Country Western Music Video: "Time to git yer Twang on"

2nd time using the AGrip Jib on a real shoot*

On October 15th I shot a music video for Doni Flanigan. Angelo Costa hit me up to do this shoot. Some of you may have seen a prior blog entry where I talked about a night of shooting at a country western club for Donnie’s video with Director Angelo Costa; this was day two of the "Git Yer Twang On" shoot. Angelo got a sweet location in Norco at a guy’s house who was a country western and history aficionado. He had some cool things on his property like a saloon, a small stage to perform on and a barn; he also had old frontier wagons and a cool water tower and fire pit. Everything was miniaturized and kind of a facade. During the day the place looked pretty cool but I knew that at night it would be really great because we would control the light in order to only light up what we wanted to light up. Unfortunately this place did not have a lot of power so we had to bring generators. My 2000W Generator put in work on this night and was ran to its capacity. We also had a 6500W Generator.

This was the 2nd shoot that the AGrip Jib has been used on. Angelo and I talked in advance about using the jib for this and Angelo actually came over several times to practice using the Jib. I contacted Austin Ahlborg about being my Jib assistant.

The day of the shoot we gathered at the location in Norco. I began setting up the Jib with Austin. Angelo set up some Par Cans on the stage to light up Donnie’s performance on the stage. We began doing test shots with the jib while the sun was still up and we began to devise a plan while we listened to Angelo’s thoughts on what he wanted. The plan was to have Donny drive up in a really cool classic country western looking truck, as we jibbed up, he would get out with his girl and they would walk through the crowd up to the stage where he would begin performing with a band. Like I said, power was tough so we ended up using the 2000W generator on the back side of our set, and the 6500 on the front side. We didn't want cables running all over and also since we were using the Jib which had much wider areas of perspective we needed to hide the lights more than usual. We came up with a system and we also got the fire pit going. We used full CTO on one of the lights that was lighting up the water town and that worked because it mimicked the color from the fire. We put up a key light for the truck and a backlight as well. I wanted to use half CTO on the backlight in order to separate it from the key light and I knew that the fire would motivate the warmer color. We side lit the stage and the crowd with a powerful light with diffusion on it. Things were ready, we practiced the jib move and it looked great. Angelo operated the jib for this, we did a few takes to get the truck roll up and have Donny get out.

We filmed Donnie’s performance on the stage and it was pretty good. It took some work getting the crowd into it, we had a nice crowd and they were dressed to fit the occasion and there was lots of pretty girls; unfortunately some of the guys were tired or something and were not ready to "Get their Twang on". We had to move some girls to the outside of the crowd to get an illusion that this was a really intense crowd. The set looked great with the saloon and the par cans that were gelled different party colors, with the red barn next to the stage. While Angelo was getting the Jib shots with Austin spotting him I began to set up the Steadicam and some lite panel lights. As soon as Angelo was done He strapped on the Steadicam vest and I grabbed a c stand arm and a lite panel and we moved into the crowd for close ups. We made some pathways in the crowd for Angelo to move through. The scene was already lit but we used the lite panel in order to get that little bit extra exposure and I tried to keep it somewhat frontal and subtle. I tried to notice where Angelo was going to go and then I would move there where I wouldn't interfere with his movements, then I would aim the light and not move it. I tried to keep my light not moving as much as possible so that we could cut around the lighting changes. This was a largish crowd and this is intercut b roll footage so we were not too concerned about big changes in the lighting. We moved all around getting cool shots of the band, Donny, the crowd, girls dancing. It was great. It was great to be able to use the Jib the way we did and then move in with the Steadicam. Some shoots, you need to move fast and this was one of them and we moved fast and got great product. I like this style of shooting. I wouldn't shoot every video in this quick up-tempo style but i think it is great to shoot maybe half the videos I do in this manner.

When we were done with that location we moved people over to the bonfire area, a lot of people were sitting in a large circle around the fire. This scene was already lit for us as we did our major lighting in the begging in. We did the same thing with the lite panel that we did for the crowd performance stuff. We ran around the outside of the circle and the footage looked great, very dynamic as the people were moving by the frame in the foreground with the other side of the circle moving the other direction. We ran around the circle and then ran through a gap in the circle up to Donny who was sitting there with his girl.


