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.

Artist : Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
Song : The Boogie Bumper
Album: Big Bad Voodoo Daddy

Shot this a couple hours ago just for funsies and a chance to play with the new Sony PMW F3, seemed like a good idea in the moment. Turns out that giving the dog a bath and trying to work camera at the same time isn’t so easy after all. That said, for the couple hours it took to shoot, edit and toss on the web it’s still good enough to make my Mom happy.

Nuttin fancy, technically not my best, would have loved some better angles and there’s deffinatly some overexposed moments towards the end, my only defense is that I was holding a wet dog, I was actually just grateful that when I brought up the footage there were enough shots that were in focus to make anything at all.

So yes, technically it’s less than brilliant but thankfully a cute dog can make shoddy shooting and editing borderline irrelevant.

Shot in F3′s S&Q (slow) motion with just the kit 50 2.0 lens and no color correction or additional effects.

Above is me with my happy face just about as giddy as a frikkin schoolgirl kickin it in Austin Texas holding Underground Planet’s brand spanking new Sony PMW-F3 k.

If you’ve read any of the descriptions of  the video’s we’ve done you know that we’ve used a ton of different cameras in the past. For the camera geeks this has included, but has not been limited to: Old school VHS, the Canon XL1, Canon XL1 S, the Canon XH A1, the Sony EX1, the Sony EX1 with Letus35 Extreme, Canon T2i’s, Canon 7D, the RED. The evolution of cameras and technology over the years has been, and I’m sure will continue to be, an exciting ride. For me personally of all the cameras currently on the market the Sony PMW F3 is quite simply the best of the bunch.

I’ll suppress my desire to give you the long litany of reasons as to why I think that as I’m certain that in doing so I would inevitably bore the non-shooters to death but, what I will say briefly is that any pro knows that different projects (and even different shots within those projects) may require different tools, the trick is to figure out which one you would use the most, this camera is that. Stunning imagery, Super 35mm image sensor approximately 4x larger than those in most DSLR’s, incredible low light, long recording times, PL Lenses, little or no rolling shutter/moire, quick workflow with SxS cards and file format …

Damn, I started making a list … mah bad …

If you were just here to find out about the current discounts were offering and had to suffer through that, sorry, I’m easily distracted. Upshot is this, we have an UH-MAZING new camera and love shooting with it! For a limited time we’re willing to take on some projects for a lot less than usual just so we get to play around with it and acquire incredible footage along the way that we can show off . If you or your business and need a commercial, some  promotional videos,  something for the web, or if you’re a recording artist or in a band and in need of a music video, if you need product demonstrations, training video’s, whatever! Now is the best time ever to hit us up! Not only will you be getting us cheaper than usual but your project will look even better than anything we’ve done in the past (new awesome camera remember!?!)

Though there’s no official cut off date I think it’s safe to assume we’ll only be offering the discounts for a couple weeks. You can book now in advance and get a discount on something you may need done a couple months down the line.

And do know that outside of the discount, if your project requires another specific camera for any reason at all, of course, as always, Underground Planet is happy to accommodate. Just let us know.

]]> http://www.undergroundplanet.com/2011/08/09/underground-planet-got-a-new-toy-limited-time-discount-pricing/feed/ 0 http://www.undergroundplanet.com/2011/06/26/713/ http://www.undergroundplanet.com/2011/06/26/713/#comments Sun, 26 Jun 2011 18:21:31 +0000 Ray http://www.undergroundplanet.com/?p=713

Artist : Free Agent
Song : I’m A Monster
Album: Free Agent
Director: Raymond J. Schlogel
Production Company : Underground Planet

J-Brooka and I had been working for some time on another concept for another video entirely, it was going to be for a song off of his solo album when last minute, two days before we were due to start shooting, everything had to switched gears. Long story short (not my strong point) there was cause for delay in production but the problem being that J-Brooka was in the military and only had a little over a week before he was leaving town to spend time with his family before shipping out to Afghanistan. It was pretty much devastating, not just because I tend to get emotionally invested in a song/concept but in this case because all of us wanted nothing more than to pull this off for him so that he could go overseas feeling like a rock star. It really didn’t look like it was going to happen. A day later J called me and said he had an idea, he had another song called “I’m A Monster” that he had done with Money, Chivas Kimber & Genesis a group collectively known as “Free Agent”. He said he just wanted something kind of in the vein of Michal Jackson’s “Thriller”. Time to scramble.

