Tuesday, January 28, 2014

NEW MUSIC VIDEO: Ryan Darton - "Uptight"

This post is a bit late. I've been extremely busy working out the post workflow for several projects. At the forefront is my film Express, which we are editing. Super excited to share more about that with you, but first, I am extremely pleased and excited to tell you about the music video I directed for Ryan Darton which was posted a few weeks ago.

The video is for the song "Uptight" off of Ryan's album I Am A Moth.



This video was shot oh so long ago. We initially filmed it before Ryan's album was released in July of 2012.

What took so long you ask?

Well, let me tell you. It was an extremely long and arduous process of trying to find the right editor as well as the right visual effects artist.

When you are working on something creative but with limited budget, you try and do your best to find those that will help make the project better without having to pay them too much. This means you pull favors from friends and colleagues. Sometimes these friends and colleagues agree to do something. Sometimes when they agree, they are in fact only able to work on it when they are not busy. Sometimes they are never not busy. This is not their fault. Them not working on your project and not finishing anything is not their fault (and to some extent - not their problem.)

What it came down to in the end, was I did my absolute best to edit the video in my spare time. This meant that I made mistakes (because I don't normally edit, but I'm getting better at it!) and it also meant that it was going to take a long time. Once I finished a cut I would send a quicktime to Ryan who would give brilliant notes and changes, then it would be several days/weeks/months before I was able to make those changes.

Once we had a really great cut, we wanted to get some really amazing visual effects. I have several brilliant friends who are VFX artists, but because they are so brilliant, they are super crazy busy. Somehow I got it in my brain to try and do it myself. I'm going to share with you the results of my stumbling through After Effects. (Please, don't laugh. The boy can't help that he's an After Effects nincompoop!)



What was I thinking?!? I'm not a VFX artist, turns out.

Fortunately for me, Ryan said something that was really important, and something that I have begun to adopt as my directing mantra; he said, "We've spent all this time and money, we might as well spend a bit more to make it perfect."

Also fortunately for me I have exquisitely talented friends, some of which can refer me to other exquisitely talented people. This is how I came across one David Wehle. This guy is L E G I T. He took the raw footage, a few notes on what I was looking for, and gave back some of the most amazing effects I've had done for me. He also did it in wicked-fast time. Seriously - hire this guy!

Anyway, almost two years later, and several revisions and someself-imposed time pinches later and we got ourselves a fantastic video.

Please check out the video and give it a share or thumbs up or two. As a reward, some behind the scenes photos of the shoot!:








Until next time!
-E