Are you ready to rock?!
I’m not gonna lie – my first reaction was, “Whaaaaa?!” But that faded faster than a knife fight in a phone booth soon after hearing the song and seeing the photographs of the band. It reminded me of when music videos were called “music promos” (probably a better name) and KISS was king of the airways.
The video was for the band Fifi Larue and for their song “The Gothic Killer Clown”. It was directed by Jonathan Bowen for whom I’ve shot two other bands with earlier year and with luck we’ll be shooting a short film very soon. This video was part of a series for a book he’s writing on making music videos. This one happens to be the no-budget video. Here’s a brief breakdown: we had four hours to shoot, two cameras, practically no lights and three crew folks total (the director, myself, and an additional camera operator). Crazy tight but, in the spirit of the endeavor, we came at it guns a blazin’.
Despite it being a small project, lots of thought went into it. For one thing, Jonathan proposed using a plugin for the video called “Toonit” by Red Giant Software that makes live action look like animation. Commercials for the investment company Charles Schawb have used the look as well as movies like A Scanner Darkly. The features of the plugin coupled with the high contrast, concert-like look of the location and the band’s fun and “animated” appearance I think will be a good marriage for the final look of the piece. In thinking about how to shoot it, I decided it would be a good time to bring back the fast zoom. I proposed the idea to Jonathan and he liked it. Setting the camera to manual zoom, I racked the zoom in and out like a crazed monkey to the beat of the music or lyrics of the song. Add to that a slightly high shutter speed (1/120) and what you get is a look like a series of rapidly cut still images that bounce back and forth from MS to CU or MS to WS. It’s surprisingly effective and visually impacting.
We shot with two Panasonic HVX200 cameras set to ƒ2.0, 1/120 shutter, and 12dB. The camera was set to my personal neutral settings trying to get the most out of the shadows detail. We shot in Anaheim, CA at Mirror Image Studios. It’s a place for rehearsals but also used to showcase bands. The lighting was all there but we did add one light on the lead singer for the stage shots.
To break things up, I proposed shooting just the lead singer for the chorus with two lights hitting him from slightly rear, three-quarters back. It’s a look I remember used in the Pink music video for the Charlie’s Angels sequel. In that video, the image was made two tone and sprinkled throughout the video. Shoulder’s of giants…
My friend Guy Julian is know to say, “You’re never rocking as hard as you think you are.” Well, one of the guitar players did. So much so that he banged his eyelid with the head of the guitar, possible by one of the tuning keys. Got himself a one inch gash that kept wanting to bleed from time to time and when it did, it was as welcomed as an outhouse breeze. Did I mention we only had four hours to shoot?
Jonathan did a great job putting it all together, the band couldn’t have been more gracious and now, with luck, you should be able to see it very soon. Till then…
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