Artist : Rex Robards
Song : Whiskey Wrote This Song
Album: Right Ain't Always Right
Director: Raymond J. Schlogel
Production Company : Underground Planet
Jun 14th, 2011: So frikkin happy to finally be able to make this one public!
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. vimeo.com/11394371
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 (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.
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Wow, thanks for the validation! You're far to kind =)
undergroundplanet 1 month ago