Casino Redd Music Video

On the weekend of September 24th & 25th I shot a music video for rapper Casino Redd. Director Daniel Anthony scheduled me for this shoot a month and half in advance. Daniel worked with an excellent storyboard artist in order to plan the vision of this music video. Daniel spoke with me about the locations and time frames and I chose the equipment to bring for the shoot.

I worked closely with DP Isaac Bauman on this shoot as well as our camera Operator Megan Richardson.

This was my second time working with Isaac. I have been very impressed with his work. The first music video that I saw that he DP'd for Daniel Anthony that brought him to my attention is this video: Express Fresh Video

The song for our Casino Redd video was about how the artist, Casino Redd's new girl is not as hot as his old girl but she is hotter then YOUR new girl. We had a lot of very pretty ladies for this music video. The first location was a strip club in the valley. This strip club was very seedy and kind of like a dive bar, more like a titty bar than a strip club; however the way we framed it and lit it, I think it looked cool. We only had from 8 to 11 to film in this location and unfortunately some of our girls showed up late and also took a little while to do their make-up. We moved fast and filmed what we could film with Casino Red. We got some angles of the girls dancing that I think were really nice. I saw the story boards when I got to that first location in the morning and I thought, "hmmm these are nice storyboards I hope we live up to them!" haha, I think we did but you will have to be the judge of that. I will post the video on this blog when it is released.

We wrapped it up quickly when our time was up at 11 and then we moved on to the second location. This second location was a really nice choice by Daniel Anthony, it was his former cinematography college. We filmed a classroom scene that had a lot of fantasy elements to it. Originally it was supposed to be a regular school day but we changed it to Detention and I think that worked better. One of Daniels former teachers played the teacher and he was very funny and excellent in that role. I was really impressed with the performances that Daniel was able to get out of the actors, he knew just what to say to them in order to get them to do what he wanted. One of the actors who he wanted to act paranoid, he told him to act like a meerkat and then he did an impression of a one. (video of a meerkat) Sure enough, the actor was able to do a great meerkat inspired acting job as he tried to not get caught using his cell phone in detention. This scene was a lot of fun to film and of particular coolness was that, the school had a Fisher Dolly right there for us to use. I pushed the dolly and controlled the hydraulic arm while Isaac operated camera and Megan controlled the focus. We filmed some cool shots. Our lighting style was minimalistic for this but I think the footage looked great. We filmed a fantasy part where the school girl turns into a vixen, we used more of a back light from one of my lights and then we used a LitePanel that I hand held in a certain way to cause a lens flair that gave the footage a really cool dreamy effect. Honestly, that was some of my favorite footage that I've shot.

Next we moved down the hall to a green screen studio that the school had. Everything was pre-lit and I basically just rolled up dials in order to get the green screen lit and to get the lighting we wanted. Isaac wanted a more contrasty look and so we quickly got that going and filmed our performance scene there.

Daniel choosing the school was a great choice because the class room scene was really cool and also, it was a 5 second walk from a very convenient green screen studio.

The second day of the shoot, we had to adapt a little bit because we managed to get Freeway Ricky Ross to make a cameo in the video. Daniel had a great location in LA near a huge railroad depot, a lot of the backsides of the buildings had really colorful, great graffiti. The Real Rick Ross was live and in effect. Again, we got some beautiful footage this day and in that location, before we moved on to a bedroom scene to be filmed at a house. The lighting for the bedroom scene was simple but it worked well. The girl that we had was named Brittney and she was very beautiful and had a great personality as well. (All of the girls that we had for this video were very, very pretty)

Everybody had a lot of fun filming this part.

This was a great project to work on. I thought that these story boards were so cool. Normally, on the AGrip Blog I post a lot of pictures of the behind the scenes as well as a couple stills from the videos, but for this particular video I wanted to show you the story boards so that later you can watch the actual video and see how we did. I realize that we were not completely accurate to the story boards but I do think that it will be interesting to see how these drawings came to life in a way. So stay tuned for this video, I know you will enjoy it.

Music Video for Amal Al Refaie

http://youtu.be/cdC3Pcfyd6Y

yesterday I worked on a music video with Director Alaa Chami. This was my first time working with Alaa. He is very on point and he really put in the extra work. I liked the song that we were doing the video for, this is a musical style that I haven't done any music videos for yet. Every time the song came on I felt like dancing! It was hard to push the dolly because I wanted to dance instead of move the dolly smoothly (I managed).

The Artist's name was Amal Al Refaie and she was very beautiful and talented. Her daughters were on set also and they were very beautiful as well, they are like the cooler version of the Kardashians.


This shoot was a 3 day shoot. AGrip took care of all the grip lighting and camera support on the 3rd day. The first day I was not able to shoot with Alaa, but I know he had a lot of great stuff going on, like multiple helicopters, motorcycles and Bentleys as well as some intense post work.

