Lit by Aputure: David Weldon Jr. Captures a 21st Century Vampire

Post-Punk Sensation Taps Veteran Director Joseph Kahn and Cinematographer David Weldon Jr. for Debut Single Music Video

“We opted to cover the location in Aputure lights and a Sidus Bridge, the same way you would cover your house in Wifi to get full coverage. We could walk to nearly any room and move a few lights from each scene shooting in the house and be up and running with the look we wanted within minutes.”
- Cinematographer David Weldon Jr.

Artist Spotlight

It’s the dawn of a new era in the pop-punk music scene and Chase Hudson, widely known as Huddy, is leading the charge. For his debut single, “21st Century Vampire”, Huddy turned to veteran Director Joseph Kahn and his frequent collaborator Cinematographer David Weldon Jr. To date, this dynamic duo has teamed up with some of the world’s leading Billboard artists — including Jonas Brothers, DJ Khalid, Post Malone, and Ava Max — to help bring their creative visions to life, and in all of these instances, go viral.

Given his extensive background in music videos and high-end commercial work (Rolls Royce, Pepsi, Google), David Weldon Jr., a longtime Aputure collaborator, understood that time was of the essence, stating, “working in music videos is fast-paced and you need to be able to maximize your time with the artist when they are ready to shoot.” With that in mind, David knew exactly how to approach Huddy’s journey from a lonely immortal to finding his squad of misfits and taking the stage for one epic anthemic performance.

An Efficient Workflow

Cinematographer David Weldon Jr. masterfully devised a game plan to transport audiences into this neo-punk world. “The built-in Bluetooth mesh system in Aputure’s lights made it possible to pull off a 2-day shoot utilizing nearly 30 Aputure lights on the shoot. Gaffer Damon Mosier and I wanted to save time on this music video, and one way to cut down on setup time was removing any lights that I would have needed to hook up manual dimmers or external wireless DMX devices to get us connected to a remote system. We opted to cover the location in Aputure lights and a Sidus Bridge, the same way you would cover your house in WiFi to get full coverage.”

By leveraging the Aputure ecosystem, David added, “we could walk to nearly any room and move a few lights from each scene shooting in the house and be up and running with the look we wanted within minutes. This was where I employed what I call “zone defense”, where we treated each spot of the location like a zone on a basketball court, keeping each position player aka electricians on specific lights. This eliminated guessing as to what fixture was being touched and moved while Damon controlled each light from the Sidus App on his iPad.” The result? A gothic setting for the ages exclusively lit by Aputure.

Keep up with David Weldon Jr.’s work by following him on Instagram and Facebook, or view his roster of credits on his website.