Like I’m sure a lot of people in this industry do I’m always making little notes in my head of people, places and things that may come in handy one day. As soon as he told me what he was thinking and I started listening to this track for so many obvious reasons a couple local special effects makeup guys came to mind. I had stumbled on their site over a year ago but till this came along hadn’t had a project that would lend itself to their talents. Enter Matt Garcia & Michael Lynn Garcia of Global Fear Enterprises. Not sure if Matt knew just how much of a panic I was in when I contacted him but told him the basics, that since we only had a few days before we had to shoot I just wanted to use some of the characters and costumes he had already created, shoot the artists performing, swap them out with the monsters, baddabing baddaboom, music video. Thankfully he was totally down and able to shift things around to accommodate our last minute shoot. The one caveat being that he thought he could only get three actors for the costumes though I needed four. I told him that wouldn’t be a problem, I’d find someone. A phone call later my good friend Scott Ward, owner of Strange Brew agreed to be the werewolf … and bring coffee. If ya know me that’s a big frikkin bonus. As a side note it would have been great if we could have just had the guys in the group in the costumes but as you may suspect getting someone into that and made up takes time that we didn’t have the luxury of. The only way we would be able to pull off anything like this would be to have their doppelganger in the waiting watching the artists perform and do their best to mimic what they did.

I had a few places that I thought might work for the ambiance I was looking for but wasn’t 100% that they were gritty enough. Doing what any good director/producer would do when you need something last minute I posted an ad on Craigslist while putting a backup plan into place. With one location locked while still hoping for another I went to work on finding girls, gotta have girls! Carly Bell had been working on doing the choreography for the previous concept and was totally on-board with switching gears and being in this one. Some may recognize her from the “Larissa Ness – Thoughts of You” music video I had done, she did all the amazing choreography for that one as well. Next to agree with little or no notice was Stephanie Schechter, she had been one of the stand out models in the “Threads of Hope Fashion Event” and was thrilled to have her join in. Last, and to be completely cliché, defiantly not least was Kelsea Fontes. Though I had never met her in person we had become friends on Facebook through friends of friends and every one of her pics were just stunning. There was a fourth girl (name withheld!) was supposed to be there but more about that later.

Two days before the shoot I got a tip on another location from Rob Surrette for the Armadillo Hall in Taylor Texas. From the pics I could dig up it was amazing but was somewhat leery that it wasn’t in Austin. Extra miles tend to dishearten the kindness of those involved on productions and always seem to increase the odds that someone’s not going to make it. With that in mind I was pensive about changing everything and switching locations. The next day I was having second thoughts while trying to get everything lined up and decided to do some Google maps comparing. Much to my surprise the location I had already locked, though technically in Austin was exactly the same drive time, 45 minutes. Another panicked call, this time to Armadillo Hall to see if there was any way we could shoot there the very next day. Honestly I have no idea how I get so lucky with these things but Tina, the owner, was fifty kinds of gracious and gave us the go-ahead. A round of calls, texts, and emails to all the cast and crew.

