Last weekend, rather than one of my usual boxed wine-induced bellybutton contemplation sessions or Internet grammar-curing rampages (one misused semicolon at a time, y’all), I attended a music video shoot. But not just ANY music video shoot. John’s band Ancient Americans‘ music video shoot. And like a good blogging opportunist should, I brought Old Miss ‘Nolta (the camera) along to document the process. I also leered in the background of every scene requiring extras, but we’ll get to that later.
The shoot started early in the day at John’s mom’s house, which served as a rather fancy backdrop for the opening scene. The storyline follows the lead female singer, Jessie, and starts out with her getting ready to go out. It’s a simple sequence of events in theory (looking in the mirror, fixing her hair, walking out the door), but pretty complicated in execution. I got to watch as the professional camera-wielders—good friends of the band—set up and tested shots and lighting. Although I knew very little about what they were doing, I wanted to know. It was pretty eye-opening seeing how long it took to set up just for a couple of seconds of footage, only to break down and do it all over again for another couple of seconds’ worth. As curious as I was in their set-up process inside the house, I started losing interest once the story moved outdoors. It was friggen hot, and those guys were working hard.
One of the coolest accessories in the video (besides Jessie’s awesome dress, pictured above), was the Rolls Royce. For this scene, John played the driver and even donned a suit. I’d never seen him so schmancy. I found this all to be very inspiring, so I think I yelled something along the lines of, “Give me VERSACE!” before taking this shot.
The second half of the shoot took place at the videographer’s house for a party, where the storyline would continue with a little live musical performance, as well as some drama to add tension, of course. A wonderfully absurd amount of Christmas lights were hung, and an uneven amount of girls and guys (but mostly guys—joke of the night) danced along to the faux performance. Over and over. They needed to shoot from lots of angles, after all, so everyone left with the song ingrained in their brains. I think I accidentally made eye contact with the camera once. I think a guy actually pushed me out of the way so he could could make eye contact with the camera.
The video ends with Jessie taking off on the back of a motorcycle. The guys shot this scene with a pretty awesome thingy (um… help me out here) that they made themselves. The best part was lightning flashed as soon as they took off down the alleyway. Perfectly cinematic.
And of course, we girls had to get cute for our small screen (background) appearances. I even wore The Boots, so I’m thinking they had better be in a shot somewhere. With me below is Kristen, who plays the “other” girl in the video. Say hmm? Told you there was drama.
I can’t wait to see the video when post-production is wrapped up! I will of course be sharing it here with you. In the meantime, I’m just thrilled to have photos that actually came out… for once.
People. I need just 12 more likes on Facebook until I hit 100 and launch my new series as a result. Help a girl out, won’t you?
That sounds really awesome! Looking forward to seeing it.
Wow this is great! Awesome photos too.
I hope I wasn’t the guy that pushed you out of the way to look at the camera! I know I was guilty of shooting a glance at it once or twice, though. This has been my private shame, now let out for the world to see. Cathartic.
It was fun to be there (as a wallflower) and to think my thoughts and have my own private experiences that evening, but I enjoyed reading it from a different perspective (yours).
Really looking forward to seeing the final product. Hurry up, Pxxel!
Patience.
Thanks for reading! I’m sure you were not the overly eager pusher, but I’m glad I’m not the only one who made awkward eye-camera contact.
Yo, those photos are super pretty! I love the ones of the drumsets. Also, I too have been a creepster, lurking extra (in a short film my friend was directing), and it was glooooorious. I got to take many, many sips of beer as part of my role, too, and since we had to keep the liquid at the same height in the cup, I got it topped off like every five minutes. Best job ever. Looks like a super fun day and an awesome music video, I’m looking forward to seeing the finished product!
Uh yeah, DEFINITELY best job ever. “Oh, you need me to sip some more? Gladly.” No knowledge of hops required!
Very nice post. Glad to see some additional photos from the night. You happen to have one of the umbrella hat? Hehe!
Ha! No umbrella hat shots, unfortunately. In fact, my only crowd shot turned out kinda “meh.” Hence all these photos making it look like no one was actually there, haha.