Pacific Ride Home, Music Video shoot Recap

Holy wow… Hi blog. It’s been a while. And we have much to catch up on. How’re you doing? Sweet… I’ve been busy. We filmed a music video for Tim Lundy. Drove down to Cape Kiwandis in Oregon and had an early morning wake up call of 3am. Hit the beach at 6am and hiked up the cape with our gear.
The day was perfect. What complaints could I have? My crew was excited and I guzzled caffeine until I was beginning to hum.
This was my first chance to use my new Steadicam (actually it’s a knock-off called a flycam) and slider (reviews posted this week) and I’ll be honest, the Flycam was harder than I thought it would be. You probably can't see it, but the veins in my right arm are popping out and my face is scrunched... I thought there were some really unattractive pictures of me using it. If I find them, they'll be in the review for sure.And I was nervous. It’s one thing to talk the talk and a whole ‘nother thing to deliver a quality product. My motto for the trip was simply “Never let them see you sweat.” (like when you nearly submerge your camera in water... as far as anyone else was concerned, I meant to do that.)

But as any pangs of doubt crept in (made worse by the exhaustion I was experiencing) remembering all the planning and the clear vision I held in my head swept away that anxiousness.

My crew was incredible too. Volunteers, paid only in snacks and with my gratitude (oh and a lot of sarcasm.).

PROfessional Danielle Kermode doing double duty as my Assistant Director and Media Manager. And In the picture below... We're assuming Tim's hands were cold. We finished the first location two hours earlier than I expected. Spent the next hour playing and exploring the rest of the cape. Technically I was shooting “coverage.”

but really I was playing. The coast is beautiful and we were the only ones crazy enough to be out there that early in the morning. We bouldered on some tiny rocks, watched the waves crash against 40’ cliffs, and probably did a number of things that would have given my mother a heart attack.

Around noon, the female talent (Julianne) arrived and we grabbed lunch. We went through the shot list with her and it was apparent she fit in with this group. If she was nervous, I couldn’t tell. I knew I had cast the perfect girl for this part. She did an incredible job.

I mean look at this picture. She almost looks like She's enjoying being next to Tim... (best most awkward series of photos ever. more coming ;) ). We also showed some clips from the shoot that morning. This was my first chance to see it. I was floored at the quality. I shot that. I’m still in shock that I made some really beautiful images.

The sky was blue, the wind was moving and the water was freezing. I felt bad asking Tim and Julianne to stand in the water (or in Julianne’s case, run out into it.) “Pretend you’re in Maui.”

That didn’t work. I was soaked pretty good, but couldn’t notice. They were soaked through pretty good too.

Chris, my Production Assistant/Grip/Reflectorist actually quit when I asked him to get in the water and reflect some light back. He just said “nope” and called it a day.
Eventually the day ended (about 830pm). We packed up, headed home. I haven’t been that worn out in a very long time. We’ve since wrapped principle photography. I’ve transcoded all the footage to Apple Prores 422 (Bringing the total date to around 250 gigs) and I’ll be spending about a months worth of free time editing this piece.
I’ll see if Tim’s cool with a teaser… I just want to show off the footage… haha

Thanks again to everyone who was involved. I had an incredible time working with all of you.
James

The sun setting as I made the winding drive home.

Here's some pics from behind the scenes that I don't really know what else to do with right now...

"Has anyone seen the talent? she's disappeared again... someone put something bright and obnoxious on her!" ;P

The parking lot of the small Library. It's a small library.

And next to it is the Town's scale sized replica of Stonehenge (still being built)

Cape Kiwandis is apparently haunted by a ghostly apparition.

Serious Action POSES!

Not satisfied with just being the Reflectorist, Chris tries to convince me he should be Julianne's Stand in.

From this angle, the rock becomes a T-rex. I called it T-rox. The name was unceremoniously vetoed.

Chris is meditating.

Here's a picture of Tim taking a picture of me, Taking a picture of Tim... wrap your mind around THAT.

Tim doing the Captain Morgan?