Next day shoot day. Arrive at the location and it’s even better than the pics. Perfect mood for this. Quick go around and pick out the parts we want to shoot in. We start staging and the phone rings. Apparently I had neglected to send Matt the new location info and they’re at the original location. They are now well over an hour away but en route. I get a text message, girl number four is having car problems, she may be late. Nothing I can do but keep setting up … and stall. Another text from girl number four, car still isn’t going right but she’s still going to make it but won’t be able to stay long because she has an obligation after. Lights are ready, playback is ready, artists are ready. Message from Matt that one of the actors for the monsters won’t be able to make it. I look around at who’s on hand, Urhighnes Williams who produced the track/beat master had come with the guys and was willing. Cool, we had four monsters. Were about an hour or more into setup. New text from girl four, she doesn’t think she’ll be able to make it. Four guys, three girls, arg. The solution: J gets all three girls in his segment, he’s okay with that. =)

So that, my friends, is my way to lengthy description on how to pull together a music video shoot in a few days. Besides the hiccups I’ve already described everything went off pretty much without a hitch. We did the bulk of the shooting that night but wound up going back for a second day to pick up some shots I really wanted to get. Nothing much to note on that as pick up days are always less stress, you know you have the bulk of the footage in the can and anything you get is bonus. The one thing I will add is that if at last minute you think it would be cool to make all your artists wear monster contacts make sure you have time for it! Most of the guys in the group had never worn contacts before and it took one of them no less than 45 minutes to manage to get them in!

Besides everyone mentioned above a huge thanks to Matt Friede who ran the b-cam and got the majority of the slo-mo and to two of my favorite guys to have on crew, Lee Reinhardt and Esteban Lopez, as always couldn’t have done it without ya!

Quick technical, this was shot on a 7D as the primary and a T2i as the secondary with a Canon 50 1.2 and Canon 85 1.2 with the T2i running at 60p for slo mo. Edited in Sony Vegas and additional CC with Magic Bullet. I should add that the edit on this was a challenge as well. This was one of those that took seemingly forever to find the right look for. Initially in my head I had seen this having kind of degraded film look, doing some overlays of film stock and having some of the transitions be kind of fluttery, where one frame pushes in the next. Once I had synched up all the footage I started editing along those lines and hated it. I don’t know that it looked “bad” per se but it just wasn’t working for me. Perhaps because I had done something similar in the “Endeverafter – Next Best Thing” video and had recently done an even more extreme version for and edit I did of an interview with Clutch for Roxwel and I really don’t like to feel like I’m repeating myself. Whatever the reason it wasn’t working. I think I spent a good two days coming up with something that I liked, the less contrasty and blue-ish tint really worked and for some reason had a bit of an old school film feel. I usually start out a project with pretty high expectations but with the final cc this one looked even better than I had originally imagined it to be. Love when that happens!

Free Agent – I’m A Monster on iTunes

Free Agent Facebook Page

Artist : Rex Robards
Song : Whiskey Wrote This Song
Album: Right Ain’t Always Right
Director: Raymond J. Schlogel
Production Company : Underground Planet

At long last!!! This was such an incredible video to make and be a part of and I’m not sure I can even express all the reasons why in a short description.

Rex first contacted me some months back, he said had been on my site the night before and watched my entire feature “For Love & Stacie”  and checked out some of my music vids but  that mainly because of FL&S really wanted me to do one for “Whiskey Wrote This Song”. For some reason that I’m not quite sure of I was really kinda tickled that a musician was referring to “For Love & Stacie” as to why they wanted me to do their music video. He sent over the song and from first listen I loved the track. Based on the title I alone I initially thought it was going to be some sort of happy country sing-a-long drinkin song, not that there’s anything wrong with those but I was more than pleasantly surprised to find something much deeper, much darker, and so much more passionate than what I had expected.

The storyline and visual aspects of this one became pretty clear pretty fast. I knew the kind of environment I wanted for both the band and the home but not a particular location. I also knew that I wanted the entire storyline filmed in slow motion. I became intrigued with the idea of telling an entire story with what amounts to be not a whole lot of time. Initially I had hoped to use a Phantom or Weisscam for the storyline but when I couldn’t dig one up for the dates we wanted I opted for a RED with its ability to shoot 120 fps, not as extreme as I had wanted but workable. All told the storyline takes up about 130 seconds of the video, filmed at 120 fp that means that the storyline in real-time only amounts to about 32 seconds.

