Mick McCleery's video: Sleep A Little Easy When It Rains 1997 - BILLY FRANKS

THE BACK STORY: It was the Summer of 1997 and Billy had come over with his good friend Brad Clayton and asked me to direct a sitcom called 'Coming to Save America' that they had written (as a side story, it was during the auditions for this sitcom that we met Bobbi Ashton who would go on to star in a number of my features and also marry my oldest and best friend John Innocenzo). While we were in production of 'Coming to Save...' I pitched Billy a concept I had for a video to go along with his song 'Sleep A Little Easy...' Okay... admittedly, it wasn't much of a concept, it was more like, "You sing while we spray some water behind you!" But the technique to make all of this happen was pretty involved, which brings us to the.... TECHNICAL STUFF (for people who like this sort of thing): Let's face it, video has come a long way since '97. Back then all I had to shoot on was Super VHS. It was a fairly nice SVHS camera (the Panasonic AG460). But you can see from the footage the limitations of it's quality (not to mention no true manual iris... life as a cameraman sucked then!) I did have one nice (and new) thing going for me at the time that I wanted to test out. I had a nonlinear stand-alone computer editor that I had just started with that May (the Macrosystems Casablanca - was the best thing going at that price point back then - and that price point was five grand!). One thing this editor could do is nice slow motion (which was totally out of my reach before that point). So, to take away the 'video look' of the AG460. I took Billy's song and doubled the speed (sounded like a chipmunk version of the song). I then shot him miming to this double speed version of his song just out my back door (literally, the camera was inside and he was four feet out on the patio) at my old house in Voorhees, NJ. Our good buddy John Kolinsky was up on the top deck (hard to explain but it was a deck eight feet over the patio) and he sprayed water down behind him. Now, water doesn't video well unless it is backlit (think sporting events where you can not see it is raining until they shoot up into the lights). So I took a big spotlight out into the yard (and far enough away from all of the water) and shined it at the water and Bill's back. Then just set back and let him do his thing. After ten takes or so (another advantage of doing the double speed thing is you get through a take twice as quickly!). We took the footage to the cassie nonlinear editor and slowed it down by 50% and it gives (I think) a great look. Some folks even guess that it is shot on film. Now the next part I'm a little foggy on. The inserts of Billy wandering around South Street in Philly. You'll notice it is NOT raining and he is NOT 'Sleeping Easy'. After the video was finished with just him and the rain, either he or I or both of us decided the video needed an 'extra element', so we decided to shoot the city scenes (could have been a week later or maybe even a few months - if I dig out the original tape I could check the time stamp). This material was shot on an 8mm Sony handicam and also slowed by 50%. The reason I used the Sony and not the Panasonic (which was a better camera lens and spec wise) was much better in low light (which I knew the city would be). NEW TWISTS: The only changes I have made from the original video is that I have cropped it (was originally shot 4:3 screen ratio) and then 'keyframed' and up and down 'pan & scan' so that it will fit the new 16:9 widescreen ratio. While this ultimately makes you 'throw away' a good portion of your image I did pay attention to the new screen composition and I think it holds up well. If you'd like to see the original 4:3 version, feel free to click this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ag1brzrO6U REFLECTION: There is a shot at 0:36 that I remember bothering me then, and it still bothers me now. The camera (me) seems to 'struggle' to make the move. I can't remember why I left it in (though I clearly remember not being a fan), I am always a very thorough editor so I can only guess that I had nothing else to put there ('present day mick' thinks he could probably work it out if he went back to the old footage - but if I were to fix all of these movies I'd never get them posted!) Having said all of that, it is still one of my favorite of the many videos I've done for Billy Franks. Loved the technical challenge and always liked the way he moved throughout the frame (in fact, I exploit that in many of our videos) SIDE NOTE: A musician friend of mine has recorded a cover of this song (as part of our Tribute This! project. Check it out here: http://youtu.be/8yhswjCpCW4 And here a live version of Billy performing it at the famous Troubadour in London (Oct 2010): http://youtu.be/0P9jmYO5VFM Enjoy and Thanks, m mccleery