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.
Follow on twitter @theevtravagant1
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