Since this light was coming from the interior of the house I wanted it to be slightly warmer. We set up a dolly shot. While Jason and Andrew were filming this scene, I went out to the truck and quickly set up the camera slider. When we were ready, Jason and Andrew helped me carry the Camera slider into the house and we moved quickly and set up a scene where the Artist goes into the restroom in Pajamas and then comes out in his nicer clothes. Because of the smaller space, we filmed this part with the Camera Slider.

The owner of the house was present while we were shooting and she was very attentively watching us. She was a nice lady and she asked us if we would like to have a shot of the best Whiskey ever. Now, normally I would obviously never drink on set! However she was showing us the bottle, and the Whiskey had been aged for 25 years and came in a wooden box that looked like it cost about $100. She was adamant that this was the best whiskey ever and so Andrew and I decided to oblige her and try a shot. She poured it for us and we said cheers; I smelled the whiskey and sure enough it smelled amazing; Andrew and I took the shot. While I do not know very much about liquor, I have had some whiskey in my time and I know that this went down really smooth. It was really good. Not only was it good but for about 5 minutes I was thinking, "wow... that was good..." She asked us if we would like another shot.. but we said no thank you. She was a very kind host.

Then we moved back out to the living-room and filmed a couple more things, as well as a performance shot just incase we would need it. Jason and I find that, at certain times in a music video shoot, once you have the equipment set up, it can be a good idea to go ahead and run through the entire song a few times and capture a performance scene because you never know what is going to happen with the rest of the day. Since the equipment is already set up, you can give yourself some REALLY valuable insurance by just conveniently shooting about 10 minutes of performance.

Just before Jason and Andrew began filming the extra stuff in the living-room, Jason went outside to the driveway with me, where we had a very nice Range Rover that we would be using for the video. Jason thought about what angle he wanted to get and then he told me where to mount the camera for the Car Mount shot. We only planned on using 1 Car Mount angle for this music video and I think that Jason chose an angle where he could not only get good shots of the Artist performing, but he could also get nice shots of the beautiful scenery that we would soon be filming as we drove to the beach. Honestly, this car mount shot could have been better, but this was not a video that afforded us the time or budget in order to get it exactly how we may have wanted it.



I finished setting up the Car Mount and then I went back into the house and watched as Jason and Andrew finished shooting the performance scene. Then the 3 of us carried the equipment out and loaded up the truck. We used the slider briefly to film something with the truck and then we mounted the camera onto the Car Mount, got into our vehicles and headed to the Beach!

The drive to the beach was beautiful. As I followed the Range Rover I had the familiar feeling of filming music videos with my Car Mounts, where I just hoped that we were getting great looking footage; I hoped that the exposure was right and that the camera was still recording.. There is always something to worry about when you film car mount stuff, while you can do your best to perfect a system, in the end there is a degree of luck to getting beautiful car mount shots.

When we got to the beach we parked and then carried the slider rig over the railing, we filmed a performance scene near a bluff. It was a beautiful location. The slider made it possible for our lower budget, run and gun production to get cinematic looking shots in a hurry. We used a few longer focal length lenses for this part.





next was lunch!
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Then, we drove to Long Beach with a small caravan of people. We filmed inside of a Restaurant. Lighting was tough. We ended up turning on the house lights which were florescent tubes that happened to be close to daylight color temperature. This was lucky since it helped get more ambient light into the location.



We used the Divas with daylight bulbs and put them as close as possible to our actors. The restaurant had tinted windows for walls but the sun was bright compared to the light levels inside. We ended up making it work. We filmed with the Dolly and the slider, we even used a longer lense for B Roll shots of the Lunch. Then we packed up and moved on.

We headed to our next location which was a Skateboard shop. We were going to do some cool stuff there.. unfortunately.... PROBLEM. Even though the owner of the shop told our Producer that he was going to be there, he flaked. We needed to go to plan B. We had a talk outside of the skateboard shop about what we were going to. We ended up deciding to go back to the house and shoot the last scene of the Artist performing and hanging out with his friends by the pool. I knew that we needed to leave quickly so that we could get there at the right time with the sunset. When we got to the house, we moved quickly. We set up the dolly and a lighting set up. It was simple but it worked.