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

Artist : Teera
Song : Flashy
Album: Untitled
Director: Raymond J. Schlogel
Production Company : Underground Planet

Well this one was a long time coming! Teera had hit me up  over a year ago about doing a video for her song “Flashy” though it never made it into production. Finally, about a month back, she hit me up again rededicated and refocused on her music. As this song pretty much demands choreography I turned once again to dancer/choreographer Carly Bell who did the choreography for Larissa Ness’s “Thoughts of You” and more recently made a second appearance in one of my other recent favs, Free Agent’s “I’m a Monster” . In short time she had tapped the three other amazing dancers, Marisa Mingea, Amanda Slick, (who were also both in Larissa Ness’s “Thoughts of You” music vid. and Alia Williams. Teera and the girls began practice and I began trying my hardest to think of a cool location that would lend itself well to this song. Knowing we were on a limited budget and didn’t have enough for a storyline the location had to be pretty spectacular.

Fast forward a couple weeks my crew and I were cruising around downtown picking up b-roll of various notable Austin spots. Had been a long day of shooting and had just finished telling them I think we have enough when I realized that we were near the Long Center and begrudgingly told the guys we needed to stop and get one more shot. As I describe it in the description of the test shot we got “As soon as we walked up the steps I near about dropped my jaw at the little disco stage installation.” It was just beyond perfect, I have no idea who’s bright idea it was to plunk down a dance stage right there but someone give that guy or gal a hug. The backdrop was incredible. I didn’t spend any time making the test shot perfect but if you’ve ever wanted to see me dance you can check out the test shot we did that night here, if you have any desire to see us be goofy, here it goes:

The rest is pretty much self-explanatory, great pop-song+beautiful charismatic singer+amazing location+hot girls+dancing+great crew+awesome camera=would have been hard to screw up this one.

In post I went completely crazy overboard with the glint and starburst filters but did very little, if any, color correction. For me those two effects took it to the next level and completely fit the theme of the song. Without doing the literal of the story arch due to a lack of budget I wanted to stress the whole “flashy” aspect of the song and provide an element that was strong enough eye candy that you overlook the fact that there’s no paparazzi nor any of the other numerous specific things mentioned in the lyrics. For me it’s kinda funny as I’ve never really cared for those two fx but in this particular vid I frikkin love em.

On a technical note, knowing that this was going to be an outdoor night shoot I finally bit the bullet on the nearly $900 Sony CBK-RGB01 Dual Link 444RGB Upgrade for my Sony F3 to enable me to shoot in S-Log. Though I recorded straight to the SXS card and didn’t get 4:4:4 with an external it still blew me away. As I already mentioned I really didn’t do much in the way of CC on this, the raw images themselves were stunning. The shots looked so good in fact that at times it almost looks like we faked the background and shot on greenscreen. The latitude between the highs and lows is markedly better, joyously better, and it made the upgrade worth every penny. That said I am still nothing but grateful that Sony dropped the price of the upgrade to around $900 as opposed to the 3 grand and change they had previously been selling it at. Edited in Sony Vegas.

As always huge thanks are due to my crew, Arturo Cavazos, Eliazar Mendoza, and Matt Friede for making my job so easy and Shane Mikeska for the great makeup!

installation

Artist: Daniel Whittington
Song: Never Go Home
Director: Raymond J. Schlogel
Production Company : Underground Planet

A couple weeks ago I got an email through the website from solo artist Daniel Whittington who was looking to get a music video made to support his just released “Private Wars” CD. Off to his website I went (danielwhittington.com) to give some of his tunes a listen. Loved em. Irish country, is that what his style is? Technically I’m still uncertain but being of Irish decent (though I feel more German as I’m adopted and was raised by parents of German decent, grandparents still spoke the language … okay, I’ve strayed and over shared and not for the first time have a run-on sentence that needs to end.) I dug it.

Anywhoo, I was leaning towards one song in particular and we were headed down the road to shoot that in a couple weeks or so when on Friday night, two days ago to be exact, he rang and said that for various reasons he had decided the first vid we do should be for “Never Go Home.” As back story I should add that I had just got done shooting red carpets and panel discussions for SXSW and during one, I believe it was Joss Whedon who threw out a Leonard Bernstein that struck me: To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time.

