100th Post!

100 posts in three years. We kinda suck at this.

Oh well, I wanted to share our newest music video with you all and give you a little background.



Directed by Kyle Glenn
Shot by Tyler Carey
Edited by Steve Crocker

I had been wanting to do a video with And And And for a while, they were friends of Steve's and their energy on stage was crazy. I had a few ideas floating around through my head when Tyler came to me and told me he had been talking to them about doing a music video for a class. I immediately jumped on the boat. We didn't have the time or budget to do any of my other ideas, but that was fine.

The song we originally talked about shooting, "You Can't Hide," had a harmonica part that just yelled sun drenched day at the river to me. Though the content was a little darker I really liked the idea of the conflicting imagery of the video and the song.

One day in September we loaded up in a few cars and headed down to my favorite river spot, about 20 miles this side of Tillamook. We stopped on the way for sammies and beer. When we got to the river the band decided to change the song, they hadn't really had a chance to thoroughly discuss what song they wanted to do. After a few minutes of talking they settled on "Is It Any Wonder?" A very different song, but once again I bit at the idea of the contrasting images of the song and video, this time though even the melody was dark and anguished.

The shoot of the day was pretty simple. I piled all our gear in a raft and took trips back and forth from the rock to the shore. We shot the performance first, getting the technical stuff out of the way. First we shot from the shore, capturing the rock in the middle of the water, getting some nice flares. Then Tyler jumped in the raft and I swam/walked him around in our makeshift dolly. Getting some pretty cool, fluid shots.

The remainder of the day was spent hanging out with the band just capturing life style stuff

It is a goal of mine to push myself conceptually for music videos. Starting with themes and constructing complex imagery. That however, was not my goal for this video. THis music video would be the bands first, and with first videos I think it is important to really get a sense of the band. The audience of the video will be current fans, but there will be many new ones, so I try to give them a slice of what they can expect from the band at a show.

With the shooting finished Tyler took the footage and cut a video for his class. I gave a copy of that video and the footage to Steve Crocker, who had previously edited the Local Superheroes video I directed with Eli. I have grown to trust Steve quite a bit when it comes to editing. He can take edits to a place that I can not. He is willing to tweak and cut up frames, reverse them over and over. I can definitely say this video would not be the same without his touch on it. Because he's so good, it took awhile for us to connect on the video and get a finished product. Luckily Steve is friends with the band, so he would show them pieces every now and again to keep them satisfied.

I want to say much thanks to Tyler for giving me the opportunity to work with these guys, and for his fantastic photography. To the band for being a great group of guys to hang out and work with. And to Steve for kicking this video's ass to the ground, cutting it into pieces and stitching it back into a super monster.