Some cool video projects I had the pleasure to shoot and help bring to life
Music Video
Wolfgang Marrow - Murder Romance
Director: Joff
Band: Wolfgang Marrow
Cinematographer: Fanjan
Camera Assistant: Jeffery Collins
On-Set Sound: Kayly Miskin (Van Eyssen)
Film Sound Design: Raymond Finn
This was a fun video, where we played into that old school visual effects of someone in a suit. It was also our first video foray into forced perspective. As a bonus, we also won Best Music Video in the 2022 SA Indie Film Festival.
Shot over a weekend along with friends in an abandoned industrial building. Parts of our little city of Port Elizabeth (renamed "Gqebhera") provided a lovely backdrop of dilapidation and seemingly post apocalyptic world. Joff spent a few weeks in between other commitments building and inserting the 3D assets into the footage.
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Our main actor, Hugo Kleinhans, who is a fantastic musician and in the band, Big Man and Bear, filled the character beautifully with some subtle comedy. I should also mention that that tall man run's SERIOUSLY fast!
Thanks given to Rooftop Productions for the use of their video equipment for this shoot.
TV Commercial
aQuelle #BeActive
Agency: Rooftop Productions
Client: aQuelle
Director: Nick Warring
Producer & Casting: Candice Oosthuizen
Cinematographer: Fanjan
Camera Assistant: Lulama Godlo
On-Set Sound: Raymond Finn
Gaffer: Brent Web
Working with clients who have not yet shot a big production, in this case a TV commercial, can be challenging. What makes the whole process a lot easier is a great group of professionals who take this challenges with a laugh and extra commitment.
Video production on a even the small scale for TV or broadcast, is not something the average person on the street get's exposed to. It is often 16 hour days for a few days in a row. A lot of soft targets and deliverables which can only be described in a paragraph and not a part number.
The last day was particularly challenging as our city of Port Elizabeth (renamed to "Gqebhera") offered up very high winds and gusts. Sadly, production could not be halted and we had to push through and deal with the challenge creatively as well as visually.
For example what you don't see in the video, if you look at the final shot of the actor swigging back some water, was Raymond Finn, on his hunches, holding on to the actor's T-Shirt in order to prevent it from flapping in the wind like a flag.
Commercial
TekkieTown We Are Sandals
Agency: Hoola Modern Agency
Client: TekkieTown
Director: Jean du Toit
Cinematographer: Fanjan
Producer: Candice Oosthuizen
Sound Design & Mix: Raymond Finn
Bit of a whirlwind production this one, but then again, most productions have various locations, this one shot along the garden route and Port Elizabeth.
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One get's used to early mornings when you are in media productions, however something I still haven't quite gotten used to is rising very early to then drive for 3 hours before you even get to your first location. When budgets allow, you tend to stay over near the location, but usually, if the crew requirements are not to big, you just do the drive.
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A fun client to have worked with on a series of commercials for various market segments, this one being on the bright and happy sunshine side of things.
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A real highlight of this shoot was when we had to get a few pickup shots on the beach. We where on the beach by 4am, dawn just started to hint it's arrival. There was a slight breeze. And it was calm.
NPO Awareness
WHO Let's Get Moving
Agency: Rooftop Productions
Client: World Health Organisation
Producer & Casting: Candice Oosthuizen
Director: Joff
Cinematographer: Fanjan
1st AC: Mzimasi "Zizi" Nzombane
2nd AC: Lulamo Godlo
On-Set Sound: Kayly Miskin (Van Eyssen)
Boom Swinger: Raymond Finn
Right off the bat I will say that working with Dean Goldblum was an absolute ranch sauce! The man is funny, a good laugh, loves to do every first take over the top, and then pull it back as part of his process. He is also incredibly committed to working hard at his career and skills.
This video was shot over three days with the above reference shot being particularly anxiety ridden. We had traffic support for the pedestrian crossing however, traffic support never showed up which left us waiting on the one side of the two way double lane boulevard for a traffic clearing. Waiting for the traffic light to stop traffic, do our walk across the road, Director, Soundie, Boomswinger, 1st AC Focus, 2nd AC, Spark, the three actors, and myself walking backwards. Murphy was on good form for that scene as well, ensuring our remote monitor wasn't working and as such Joff, Directing the actors whilst walking backwards right behind me peering over my shoulder as my camera monitor about 3 feet away.
Film production more often than not puts you in the thick of it with a motley crew of creatives who bond for life. From the outside we all look insane.
Music Video
Medicine Boy - Yellow-Eyed Radio Blues
The little hamlet of Nieu Bethesda is relaxing as it is inspiring. It is also during the filming of this video that I fell out of the car, camera in hand. It was also the first time Talya met most of us after getting into a car and wondering, for a moment at least, if it was such a good idea to join Joff & myself on this video given the remoteness of the Klein Karoo landscape.
Sarah, the lady on the Donkey, also took a couple of falls during the her filming sequences, which she took in her laughing stride, just as she did being responsible for the wardrobe look.
I also made an appearance in the video as one of the characters, I think the only person on the crew who was not a character in the video was Talya...next time. She's still our friend, we haven't freaked her out completely.
There where three notable moments during the production of this video, two involved Joff. The first was when we, sadly I wasn't there in the moment, Joff tested out being dragged behind the donkey. The owner simply smacked the donkey's butt and off it runs, dragging Joff behind it uncontrolled the the rest trying to stop the donkey.
Then whilst I was filming the profile shot of Joff being dragged, I kinda lost my center of gravity and fell out the side of the car, camera in hand. Weirdly, it was a gentle, albeit silent tumble as Tom retells it. I didn't have a moment to raise my predicament as I exited.
Then there was Joff, who at the one cliff running scene, took a bit more of a tumble than expected. It was later discovered that he cracked a little bone in his hand. The BTS footage is somewhere.
Music Video
Blackbird Hill - Smoke & Mirrors
Yes it is weird, but it is funny. Night shoots are always interesting, I find them rather special as well since you are out there, creating something whilst most everyone is sleeping. It's this weird calmness of the night, the opposite of the hustle and noise of our daytime activities.
A large chunk of budget was spent on the alien mask, the rest on bits and bobs, as well as a generator lighting tower. Given our beg-borrow-or-steal budget, I had to employ the lighting tower as deep background depth. The rest of the lighting, really only the two lights we could then run from the generator power that is lift, was to create ambience. I also had to employ my fire hose LP gas for getting a constant fire light source.
Yes, the alien and the cowboy making out is real, albeit it being two different peeps. The making out was with James Collins an his partner is adventures Angel Mey, however all the rest of the shots where our friend Heather Roth. James is the other half of the Collins Brothers, a filmmaker duo that I know will become relatively common name in another 20 years in mainstream film production.
This production provided a number of laughs, from the dance James figured out, to the melted Jellybaby goo on James's lip after the deathly kiss, to the amount of dirt that ended up in James's ear after the alien spaceship crash.
Thanks to Rooftop Productions for allowing us to borrow some of your gear to make this possible.