Sporty Doane

I know what you’re thinking. But do you have any football videos? I don’t. I have two football videos!!!! And an ultimate frisbee just because. 

First up, Ten Foot Pole. The song is called “Armchair quarterback”. So obviously a football video. The video explains itself. But, as always, whats the creative catch? I always wanted to do a fake slow motion video. Where the people just act in slow motion. The idea was to have a football game at the end of the video in a small apartment and have everyone doing their best NFL films dramatic acting. The funny part was watching the footage and actually having quite a few scenes look like real slow motion. So here you go. Guy gets invited to watch football, guy invited invites friend from work, friend from work invites everyone he knows. I’m not sure why there is an asian guy in cheerleader drag at the end. These things get fuzzy 10 years later or so. 

 

Next up, Jimmy Eat World. Lets see, how did this come about? At the time Jimmy didn’t have much money for a video. Then one of their songs ends up on the Never Been Kissed soundtrack. Yes, the Drew Barrymore movie. They throw some money at it and the usual just mix in movie footage. Band shows up to my place, I shoot them against the super 90’s sponged wall I had painted in my condo, long lens, just fill the frame and whammo! a performance. Then head to the local park and create a bunch of scenes where the band has a day off and tries to have a fun time playing casual sports. And everywhere they go the serious guys shows up and ruin the day. I remember shooting with the biggest Panavision camera the world had to offer at the time. All that 35MM I’m a real filmmaker lens is bigger than a toddler serious stuff. Boring. Just took so long to shoot everything. But thats another story and eventually will lead into my mockery of all things 4K and RED Cameraish. 

And finally my second football video. The Supertones. The band had this idea. From a production standpoint I had to actually storyboard every shot. Cant really just show up and shoot with two football teams. The local Christian school was about to open their stadium and they were kind enough to let us use everything including uniforms. A good friend of mine played college ball, drilled all the plays and coached the band and high school athletes for all the plays. As I write this i’m remembering that this was the only video that I ran through another production company. And low and behold someone at the company decided to take my edit, which was already approved, and make their own version. And that was the first and last time I ever ran a video through another company. And I shot it all 16mm NFL films hand held. 

Baby in the truck

My wife said to call 911 because she was ready to have the baby. I said lets just get to the hospital which is 5 min away. She said I should really call 911. I said just get in the truck and lets go. She said I’m pushing this baby out now. I said really? The following video is maybe 2 min after baby Zoe was born. My wife natalie and I delivered our 3rd girl in the front seat of my Nissan Titan. We held Zoe, cried a bit and then I sprinted to my neighbors house who was a nurse and called 911 on the way. I had my camera ready because I really wanted to make an awesome birth video. The camera was in the truck ready to go and once I knew mom and daughter was safe I started filming. My wife is an absolute amazing mother. How calm she was under the circumstances continues to blow my mind.

And for the camera gear geeks: pretty sure this was all shot on the D90

Jason Mraz “I’m Yours”

A few years back my friend Peter King(PK) invited me to come out to a bizarre wasteland deep in the armpits of the Ca. desert to film some old school skateboard legends. They scoured the earth for abandoned back yard pools. Some were empty, others needed to be emptied. But they all needed to be riden. I was hooked. This is a TV Show! We started filming and i believed we were onto the next big thing. I dedicated a good six to nine months of time and money making the show. All exteriors, all hot and sweaty all on the fly trying to create cinematic moments in real time. No second takes. How I filmed, how i composed my shots and my body position, how i pulled focused, how i breathed all changed and adapted. But…

No one cared. Networks thought it was cool, but there was no drama, no fighting, no wife yelling at their husbands yadda yadda yadda. And so I was looking at another failed project that would sit on my hard drive that no one would see. A years worth of work. Nothing to show. And then Jason Mraz called. He wanted to shoot a music video for his new album. The song was called “Im yours” and he wanted to go to Hawaii and just figure something out. I thought that was a great idea. But heres the kicker. Everything I had done the last year, the style I was developing, was now ready to be put into action. Run and gun with style and composition. I had trained for a marathon and now was asked to run a 40 yard dash in the same terrain.

Three days in Hawaii just going for it. No make up, no actors, no sets. All real people, places and events. Jason just chilled, sung a few takes and enjoyed a real travel adventure in Hawaii. Myself, PK, Donovan Mlcoch and Ed Flynn just ran around doing what we had developed in backyard pools in Ca. Three days later it was all over. Ed Flynn started editing some scenes on the last day. I came into his hotel room and watched about thirty seconds of images with the song. I had a weird feeling that this could be a really big video. Jason, the song the images. A very very rare blend of all the pieces coming together. And it was. Millions of albums later, countless showings on MTV and hundreds of millions of views on youtube. Thats a success. And that led to videos for “lucky”, “make it mine” and a live concert DVD Jason Mraz live from earth.

