Wow. I am still not done with this rewrite. I had a music video fall in my lap which I had to go to Vegas to shoot. Crazy limitations on the shoot - but it went well overall I think.
Unlike other types of work, I do not mind delays in progress when it is due to directing because that's the end goal anyway.
One observation from this shoot was how the big star musician had like 10 people swarming around her and generally seeming to make things more stressful than more easy. Their job was to make everything smooth (I think) - but the summation of their presence seemed to be more of stress - like the kind of stress one might see at a wedding around the bride.
Another thing... I really want to have at least a 5 minute discussion with whomever is the key decision maker before hand. I felt like 30 minutes into the 2nd video that the artist and the person I had been talking to leading up to the shoot were not at all seeing eye to eye on what the video should be. The very first shot I saw that the artist's' interpretation of the song was nothing remotely like I'd been told. And when the artist basically refused to do what the other key decision maker had said was the plan - that made for some very interesting improvisation on my part. Very odd shoot. Will end up being a tad more minimalistic than originally intended.
So, I'm setting aside 2 hours everyday still - despite the editing schedule - to try to get this script done. Ironically - the PA on the shoot is hanging out with the "Famous Actor's Famous Friend" this weekend. He's totally willing to put in a word about the script - but better if he's read it! So trying to finish it in the next couple days. At least to a version where all my little notes are out of it and it is showable to the PA as a pre-final - if not the final itself.
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2 comments:
can you talk more about shooting the music video? how much prep was there? was there a concept or was it footage of the band? how long did you shoot? did you have a budget? how big was the production crew? i have lots of questions...
Sorry for the delay - I had no idea anyone had tried commenting on the blog. I will fix that for future comments.
There were just a few days for pre-production. The shoot was in Las Vegas (not Los Angeles), so we had to arrange for some equipment rentals from there and drove the rest out with us. We arrived the night before the shoot and loaded into the hotel where we were shooting the talent.
I had been told she wanted to be sexing it up with one of her dancers who would play her husband. to keep it classy I thought I would shoot it in really abstract images where it was all about close ups of body parts moving, but nothing gratuitus. Well, it turns out that wasn't her idea at all and I ended up making up a whole new idea there on the spot. We ended up having the artist in front of the camera for only 55 minutes for one of the videos and only 30 minutes for the other. The entire shoot with set up and breakdown was definitely under 10 hours. Fast. I believe this is highly unusual circumstances, but for some reason the artist did not want to be spending much time doing this.
The budget was very limited. Just enough for a DP, Gaffer, PA, me, a small lighting/grip kit, an HVX200 rental.
I hope that answered some of your questions.
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