Mick McCleery's video: Good Times 2012 - STONE BABY

THE STORY: A friend of mine & drummer, Tony Schiavo asked me if I would be interested in doing a video for his band, Stone Baby. Being a friend, I said 'Yes'. But only wanted to do it if we had a strong 'video idea' which would be a nice challenge. I guess Tony was also aware of this 'quirk' in my personality (seems he was paying attention over the years when I told him stories about the many videos I have shot, but not yet completed). He wanted to do it as a 'business deal' while I preferred to do it in trade (He's a sign guy, I'm sure I'll need some signs eventually). But he insisted, as he wanted me to feel it was a job so I would be more inclined to finish it. Smart man it seems, as only about a month later, he's got the video (I never knew I could be so easily bought...) In early Dee-cember his band was playing a party at a recording studio up in Manhattan. And even though I was already all about making sure there was a firm idea before starting this video, I went up to NYC to shoot this performance and hope that inspiration would strike. Seems the lure of the 'bright lights' was too much for me to avoid. But, the whole deal up there was a mess. Nothing to do with the space or the performance, just limited time and lots of interference. It did highlight one thing for me though and it was that, now more than ever we needed a firm 'concept'. Slowly an idea started to form. A way to do a classic 'performance' video but with enough of a technical challenge to keep me brain active and working on it. Which brings us to the... TECHNICAL STUFF: (again, all of the 'this is boring tech shit' applies) I had a flash of a video by REM that I had seen just one time way back in 2001. My memory of it was (turns out) quite faulty. What I remembered is it was a one take video of a pool party (I'm sure it HD, but before HD was the standard for our TVs). The makers kept doing digital zooms to various pieces of the video, but as it happens with digital zooms, the video resolution fell apart on the zooms (got all 'blocky'). As I revisited this video in my mind I thought about how one could do this WITHOUT the resolution falling apart. The solution? Shoot the wide shot as they did as the master (the digital zooms will come from this footage). But shoot all of the close ups (that the digital zooms will be going to) at the same time with a different camera (properly framed in close up). Yep. Six cameras all shooting different shots of one performance simultaneously. Whenever the digital zoom fell apart resolution wise I would jump to the camera with the actual high resolution 'full' image. Tony arranged for the rehearsal space at the Philly Sound Studios where they recorded the song and on a brick January night we shot the video in about two hours. I brought the footage back for editing and did plenty of keyframing (the zooms and the Stone Baby 'stickers' on the door windows) and frame by frame garbage mattes (the song title on the floor) in FCP and here we have it. As an aside, that initial REM video (I finally re-watched it today) is called 'Imitation of Life' and is very cool aside from the 'low resolution' zooms that I 'focused on' back then. I can only guess that I saw just the end and didn't know what they were going for (hence my, "their digital zooms are ugly!" memories). Seems they shot just one piece of video about 20 seconds long and ran forwards and backwards again and again. But all of the party-goers have different lines of the song they are singing and/or acting out (both backwards and forwards). They use the digital zooms to highlight that piece at it's given time. Serious genius. Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vqgdSsfqPs REFLECTION: Making this video reminded me how ready a filmmaker (and especially a low budget filmmaker) has to be for any 'happy accidents'. As stated above, I had the basic idea for the video, but had never been to the shooting space. After shooting the 'heart' of the video, I knew I wanted a wider shot for the beginning and end. I moved the camera all the way back to the entrance way 'vestibule area' and as we were shooting I took notice of the two open doors. On a whim, as the song ended, I swung the doors shut (I also think this is where the members of the band started to have confidence in my directing skills. I could feel a "he shut those doors! He must know what he is doing!" vibe). After that I borrowed some duct tape from the sound guys and rigged the doors to open smoothly as well. These elements really do add to the 'band rehearsing' feel. Then, while editing I started to think that the band name should be on the door. The windows on those doors, made for great 'keyframing' corners to anchor the logos. This inspired me to get the song title in there too. And since the floor looks 'basketball courty' I went with a painted on logo. One 'happy accident' leading to a second and a third. Got to love it, m mccleery