With that in mind as he said he wanted to do “Never Go Home” I said “Well what are you doing tomorrow?” He said “Nothing planned” and I said “Well lets shoot it tomorrow” and he said “Cool” he asked “What time?” I said “How bout we meet up at one?” he said “Cool, where are we going to shoot it?” I said “Not sure” he said “Works for me” I said “Cool, see ya at one.”

That was around 9:30 PM two nights ago. As the song was all about Texas I had a flashback of the location we used for Free Agent’s “I’m A Monster” video. (I’m A Monster Video Here) I remembered there was a dividing wall that had a huge Texas flag on em thought I thought might be perfect. I called Rob Surrette who had initially suggested that place in to an ad I had posted on Craigslist. I was a little crushed to find out that the landlord had gotten new tenants and he didn’t know what the status was. He offered to drive over there in the morning and see if anyone was there and if so if they would let us use it. That was enough of a plan for me. Next made two calls to two of my ever so awesome crew, Arturo Cavozos and and Eli Mendoza, to see if they would be available. By 11 PM I had a crew for the next day and a maybe long-shot location.

Yesterday was awoken to the good news from Rob that we were a go on the Ex-Armadillo Hall. Do you need to know that I then had a cup of coffee and a cigarette as I double checked my camera batteries? You probably don’t, but now ya do.

Art was late but I’m confidant it was just because he likes to keep me nervous, bailed my house around 1:45, got to the location around 2:30 and we were shooting within the hour. Daniel himself was a consummate, and a really f*kn nice guy to boot. I only gave him my brief, fairly pat, pre-shoot direction and take after take he nailed it. Pretty confidant he would have even without my self-purported words of wisdom. Can’t wait to go see him live, from the top of his derby to the bottom of his snakeskin boots, Daniel is an entertainer. Not in the sense that he’s putting on a show for the camera but he’s putting on a show as that’s what he was born to do, he feels every note and every word and it shows. I might add that he’s the only man I’ve ever refereed to his movements being “spindly.” (watch his legs!)

Back to the shoot, if memory serves (yea, I know, it was only yesterday but I’m not a clock watcher) we wrapped around 6:30 and were at the Salt Lick celebrating with BBQ by 7 something. Got home, slammed the footage on my pooter, set it to synch up with PluralEyes and woke up today ready to edit. I’m not sure if it was inspiration or stupidity but somehow I got it in my mind that I wanted the edit done within 24 hours of when we started. Though I made my little self imposed deadline (whoot!) I did make a couple more tweaks and the render put me a little over. I only failed on a technicality! Was a blast trying though!

Last the technical, shot on a Sony PMW-F3 with the Sony 35mm, 50mm, and 85mm, edited in Sony Vegas, additional CC in Magic Bullet Looks 2.0.

________________________________

To make this post even longer I wanted to share Daniel’s blog about the shoot … because it made me feel good! =)

The Story:

A month ago before the craziness of SXSW kicked in, I started doing research on Austin videographers with the idea of getting a video of “Never Go Home” accomplished post album release.

I reached out to a few and watched several dozen videos, and became more and more interested in Ray Schlogel from Underground Planet. His videos seemed to combined a high level of professionalism with a great eye for energy and band presence.

I called him, and we discussed trying to do it quickly so he could have it done prior to other commitments that kicked in around April. I had no idea how quickly that would turn out to be!

Right in the middle of SXSW, we decided to take a Saturday and film the entire thing in one location. At first we had plans to film multiple places and pull it altogether for a video that only involved me instead of a band. But within the first few takes, both of us were fairly certain that we were getting all the footage we needed.

We ended up shooting at Armadillo Hall in Taylor, TX using the empty space and a few props I bought from a nearby antique shop. Ray brought in a great crew (thanks Rob Surrette, Arturo Cavozos, and Eli Mendoza!), and we got to work within minutes of arriving.

Ray was a great person to work with, highly professional, and he has an incredible eye for camera shots. I was totally sold on the video after merely watching the first two or three playbacks.

I hope you enjoy the video as much as I do, and please head over to Ray’s page and like it to follow his other work!