All in all it was a fast and simple shoot with a lot of energy and the footage looked great. Everything had a lot of character because of the sets and our jib and Steadicam movements and also you could tell that people were having fun.

This is going to be a really great little music video and I can't wait for it to come out. We have a really good editor for this and Angelo is giving him the cream of the crop footage. Stay tuned for this video, I will post it on this blog and when I do you can say to yourself before you watch it: "It’s time to get my twang on"

Like Mike video, Dir. Wes Beard

On Sunday October 23rd I shot a music video for Mr.Extravagant. This video was directed by Wes Beard and produced by Greg Whitehead. Greg hit me up a week in advance and booked me to shoot that Sunday with the AGrip Jib. Greg also rented a slider and some bounces and frames from AGrip. The song that we were doing the video for was called "Like Mike" and it was about how the artist wanted to be like Michael Jordan. This was a cool song that kind of reminded me of the same vibe from that classic Kurtis Blow song called "Basketball". The vibe was relaxed and it was just about how fun basketball is. I always loved basketball so this video was a lot of fun for me.

This was the 3rd official shoot using the AGrip Jib. I wrote a blog entry about my Jib that you might be interested in here: http://agripdotnet.blogspot.com/2011/08/agrips-new-jib.html

The location that Greg chose for the video was good because it had a good look and style but it was also convenient. I parked on the sidewalk right next to a walkway near the basketball courts. We got an early start (7am) so nobody was at the park and I think that that made things go smoothly. The park had basketball courts and a softball field, a playground and a school with trees all around. I unloaded the truck and wheeled the Jib cases and dolly over to the court. I began setting up the Jib with my assistant for the day, Alvin and was done setting up in about 20 minutes. While I was setting up the Jib the director and two camera men, Daniel Rego & Timothy Tippens as well as assistant director Gibran Gaither shot a performance scene of the artist Mr. Extravagant, performing while sitting in the center of the bleachers with 1 friend on each side. Brandon McEachern of Broccoli City was there as well acting as our UPM. While I set up the Jib the guys shot 1 camera looking straight at the artist while dolling side to side with the slider. the other camera was on a tripod. We used a silver bounce to side light the artist and we used a hi-light scrim to diffuse the sun when we moved in for the close up. AGrip's super quiet Honda generator came in very handy for this shoot. We used it to power the stereo and charge camera batteries, as well as to power the Jibs monitor.

While they were shooting this I was finishing up setting up the jib. When I was done we wheeled the dolly with the Jib on it into position. We put the focus ring on the camera and mounted it to the Jib. In moments we were ready. The Dolly for the Jib was located directly in front of the artist where he sat on the bleachers. Behind him was a softball field with a game in progress. I normally do not operate cameras however I do have practice with the Jib and on this day I was the one who needed to operate the Jib. I started doing some practice movements as Director Wes Beard watched the monitor; both of us started to get a feel for what we wanted and I told him to remember what he was seeing so that he could point it out when we rolled the takes. After a few moments of practice we rolled the song and began to do some takes. I flew the camera from side to side and matched the pan speed to the speed of the jib movements. I also did some shots low from side to side and a couple from high to low. A cool shot that I was getting was taking the jib all the way to the side and then aiming the camera at the artist, then flying in really low to the ground and raising the camera as I came in and passing by the artist. What added to the dynamics of these shots were the artist’s friends dancing on each side of him in the bleachers. A lot of people on set were getting REALLY excited about how great this footage looked.

After we filmed that we filmed the performance scene of Mr.Extravagant sitting on the basketball rim. We hiked him up to the rim and he got into position. He was way up there, 10' in the air. He was wearing a white outfit and the backboard was white as well but it had reddish orange trim. It looked pretty cool to me and the sun was in the sky at a good angle, slightly back lighting. The angle that the sun was coming in was perfect, we didn't necessarily have to use a light disc to get an exposure on the artist but we used one anyways and it made the shot look fantastic. I started to practice my movements and I quickly realized along with everybody else on set that we were about to shoot some amazing footage.

