MUSIC VIDEO: Greenhorse "Don't Leave Me"

Last year I had the privilege, nay... the DELIGHT to work with a band called Greenhorse. They are local to Los Angeles and have been working pretty hard to develop a unique sound and style.

From the moment I met with them and listened to their music, I was hooked. They seem to capture the very essence of my preferred music listening needs. I have been obsessed with their new album The Shapes of Dragons which you can get on BandCamp or iTunes.

Sometime last year (I don't recall just when) I met with the band and shared some ideas for a new music video. Here are a few screenshots of my concepts based on their ideas:

We spent a good 12-14 hours filming in the dead of night. Our locations ranged from Downtown LA, to Hollywood Boulevard, to Studio City in the Valley, to all the way out into the Palmdale Desert.

I shot the entire thing with a Canon 7D with zoom lens and my GoPro Hero 3. A lot of the GoPro footage didn't make the cut, but looked pretty cool anyway. Would love to share a making-of sometime when I get the time.

The video was edited by my good friend and master editor Aaron White. He turned the concept I had and the notes I gave him into a pretty impressive first cut. I couldn't believe my eyes! He had captured exactly what I was thinking. After a few tweaks he sent a finalized cut and this baby was ready to be released.

The band released the video on their YouTube page last month and it has already climbed to 1,000 views (which I would love to see doubled, tripled, quadrupled... etc.)

Take a look and enjoy! As a reward for watching and sharing, I'll post some behind-the-scenes pics tomorrow:

Read More

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

Read More

NEW MUSIC VIDEO: Greenhorse - "Grim City"

A while back I was excited to have the chance to film one of my favorite bands: Greenhorse as they played a show at The Echo in Los Angeles. They were opening for the band AM & Shawn Lee, and the show was completely fantastic.

Some fun stills from the night:

Along with the band, we put together a video from the performance to go with one of the songs on their latest album The Shapes of Dragons. The song we used for the video was "Grim City" which is one of my favorites on the album.

Here's the video:


To make it even cooler, they got a sweet writeup in Indie Rock Review:
http://www.indierockreviews.com/2013/11/video-premiere-greenhorse-grim-city/

More great stuff coming from the band (as well as myself), just need to get my stuff together in-between prep for my feature.

Will post more later...

Read More