Stacy Zeiler Kenyon immediately came to mind for the lead female, in part but obviously not completely due to a handful of pictures she had posted wearing the same dress I later had her wear during the first half of the vid. Something about her in that dress was just a perfect match and though she hadn’t acted before based on her modeling I knew she could visually convey the emotions needed for the part and I wasn’t disappointed, she was amazing, incredible to work with and nailed it on every take. Not to mention that even after getting slammed against a kitchen counter ten or more times to the point of physical bruising she never once complained! (Sorry bout that Stacy!) By the way some of you who know my work may recognize her from the “Threads Of Hope Charity Fashion Show” video I did for her swimwear line.

The male lead was not so easy. I had a look that I wanted and no one that had submitted a headshot or came over for casting was really fitting the bill, we had some that were pretty close but none that were dead on. Three days before the shoot I still wasn’t 100% sold on the guy that we had cast and decided to meet with just one more, I had seen his headshot and he had some great credits so I figured may as well. Around 9pm three days before the shoot in walked Craig Nigh, dressed the part and a little on the scruffy side, he was it. Looking at the video now I know we couldn’t have gotten anyone better and thrilled that he came along.

For locations one afternoon Ruben (my producer on this) and I were out and about scouting for a location for the house and randomly drove by an old dilapidated greenhouse. The fans in the walls were perfect as the backdrop and after seeing it couldn’t even think of shooting anywhere else. It took Ruben some doing but somehow through those magical producer skills of his he finally managed to track down the owner of the property. We went to meet with him and give it a better look a couple weeks later and it was everything I wanted. Funny side note, as you can see in the time-lapse (http://www.vimeo.com/10808793) we all got there while the sun was still out and the place looks, well, funky at best. Even though the first time I saw it I knew what we were going to do with light shooting through the fans, the smoke, the, dare I say “ambiance”? Rex and the band didn’t. Rex later confessed that  when they first pulled up and first saw the place his band was like “What the hell did you get us into?”. Apparently once the sun went down, the lights came on and they saw some playback they were more than cool with it. Another side note is that as it was unused and pretty run down there was no electricity, the fans were inoperable and we had to have a PA ducked down outside behind each of them manually spinning the fans while we filmed.

With the RED we were lucky to bring DP Michael Morlan on board. Now I’m one of those that likes to do everything himself, I generally hate being behind a monitor directing while someone else is wielding the camera and, if I’m to be honest, originally we hired Michael more for his gear than anything else. Now that wasn’t based on his work, just on how I usually liked to do things and I had every intention of DP’ing and shooting 99% of it with his RED. We shot the band before shooting the story and after the first take I loved what I was seeing and let him do the second, and third, and fourth etc etc etc. At one point I even said to him “Man, not trying to insult ya but your shots almost look like I’m shooting them” and he said one of the most cool things I’ve ever had a camera person say to me, he said “I watched a bunch of your stuff to try and match your style.” I’ll go ahead and say that it doesn’t mean he liked my style of shooting! But I was totally impressed that he said that. Needless to say I only shot one or two takes myself and left the rest to him. Michael, you’re awesome.

The one other obvious challenge in this was the CGI. It was the first concept for me that required it and though I knew the shot that I wanted I had no clue how to get it. Thankfully we had Technical Director Christopher Louis on location to help coordinate the shot and later to do the modeling of the bottle as well as roughing out the scene with the final animation being done by an incredible artist Jarno Cordia of AirRebels. With this the most important thing from day one was that the CGI had to blend seamlessly with the scene, not an easy task. In a lot of films/videos there is a certain CGI look that we’ve come to accept if not appreciate. There’s that suspension of disbelief that even though something may have a somewhat computer generated look we don’t mind because we’re used to it. For this it had to be absolutely photorealistic. Because the narrative was reality based anything that looked phony would have snapped the viewer out of the emotion of the scene and made them focus on the effect and blown the tension of the moment and relief at the subsequent reveal. I can’t thank Christopher and Jarno enough for the tremendous talent and dedication they had in helping me keep people in that moment.

Wow, wrote so much more than I meant to, hoping that you Dear Reader will forgive me for the self indulgent rant.  =)