- Daniel Whittington

Artist : Teera
Song : Flashy
Album:
Director: Raymond J. Schlogel
Production Company : Underground Planet

Well this one was a long time coming! Teera had hit me up over a year ago about doing a video for her song “Flashy” though it never made it into production. Finally, about a month back, she hit me up again rededicated and refocused on her music. As this song pretty much demands choreography I turned once again to Carly Bell who did the choreography for Larissa Ness’s “Thoughts of You” and more recently made an appearance in Free Agent’s “I’m a Monster” (http://vimeo.com/39309660). In short time she had tapped the three other amazing dancers, Marisa Mingea, Amanda Slick, (who were also both in Larissa Ness’s “Thoughts of You” music vid. and Alia Williams. Teera and the girls began practice and I began trying my hardest to think of a cool location that would lend itself well to this song. Knowing we were on a limited budget and didn’t have enough for a storyline the location had to be pretty spectacular.

Fast forward a couple weeks I and my crew were cruising around downtown picking up b-roll of various notable Austin spots. Had been a long day of shooting and had just finished telling them I think we had enough when I realized that we were near the Long Center and begrudgingly told the guys we needed to stop and get one more shot. As I describe it in the description of the test shot we got “As soon as we walked up the steps I near about dropped my jaw at the little disco stage instillation.” It was just beyond perfect, I have no idea who’s bright idea it was to plunk down a dance stage right there but someone give that guy or gal a hug. The backdrop was incredible. I didn’t spend any time making the test shot perfect but if you’ve ever wanted to see me dance you can check out the test shot we did that night here, if you have any desire to see us be goofy, here it goes:

The rest is pretty much self-explanatory, great pop-song+beautiful charismatic singer+amazing location+hot girls+dancing+great crew+awesome camera=would have been hard to screw up this one.

In post I went completely crazy overboard with the glint and starburst filters but did very little, if any, color correction. For me those two effects took it to the next level and completely fit the theme of the song. Without doing the literal of the story arch due to a lack of budget I wanted to stress the whole “flashy” aspect of the song and provide an element that was strong enough eye candy that you overlook the fact that there’s no paparazzi nor any of the other numerous specific things mentioned in the lyrics. For me it’s kinda funny as I’ve never really cared for those two fx but in this particular vid I frikkin love em.

On a technical note, knowing that this was going to be an outdoor night shoot I finally bit the bullet on the and spent nearly $900 on the Sony CBK-RGB01 Dual Link 444RGB Upgrade for my Sony F3 to enable me to shoot in S-Log. Though I recorded straight to the SXS card and didn’t get 4:4:4 with an external it still blew me away. As I already mentioned I really didn’t do much in the way of CC on this, the raw images themselves were stunning. The shots looked so good in fact that at times it almost looks like we faked the background and shot on greenscreen. The latitude between the highs and lows is markedly better, joyously better, and it made the upgrade worth every penny. That said I am still nothing but grateful that Sony dropped the price of the upgrade to around $900 as opposed to the 3 grand and change they had previously been selling it at. Edited in Sony Vegas.

As always huge thanks are due to my crew, Arturo Cavazos, Eliazar Mendoza, and Matt Friede for making my job so easy and Shane Mikeska for the great makeup!

Music: Black Sky by Alpha Rev
Licensed for use by Alpha Rev and Scire Vox Records

Download the song for free: alpharev.com/​

This has been the only piece I’ve ever worked on that made my eyes well up with tears while editing.

This video is not the complete piece but rather a montage of some of the footage that we filmed for the project I’m describing here.

I got a call at 10:30 at night from Michael Linehan from ifbtv (facebook.com/​iFBTV) saying that he had just flown into Austin and needed a cameraman and crew to shoot a piece with Larry Gatlin of the Gatlin Brothers. Apparently Michael and he had been talking about this before a Gaitlin Brothers show just days before and within an hour and a half of their talking Larry had written a song about the fires. He went on to say that Larry wanted to do a video with ifbtv and wanted to start PassTheHatForTexas.com to help raise funds for victims of the current Texas fires. We would be going out to Larry’s place to do an interview and record him performing the song, we would be going to do some interviews and possibly going out to film some of the damage.

