Underground Planet is an award winning production company based in Austin Texas. From concept to completion we develop, plan, shoot and edit amazing videos for some of the most incredible bands and artist that a company like ours could ever hope to work with.

Adan Davila – I’m Sorry

Artist : Adan Davila
Song : Sorry
Album: Open Up
Director: Raymond J. Schlogel
Production Company : Underground Planet

This music video is for Houston Texas solo artist Adan Davila. Since this was going to be Adan performing without a band I wanted to try to incorporate some other elements to keep it visually interesting. Of course when working on a budget and needing some additional footage what better than old footage that’s now in the public domain?

I didn’t want to simply make the shots of Adan black and white or use a generic film effect so I decided to go with more of a ” Pleasantville” look. After some thought on how to best accomplish this it occurred to me that the easiest most efficient way would be by simply lighting everything but him with green gels and removing the saturation in post. There are pre-effect pics along the bottom right of this page to see how it looked before removing the saturation from the background.

This video was shot and edited in three days though countless hours were spent combing through footage to find the right clips that would capture the passion, angst, and longing that I hoped to convey … with just a hint of levity thrown in for good measure. =)

Aron Dees – American Dirt

This would be my “America!!! F*CK YEA!” video. I received a very nice email from a very nice wife inquiring about the possibility of getting a music video for her husbands new song “American Dirt.” They were planning a trip to Austin and were thinking that while they were down here getting one shot might make the trip all the more worthwhile.

So they sent the song over. When Aron said the line “And I’m proud of the soldiers that fought, and the ones that are fighting right now” I was in. 11 months ago I did a music video for “Free Agent” just days before one of its members, J Brooka, shipped off to Afghanistan. (vimeo.com/24435370) We’ve been in contact via the web a handful of times throughout his time there and am always relieved to get a message. At the time of this writing he has a month left to go and I, along with all his friends and family, can’t wait to have him back safe.

For me that was the motivation. The video came together relatively quick to coincide with their coming to Austin. Initially it was fairly simple but then the thought of Aron getting an actual tattoo came to mind. Though he all but scoffed at the idea, Amanda (remember I said she was a very nice wife) loved it and somehow convinced him to do it. And of course I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention how awesome my tattooist Nathan Hebert is. Not just for the great tattoo he gave Aron for the vid but also for being willing to come in and do it on his day off. And big thanks to Atomic Tattoo on Burnet for letting us shoot in the shop. (atomic-tattoo.com) Note to Nate: We need to finish my sleeve ASAP! =)

You can check out Nathan’s other work or book him here: natestattoos.com

The night before we were to shoot I had yet another idea after being told they had their two sons coming with. I through out the idea that it might be cool, if we were even able, to find various public service type uniforms and have them more or less represent the either our future or a younger version of those in service now. They managed to get the costumes the day of the shoot and we bounced around Austin finding suitable backgrounds as we went. I feel I should apologize to all the women out there who take on the same roles as men and unfortunately are not represented in the video but these were the kids they had, don’t fault me for them not having a daughter! Do know that its as dedicated to you as to them =)

I also have to give a quick nod to Angela Lee for finding us the great location to shoot the band. (austinlocationscout.com) While I often don’t mind the fun of “gorilla” type shooting (just find a location and set up shop wherever I think might look groovy) it’s never fun getting kicked out of a location and with Aron and fam being in from out of town and not a whole lotta time to switch gears if something like that happened, it was nice having a great location with the landowners permission. Not to mention the landowner seemed to enjoy our little shebang and invited the entire band, cast and crew up to his house for a celebratory beer after we wrapped.

This was shot on a Sony PMW-F3 and edited in Sony Vegas.

http://www.arondees.com