It may seem somewhat ironic that we waited for one of only a handful of sunny days in the middle of February to make it fake rain in Seattle, but I assure you that it was necessary. The drops had to be big enough to show up nicely on our camera.
For this scene we shot with the Phantom Flex, HI-Speed camera at 2400 frames per second with our set of trusty LOMO spherical lenses (more on these, next post). Shooting at this frame-rate meant that a four second take equaled about four minutes of slow motion footage. By the end of the day we had 84 minutes of footage – which had to be cut to 23 seconds for the actual video. Don’t worry, I’ll be leaking some unadulterated slow-motion-rain-basketball for your enjoyment sometime in the near future.
We filmed at Jefferson Community Center on Beacon Hill with a handful of kids rallied together by our dood Amaniel, who coaches basketball (and grew up) in Yesler Terrace. It was something like 35 degrees (2 degrees Celsius), the “rain” water was straight from a hydrant, and only one kid rebelled the entire day. Maybe Jordan can dig up some footage of him stating his list of demands.
Shout out to our EXTRA crew who came through from Pacific Grip and Lighting, Dean Cannon the phenom Phantom tech, the parents who so willingly gave up their children for the sake of “art,” and “The Rain Men” who came up from Portland to make it happen. All for 23 seconds.
Oh, and for those of you that have concerns, the shoes came away unscathed, and we were able to use them for the rest of the shoot. Lucas rocked them with respect. They are still minty, and I am looking at them right now. -Zia
I’ve been getting numerous questions lately about how we lit certain scenes for this video, so for those of you that are curious, today’s your lucky day! We ran out of daylight for this scene as so often happens when you decide to shoot a project in Seattle anytime from late fall through winter (which I can’t seem to break away from doing as evidenced by Macklemore’s “The Town,” Jake One’s “Home,” and the Blue Scholars’ “Joe Metro” & “Loyalty” videos), so we had to light everything artificially. Not a huge deal, but it’s always nice working with natural daylight more than anything else, then adding and subtracting as needed.
Our primary fill came from a 1200w HMI through a silk that was set up right outside the bedroom window. We had a top light that gave a nice edge to the shoebox-opening-Lucas which was a 200w Joker with chimera. A small mirror served as our eye light, and gave a tiny bit of extra daylight fill, and to top it all off we used a 650w practical to hit the back wall of the room and warm up the ambience a bit. It doesn’t necessarily scream DAYLIGHT, but hey, we were feeling creative. Will it look filthy when it’s all color corrected and fancy? We’ll see. I”m working on that as we speak.
For the time being, enjoy this second installment of Jordan Nicholson’s WINGS making-of series, that has Lucas (also known as Mini-Mack) opening numerous boxes of some notable pedial accessories. -Zia
Aaaaaaand we’re back. The last time we posted was over 18 months ago when we put out Macklemore’s The “Town.” The loveandshoestrings redux has been a long time coming. I think it’s rather serendipitous that our return is signified by a project about shoes, and with a song crafted by the same artist as our previous release. The most notable difference however: No more 18 month hiatii! The new mission statement caps blog breaks at 16 months. So make sure you come back and visit us more often!
This past week we wrapped production on a music video for Macklemore x Ryan Lewis’ song “WINGS.” Principal photography spanned the course of several days, giving us ample time to craft our narrative, light some beautiful South Seattle locations, and film some pretty-on-point rap hands. (Macklemore and Hollis Wong-Wear’s documentary on rap hands supposedly forthcoming.)
Equally as important as the final product is the process. At the end of the day, when you see the artist and the director’s names as the byline of a film or music video, you’re only getting 2% of the entire story. We hope to fill in what really went on behind the scenes, which was an entire community’s support to make this video come to life. One such integral person is Jordan Nicholson, a king of so many trades that result in ridiculously dope product. He’ll be rolling out a series of videos leading up to the release of “WINGS” that are behind the scenes glimpses. This one was taken in White Center at the Salvation Army’s log-cabin-esque basketball court. Note the rap hands. -Zia