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. =)

Arthur Brown – E.P.K.

Arthur Brown (born Arthur Wilton, 24 June 1942, Whitby, Yorkshire) is an English rock and roll singer best known for his flamboyant, theatrical style and significant influence on shock-rockers Alice Cooper and Kiss, and for his number one hit in the UK Singles Chart and Canada, “Fire” in 1968.
source : Wikipedia

An electronic press kit video for Arthur Brown regarding his upcoming tour with Zeerok (Zhenya Kolykhanov). (2009?)

Was more than honored to do this one as it’s not everyday you get to work with a living legend. I saw Arthur Brown doing a show here in Austin not long before this shoot and was blown away. For one it was a Sunday night and he packed the place. Second was that he was just so engaged with the audience, charming even. It was much like watching a great teacher read a great story to a class of small children. Rarely have I seen a crowd so enthralled with a performer or performance.

Zee introduced Arthur and I after the show and this video came out of that meeting. I was invited to film them during a rehearsal that week and the following day interviewed them both at Zee’s place about their upcoming tour plans. Hope ya like it!

You can see Zee’s solo video here: Zhenya Kolykhanov – отец (Father)

Zhenya Kolykhanov – отец (Father)

Artist : Zhenya Kolykhanov
Song : отец (Father)
Director: Raymond J. Schlogel
Production Company : Underground Planet

This one was somewhat spontaneous. I actually first met Zhenya about two months ago at a club where he was playing with his band Zeerok & The Immigrants. A band which on their MySpace page describe themselves as “Rockabilly, Jump Swing”. The band was pretty incredible and something about a Russian guy doing Rockabilly in Austin Texas was just to cool.

About a week later he invited me out to see him do his solo thing at a little upscale chocolate shoppe called Viva Chocolato! In stark contrast to what I had seen just days before, here he played a variety of string instruments while running them and his voice through a loop machine. I’d seen some pretty amazing solo stuff using a loop machine before but till then it had always been hip hop/rap performers. Essentially an artist will record bits of music or a beat by tapping on on control board with their foot and then trigger their playback which “loops” that bit of recorded sound. He would play and record a bit on a banjo, have that looping, put down the banjo, pick up a guitar, add a little bit, put down the guitar, move over the bass, add the bass line, all while singing whatever song he happened to be playing at the time. It was amazing to watch. I was especially impressed by this song because despite using all this modern gadgetry the song itself was traditional, classic and to see it created live was fascinating.

Fast forward a couple days and Zee came over to talk about the vid were going to do for Zeerok & The Immigrants. I told him that on a side note I’d really like to do something to show his solo stuff. As luck would have it he had all his equipment in his van outside. I stapled a couple black blankets to the wall, threw up a couple lights, he set up, plugged in and played. As noted at the beginning of the video the audio was done in one take, just as he performs it live, we just ran an XLR from his Boss RC-20 Loop Station to the camera. He replayed it a handful of times so I could get additional angles and then in post I used black and white and split screen to denote the parts that were being looped.

myspace.com/zeerok

Ember – Blind

Artist : Ember
Song : Blind
Album: Under Pressure
Director: Raymond J. Schlogel
Production Company : Underground Planet

Recently I ran a special here in Austin for ten local bands to get a way cheap HD music video. This is the first band that took me up on it.

Not to much to say about this one conceptually, because of the low budget we just needed to have a cool location that would lend itself to the mood/tone of the song. Shot with a Sony EX1 w/Letus35 Extreme, edited in Sony Vegas, and color corrected with Magic Bullet. One night of filming, three days or so of editing, and “”Voilà!”, ya got yourself a music video!

Dirty Wormz – Dirty Weather

Artist : Dirty Wormz
Song : Dirty Weather
Album: The PARAZITE
Director: Raymond J. Schlogel
Production Company : Underground Planet

One camera live music video for Austin band “diRTy WoRMz”. Recorded with a Sony EX1 during the bands free fan appreciation show at Antone’s on Febuary 1st 2008.