We met up with Michael the next morning and headed out to Larry’s home. Though it may seem trivial in light of the circumstances I can’t go further without mentioning just how gracious Larry was. Before we had even started setting up gear he said he had ordered us lunch and it would be there any minute. We unloaded the gear and over lunch discussed how bad things had gotten. All things convivial but the mood was noticeably somber. While setting up the camera Larry picked up his guitar and sang the song he wrote “Rain on Texas”, chills, hard to believe that such an amazing song was written that quickly, inspiration is a wonderful, if not sometimes a heartbreaking thing.

We were pressed for time but managed to record the song and a bit of Larry and Michael talking about the project. A quick load out and we were off to the City Of Bastrop Convention Center which was serving as the command center. The closer we got to Bastrop the stronger the smell of smoke. We pulled up and Larry did few interviews outside with a survivor and some of the staff. After that we were ushered inside and past the doors that labeled with large signs that read “NO MEDIA”. Maps, computer projections and a good hundred or more people were busy tracking the fires. Firemen covered in dirt and soot passed by and Larry didn’t let one pass without thanking them. We shot a little of Larry talking to some of the representatives and volunteers. One in particular was a standout, a fireman named Jim from Delaware that Larry was speaking with who said “We’re here to help out and I know if Delaware ever needed a hand I’m sure Texas would come to help us, that’s what we do right?”

Grabbed the gear, jumped in our cars to follow an escort from the Fire Department who lead us past the police and police barricades and into an area had suffered catastrophic damages. The smoke wasn’t just visible now but it seemed to be everywhere. On either side of the highway there were workers cutting down trees in an effort to clear a path that the fire wouldn’t get past. Few houses were left standing, just piles of smoking rubble and burned out vehicles. Some of this I was unable to film. I was asked by our guide to only film the parts they okayed out of respect for the victims.

We went down a few side streets, it was nearly impossible to tell that it used to be a neighborhood. The three horses were spotted just running down the middle of the road loose as the owner had presumably not had time to haul them away and had no choice but to open their gate and let them free hoping they would survive.

The footage you see is part, but not all of what we saw. I simply couldn’t fit it all into this one video and hope that some other shots will make it into the finished piece that ifbtv is doing. Time was limited so it was just run around and grab what I could from the one small area we were allowed in.

Once done we made our way back to our cars but before I had put the camera up I saw my two crew guys, Arturo Cavazos and Eli Mendoza, being led by a couple home owner back to the where their house used to be. They were Rory and Iris, a married couple who lost just about everything. Iris led me around and pointed out some of the things that had survived. I simply cannot fathom what they are going through or moreover, how they remained so incredibly high spirited they were despite the tragedy. I can only hope that the world is as kind to them as they were to us as they set about rebuilding their lives.

The last little bit that I want to mention is that I wanted to get this up sooner. It’s been a couple days since we shot it but my main computer has been down. Beyond that I also didn’t know what I wanted to do with the footage. I knew I wanted to do something in addition to what iFBTV and Larry Gaitlin were doing to help bring even more attention to it but thought that using Larry’s song might be redundant and wanted there to be two video’s that were worth watching to help spread the message further about PassTheHatForTexas.com, just really had not even a clue as to what. Today my computer got back up and I happened on a post by the band Alpha Rev that said “Check out videos from yesterday at The Bing Lounge : tinyurl.com/​6grdjy9” … so I did. The third one down was “Black Sky”, they had dedicated it people who had lost their homes. From the first note I knew that this was what I needed. I started writing whoever I could from the band and within 30 minutes got a message from Derek Morris that said “Absolutely love to help.” followed by a wonderful call just minutes later telling me how strongly they felt about the situation and they would love me to use it. Can’t thank them enough. I’ve heard that a miracle is an coincidence God snuck in when I wasn’t looking; finding that song today was a complete and wonderful coincidence.

As for the technical this was shot straight to SxS cards on a Sony PMW-F3 almost all with the kit 35mm, not a lot of time for lens changes. Other than that used an indiSLIDERair from indisystem.com that stayed mounted on my Sachtler tripod throughout the shoot. Edited in Sony Vegas, additional CC with Magic Bullet Looks.

I’ll post a link to the finished ifbtv video with Larry Gatlin and Larry’s new song “Rain on Texas” as soon as they get it online.