Sometimes we go off in a direction we did not expect to go. A few weeks ago I went off to shoot a music video to be shown at Ingenuity Festival and I came back with a whacked-out and fun video that pushed boundaries more than I expected. The music video is for the band Hey Mavis and was part of Ingenuity’s “Rock That Spot,” curated by Cynthia Penter. (Ten filmmakers shot music videos in Cleveland, and the locations will be posted on a Google Map.)
I consulted with Hey Mavis’ Ed Caner, for his thoughts on what the video for their song “Red Light” should look like. He said he loved the movie Airplane, when out the back window of the car the scene started with your normal traffic action but soon deteriorated to indians and calvary riding horses along behind the car! So we had planned on some fun shots, but I never expected the “out there” result I came up with.
This is some wacky green screen stuff. Shot entirely out doors at the Brownhoist Building and around Cleveland. The wind got a bit stronger than expected, and the sun came around the corner of the building sooner than expected! So we regrouped and made it through the shoot with a lot of experimental imagery.
For example, the building is covered in ivy on the east side, and in the afternoon we shot against that ivy and I chroma-keyed it out in Final Cut Express. Luckily the camera was rolling when the seamless paper billowed out on a strong wind gust, and that serendipitous moment allowed for the more light-hearted finale to the video.
Indeed, every glitch in the day of shooting, while at first a nightmare was eventually embraced as the editing progressed. I was learning not only green screen technique, but also Final Cut Express. I quickly found out that with such a short deadline in front of me I would not have time to “properly” correct each glitch—so I simple rolled with the punches, and that allowed for the tongue-in-cheek nod to the green screen method.