I have only had this jib fully operational for a short time and like I said this is only my third shoot using it. each time I use it I feel like I am vindicated for getting this jib and I am very happy with the product but this time, with this basketball hoop performance scene, I was REALLY happy. I have shot a lot of music videos and shot a whole lot of video footage so it is hard for me to just say "that was the best footage that I have shot". And, to be honest we were only using a 60D camera, with pretty average lenses so I'm not going to overhype the footage especially since I only saw it in my jib monitor, but I will say that the framing of what I was seeing, the sun light the performance, was truly some of the best footage I have ever been a part of, I was just SO happy about it. I did a lot with the Jib as we went through the song about 3 times. I did lots of side to sides; I took the camera up to him high. One of my favorite ones was to take the camera way off to the side and do the really low fly in and then fly up to him. I used the backboard as a dynamic element to the shot peaking the camera by it, Mr.Extravagant was watching as the camera peaked around the backboard and he came out performing when it did. I also played with the sun which was coming in from a perfect angle to get cool lens flairs and one of the coolest things about the shot that I was getting, was a shimmery flash of sun off of the backboard when I swept the camera by from a certain angle. I played with that shimmery flash and even got a couple of them to happen to the music.

This footage was truly a joy to shoot and I cannot wait to show off this video.

The rest of the day was fun. We shot B-Roll footage of basketball games; we also shot dancing performances from kids wearing Michael Jordan jerseys and shoes. The last shot that we did was a shot from the Jib coming down towards the artist as he stood on the basketball court at the top of the key. As the Jib came down he turned around and showed off the awesome picture of Michael Jordan doing a slam dunk, on the back of his sweater and then he walked off as I did a jib away to the right with a camera tilt up; as I shot this I was thinking of the Adele video that is posted in my previous Jib Blog that I provided a link for above. As I did the shot I wondered if it was going to come off and be edited into the video. We did a few takes of this, I think with the Jib you can start to sense very small things that you can do better and so you repeat when you know it will be good; it feels good when you know that you nailed it. I think that at this point I am a descent Jib operator; I actually think that I have a natural ability at operating Jib because I enjoy it so much and since I have been doing video for a long time, I have developed an eye for movement and rhythm in music videos. Being a musician helps my jib operating in music videos. My friend Ryan Spencer also operates the AGrip Jib and at this point I think that he is still slightly better than I am at it mostly because he has previous experience with Jibs at the horse track, and he also has a lot more experience at operating camera in music videos. The two of us have practiced a few times together so we kind of collaborate on developing our eye for what works and what we like in Jib movements. I think that collaborating with partners to develop your eye for the shots is something that is very important in taking your Jib craft to the next level.


This music video was a joy to make, the fact that it was 1 location all day helped to make this project doable, I think that we succeeded in maximizing the location which is an idea that I am always talking about when I talk about music videos.
This blog will be re-released when the video is released.

Black Light, Dir. Aris Jerome, Kevin MCCALL, Mind F&$*ing You

Yesterday I did my first shoot with Director Aris Jerome for an artist named Kevin McCall.

Aris hit me up with his treatment and told me his idea for lighting. He wanted to use black lights in order to bring out fluorescent body paint on the girls. I thought it was a cool idea. Unfortunately we were not able to get ahold of any actual black lights so we ended up having to use Light Sabers. It was difficult at first to mount the Light Sabers to C-Stands but I figured out a way to do it without burning through the light stands.

The footage looked really cool. This was my second time shooting a black light scene and I had a lot of fun working on this video because we tried some new things. We also used a fog machine on this and we tried to use it sparingly. When the fog came out fresh from the machine it looked really cool when it was back lit by the Light Sabers and of course since it was a music video and we weren't recording audio the humming sound that Light Sabers make did not cause any problems but we did have 1 fatality when one of the booty shaker girls didn't realize that they were actual Light Sabers and touched one of them.

For a few moments things got really controversial on set when a discussion started between Kevin MCCall, his manager and myself over whether or not we would date an Avatar. We all agreed that Avatar chics are pretty sexy however some of us felt that since they are very tall (we estimated about 12' to 13' tall) that could make a long lasting physical relationship somewhat arduous (too much booty). However, Kevin's manager insisted that he wouldn't mind dating a 12' tall sexy blue alien female, part of me agreed that it might be cool.

This was a smooth and fun shoot, stay tuned for the Video.