Creative Videos
Over the summer, I worked really hard on some new video projects, which I recently completed. Here they are along with write ups describing their creative process, production, and the (often overlooked) hard work that went into them.
Click to viewThis first one is a music video to the title track off of my last electronic album. For a concept, I wanted something slightly robotic without actually being too mechanical looking. It was a very low budget video, but was still a lot of work, as I had to write the concept, scout for a shooting location, choreograph dance moves, recruit dancers (thanks to my party friends for appearing in the video and learning the moves), direct the video, and then edit the raw footage. Some of the lighting isn't the greatest, and I would have liked to include more shots and edits, but as a whole, I like the way it came out.
I shot this one around Halloween. Originally, I wanted to do it last year, but I ran out of time for the Halloween season. However, I actually went as a zombie this year, so it worked out nicely. The music is a track I recorded for my horror scores mini-album called "Haunted by Despair". In addition to programing scary sounds and droning beats using soft synthesizers, I also recorded a live guitar line with my E-Bow (one of my favorite guitar accessories) and using string bends was able to create the ghostly moaning sounds. After put the music over the video I also recorded some zombie moaning sounds and a scream to put over the audio (stock/public domain sample screams just weren't sounding right to me). My dad helped me with the lighting, because it had to be very precise, as we were going for an "infinity background" lighting technique; that is the subject is fully lite, but the background is pure darkness as far as the viewer can see. This was especially hard to achieve given that pocket HD cameras are notoriously bad at focusing in low light settings. However, I was very pleased with this short and fun video.
A collaborative video I made with my good friend and juggling/acro partner Erin. She had just started juggling in late 2010 (took to it very well), and all the acrobatics were new to us both last spring (entirely self-taught). When we first started practicing, we thought it would be an interesting role reversal to have the female as the base (bottom/strength) and the male flier (top), so we trained and executed most of the moves this way. Some of these sequences we literally worked on all spring and summer, whereas others just sort of came to us and we shot them on the spot. The theme song was also a collaborative work, and we actually ended up recording all the vocal tracks in a Tim Horton's restaurant at night. Very cool video, and we are already working on new moves for a Summer Juggling 2012 video.
For this video, I wanted to combine two of my favorite things: Industrial and juggling. Claymotion juggling is a specific style of juggling that involves a lot of start/stop motions and multiplex throws. Visually, I wanted this to look like a coldwave video from the early nineties, so I tried to shoot a lot of gritty and run down looking backdrops in downtown Adrian. To further this look, when I was editing it, I applied a light sepia, some tinge, and a few other effect envelopes to make the color look "washed out" and bleak. I also used a color inversion like effect several times to make it like an oldschool industrial video. Very fun video to shoot!
A behind the scenes documentary for the indy horror film "Elder Growth" that I produced. I worked on this film over the summer doing special effects, and some set work, as well as composing the score for the film (part of it plays at the end of this video). It was a pleasant experience, and I decided to chronicle the making of the film, so I shot this footage and edited it together into this behind the scenes feature. The final cut of the actual film recently screened at the Crypticon horror convention in Minneapolis.