Surveying the Great Unknown: Part 1
Music Video pitches, planning and prepro
The events that shape the direction of our lives, introduce us to friends and find freelancers their jobs are rarely the ones we expect. I met my girlfriend on Tinder. Unexpected drinks on Miami Beach eventually landed me a shooting job in Russia. A couple years ago, I wound up interviewed on 20/20 due to a series of events that ultimately began with a craigslist ad.
No, it was not a sex thing.
The story behind directing and cutting The Great Unknown for Jukebox the Ghost partially kicked off in New York via a date to see a different band with a girl from Tumblr in 2008. Jukebox was the opening act, and I was an instant fan. Over the course of six years, I got to know the guys in the band, and we eventually got to talking about shooting their promotional content, shows, and possibly a music video.
Another key-factor that led into this collaboration was the arrival of a Phantom 2 UAV at the Lucid Potato offices, and my willingness to wake up before sunrise and shoot strnge spots around LA. One of these early morning excursions led to one of my favorite “learning how to fly the camera” shots, which I promptly posted online:
Ben Thornewill, Jukebox’s frontman saw that video the morning I put it online and messaged me right away. He wanted to know if a whole music video would be possible in that style. Of course, I was more than happy to figure out how to make that happen. He sent me an advance version of The Great Unknown, and the brainstorming began between myself and Sean, my longtime collaborator and business partner.
The initial pitch wound up sketchy and optimistic. The idea wasn’t simply to cut together a bunch of dronies, but to seamlessly link them into a story throughout the course of a song. We toyed with the idea of adding secondary characters going through a narrative. Without considering the realities of UAV piloting and modern music video budgets, anything was possible.
Parts of the seamless aerial photography we were hoping to capture was done extremely well with the viral “Superman With a GoPro” piece, and very lazily with Dj Dodger Stadium’s “Love Songs”. The Superman video hid many of its edits with visual effects and clever speed ramps, while Love Songs simply eschewed editing by using one meandering, wobbly, lazy take for the legnth of the song. It was almost universally panned on the internet upon its release, and the concept of a “drone music video” was still ripe for the taking.
We spent a couple months trying to figure out the specifics behind this shoot. Namely, how we can jump between scenes shot from the UAV cleanly. We also had to perfect the timing of each shot in time with the music. One botched edit point or long/short take would have thrown off the entire piece. Our first video test (with a Rock Band keytar, no less) almost worked:
We tried lots of things to combat the challenges of masking jump cuts as viewed through the GoPro’s massive lens. One GoPro was even purchased and modified with an aftermarket lens, to disappointing results. The best way to hide the cuts would be through the use of CGI, and re-creating parts of the scene. We ran with that (“we’ll fix it in post!”) for a while, but the costs associated with hiring somebody capable of replacing buildings was beyond what we could use, and the label was pushing us hard to come up with a shooting schedule.
Sean and I spent a lot of time pacing around our space, and debating the directions we could take with the video. We knew we needed aerials, and that was it. The biggest benefit of aerial photography is capturing locations and landscapes, but capturing LA cityscapes doesn’t make much sense for an east coast band. We finally admitted that there was no easy way to cut from a big wide aerial into a closeup of performance, leaving us with only one viable solution.
The decision was finally made to drop the “seamless cuts” rule in favor of producing a video with lots of big, beautiful aerial shots. Losing the gimmick gave us the ability to use close-up shots, better optics and better camera bodies than what we could fly around in the air. We would also be free to find locations that didn’t lend themselves to being the “perfect flightpath”. Our job with the music video transformed from wrestling with the technicalities of UAV piloting and fake matchframing to placing talented subjects in beautiful situations, and using all of our toys to make them look great.
With that decision made, our plan finally started falling into place. The band would fly into town, and we would kick off the video by shooting them playing the piano intro in the recording studio where their album was made. We’d then spend a day driving up the Pacific Coast Highway and setting up all their gear in the prettiest locations we could find. The whole thing would be wrapped up with a “live” show on top of a rooftop in San Francisco. These three acts naturally fit into the story of a new song, seeing it leave the studio, spend time on the road, and finally be sung back to the band by their own fans. It was an easy sell. The band and their label loved the new direction, and they would be ours to work with for three full days.
The video was settled. Sean, the label and I saw one more week of frantic prep before cameras would roll in a dozen locations over the course of three days and hundreds of miles. Like so many great gigs before it, the opportunity for this project arose from a whim, and a silly upload to Vimeo. As hard as it can be to “find time” to put yourself out there, the rewards can be great. This pitch served as a great reminder to branch out from my work, and find time for the extra credit. Just like the song says, you’re never going to change by doing what you’re told.
Part two, featuring atechnical account of the shooting process can be found right here. Jukebox the Ghost’s new self-titled album is up for grabs on the iTunes store.