While I was on set I got a chance to meet the guy that will be doing Post for this music video, he showed me his reel and I was blown away. His name is Michael Murdock and he is a very talented animator, compositer and post engineer. He showed me a clip that he was working with from the video, in the clip, the singer Amal blows up into 2 other versions of herself; it was awesome.

Also, this shoot was my first time actually working with a guy named Spencer Smith. I had met him before and spoken with him while standing in line at Wooden Nickel and I also had him as a Facebook friend. That guy is extremely professional, hard working and a really huge asset to any production.

This was my second time working with another young guy that I met at my music video shoot on Sunday 9/25/11. His name is Alvin and he too is a great worker who I think has LOTS of potential in the film industry. Check out his reel if you get a chance.

I was amazed at how quickly these guys all unloaded my truck when I got to the location in the morning. We shot in a cool warehouse location just for shooting in downtown LA. These kinds of locations are cool because you can take lots of gear there and then stay there all day, meticulously getting the shots you need without being inconvenienced by having to move to other locations.

One of my favorite shots from the video, is the shot upstairs in the warehouse where we filmed the singer Amal walking to her desk. We used lots of AGrip dolly track and Curved Track in order to sweep around, and get a dynamic shot that used forground objects like the metal support beams for the building, and paper chinese lanterns. It was great.

This shoot was a success and this is going to be a great music video.

Presenting Director Ryan Spencer's Music Video Reel

http://vimeo.com/29616897

I am very happy to present this video, I worked very hard on all of the videos that are included in this reel and it is very rewarding for me to be able to show you this compilation and talk about what went in to making them. My friend, Director Ryan Spencer is the main force behind all of these videos, as you can see, he has done a phenominal job and he has really put his heart and soul into his work over the course of the last year.


Please watch this in full screen and let it load first, make sure your speakers are turned up to a nice level. and enjoy it because we worked very hard on this! And we will work very hard on your video as well!

Ryan Spencer's Director Reel (2011) from Ryan Spencer on Vimeo.

I met Ryan through my friend, Ace Filmore, about 2 years ago when we made a music video. That first music video was an interesting experience and I could see from that first day that Ryan's work was very important to him. From then on we stayed in contact, we worked on a lot of smaller projects from time to time. Every single time that I work with Ryan we try to do our very best.

Country Music Video for Donny

On Wednesday 9.21.11, I shot part of a pretty cool music video for a Country Artist named Donny. We shot this at the Borderline Bar in Westlake. This is a really happening spot, a lot of really pretty ladies go there and its a fun country environment with beer and food and music, dancing and atmosphere.

Angelo hit me up to do this shoot, I met him on the set of another music video; he is a music producer and music video Director. We scoped this location out on a Thursday night the week before the shoot to see what it would look like. Wednesday's shoot was a breeze. We got there at 7pm, took the equipment in and I set up a few lights to supplement with the lighting that the club had. Lots of pretty country girls started to come into the building. I set up the steadicam and Angelo put on the vest. The management at the location agreed to let us play the song 4 times, throughout the night.

We asked them to play the song in the next few minutes, the steadicam was ready to go and I connected a LitePanel LED light to a C-Stand arm so that I could make sure that the artist had enough light on him at all times. I wanted to key him lightly and frontally in order to get a nice exposure on him that will stand out from the rest of the people, so that we could kind of keep the attention on him, the other lights in the club were doing a lot of the light modeling on the faces so I wanted the light panel frontal and very subtle just to smooth the face.

We went out on the floor, I was standing behind Angelo who was operating the Steadicam. The dance floor was very full and people were ready to really party for this music video, the song came on and Angelo ran around getting shots of Donny as he performed to his song. It was a lot of fun, Donny was grabbing girls and dancing with them and interacting as he played air guitar and had a great time. I could see that the girls dancing in the crowd were really going for it and they were having a great time.

After each time that we went through the song we looked at the footage while other songs played, we discussed what to do to get a better shot.

The next time the song played we tried some new things, then the 3rd time the song played I asked the DJ to try to get some of the people off of the dance floor so that we could move the steadicam around more and get more dynamic motion with it, these takes looked great. On the 3rd time we did the song, we took the doorway dolly onto the dance floor and had the Artist Donny sit on some apple boxes while the Angelo filmed him from the steadicam, while sitting on the dolly. It looked like Donny was floating through the crowd. It was cool, we only filmed about half of the song like that before Angelo got off the dolly and we did some other things.

One of the pretty girls in the video started to develop a crush on the director/camera man Angelo, and it was pretty funny to watch, I think it was the steadicam that got her all fired up.

All in all, we got some great footage and it was a super easy shoot, as well as very fun. I can't wait to see this video. Stay tuned for it!

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.