Drop Anchor is a Philadelphia area rock band and I shot and directed their debut music video for the song, "Always Tempting Fate". Shot on RED One MX, the music video was low budget but stepped up to the plate for a challenge. In addition to a full day's shoot for the band's performance - we pulled together four days of narrative shooting for a twilight zone-esque storyline. The actors starring in the music video are Tony Slade, Paul Monte, Jennifer Snyder and Christopher Dalbey.
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| Drop Anchor |
The first day of shooting for the narrative was about 10 degrees. There was one shot we were doing involving a mirror that day and we literally couldn't clean it very well because the Windex froze instantly after spraying... Power was sparse and heat was only in a room two floors about where we were shooting. Yuck! On the upside, I did my first wiring of an LED lighting project for that day (it's easier than you might think - I'll post notes, shots and details soon). I created a mock-computer screen frame and used the custom wired LEDs to act as tracking points since the scene was very dark in it's general lighting.
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| Actor Tony Slade |
Day Two: Office Scene... We had a TON of extras that day and pulled off one of the coolest dolly shots starting with a reveal, tracking the lead actor as he walked toward the camera, trucking forward through a doorway, following the actor with a pan as he crosses the line, dollying past him while keeping him tracked for a second line cross and ending the shot with a green screen action. All at the same time, the extras buzzed about the office including a conference, handshake deal, receptionist area and background workers. AC Dan Sinisi had about 4 or 5 focus pulls to do all in that one shot. Pretty cool!
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| Actor Tony Slade |
Day Three: Public Transportation. Red tape is a funny thing and I'll definitely blog about our experiences arranging permission to shoot on a train - but why not get to the funny part? After several months of back and forth e-mails, we get written authorization to shoot on a SEPTA train (South Eastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority). I honestly would have rather had shot on a local bus but we take what we can get... So we get everything prepped for shooting on the train - we board the train - we're promptly informed by the train attendant that he has no idea who the authorizing public relations person is and we're not allowed to shoot on the train. About 70 percent of the first of two rides was wasted trying to work out the details before we could get the shots we needed. Long story short, we shot the footage the best we could in the situation and I think it should be fine for the final edit. After the train ride, we had the lead actor run around the local town in a panicked state (it's part of the narrative, I swear).
Day Four: Home Scene. We finished up the narrative. We broke some coffee cups (on purpose - and in slow motion). The day of shooting was pretty easy and we still got to rock out a couple choice shots - my favorite was a dolly/jib combination shot in the bedroom with a low angle reveal that jibs above a couple in bed while tracking on them and looking almost straight down above them. Still shots don't really do it justice so you'll just have to see the shot.
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| Actors Tony Slade and Jennifer Snyder |
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