Now, im one little part in the trajectory of Jasons career. But my little part has its own path. And for me, what I thought was a big stinking pile of wasted time in the backyard pools of the desert was God preparing me for a new land flowing with pineapples and sun tan lotion. And with success comes more opportunity to provide for my family and create new ideas. But new ideas need cultivating. I have since learned to not be afraid to find creative deserts to explore. I go there willingly and look forward to how they will be applied on later projects.

Gear Note: This video is a testament to the awesomeness of the Panasonic HVX. Just run and gun, no lights all natural. All edit and color in Final Cut. Just plain old color corrector.

The kids are alright

What were you doing in 4th grade? One of the students in our kids school, Nathan Weber, and his friend Presley Regier made this music video. I know lots of people who talk about making stuff and it turns out 10 year olds are actually doing it.

WEIRD VS. INSANE PT.1

Up first, WEIRD.

Music videos are like drug deals. Somebody wants something and they call you late at night. They don’t have a lot of money so they ask what they can get for 10 bucks. Enter, HORSE THE BAND. To be honest all I remember is talking to someone on the phone and listening to the absolute weirdest ideas I have ever come across. And then I started throwing in my weird ideas. Sometimes bands start talking and you realize that they have spent so much time in a van developing their own short hand, humor and framework that it comes across as a different language. That said, Im a huge fan of the movie GUMMO. I mean really really big fan. And so something in all this just smelled of GUMMO and Napoleon Dynamite. I hate rap videos. Early Wu-Tang running the streets was amazing. But then all the rap and hip hop guys just started making cheap blingy porn. So in a lot of ways this is my response to how repulsive I find the new rap video. Be warned. This video is WEIRD. This is what you get on a late night video 10 dollar drug deal. Actually I think the budget was $1200 bucks. But keep in mind, this video with a hip hop beat 200K and attractive people dancing semi naked is made every day. And no one thinks thats weird.

MAKE IT 3!

MxPx

Around 1995 I was doing a lot of underground punk music. Green Day and The Offspring were beginning to take over the world but not fully. I was doing videos for Pennywise, Guttermouth and everyone else over at Epitaph and Nitro Records. Blink 182 hadn’t blown up yet but it was close. In the middle of all this I had a chance to work wit MxPx. A three piece punk band up in Seattle Washington. When I heard the CD I was blown away. Im pretty sure they were still in High School. I played Fletcher from Pennywise the CD and he just shook his head and said, “yea, these kids are good.” My crew and I rented a Van and drove 20 something hours to Seattle. We were hired to do one video for the song “Move to Bremerton”. At the time someone thought this was going to be the “Hit”. When we arrived at the bands house I noticed they had a detached garage with band equipment in it. The room just looked amazing. I was shooting 35MM film back then and had 2 short rolls of Black and White with me. Within 20 minutes of being there we were shooting a video for the shortest song on the album. I figured why not, and with only a few hundred feet of film it would work. I think I shot 5 takes and 2 slow motion shots. The band jumping and one accent band rocking quick take sort of thing. I liked the idea of the Mike the singer framing the opening shot by moving the camera and then just exploding into the video. I mean, we had driven for a whole day, just stretched our legs and here we were shooting! There’s just something about filming with no expectations. What was a fun simple little short video actually still carries a lot power for me in terms what I know can be done with 4 angles.

NEXT DAY

We woke up the next morning and began filming “Move to Bremerton”, the song we were actually hired to make. We started in Seattle and had this idea of the band walking to Bremerton, their hometown. Its an odd little zone off the coast of Seattle that you get to by ferry. Its to the left of Seattle so we had the band pretty much always walking from Right to Left. At least that was the idea. When we took the ferry over we just got out of our car and did the vocal take on the back. No playback so we used his walkman and headphones. All natural lighting. Shooting on film wasn’t cheap but if you had your shots figured out and just pulled the trigger on what you needed you could do a lot.

THAT NIGHT

By mid day we were done. We were sitting around and someone had the always awesome idea to go get some milkshakes. One of their friends owned the diner in town. They said it would be a great location for a video one day. Well, how about tonight? What song? Whats the concept? We started brainstorming on the song “Chic magnet” and we were off again. What you see in this video is our 3rd video in 2 days on a $5,000 dollar budget. “Chic Magnet” went on to be the bands first real hit and MTV video.

My Take on Filmmaking

I gave this talk a few years back. I have had lots of great feedback from it and the few brave filmmakers that have taken up my challenge at the end have either collaborated with me or most likely will in the future.

Straight Up Filmmaking with Paula Abdul

I was always watching music videos. I was always drawing and videoing and reading comic books and seeing 3 movies every weekend. But when I saw Paula Abdul’s Straight up video something changed. I knew it was an amazing video. Everyone else was making fun of Paula as the new lame pop princess. But I could not keep my eyes off this video. Why was it so good? What was going on? At least to me it was. Black and white all grainy for a pop video? Come on? Who does that? Long lens compressed shots. Blown out whites. Crushed blacks. And simple. Just people standing in front of the camera. Wide, medium, tight and really tight shots. Thats it! And like 2 dolly shots. But the editing to the beat and the performers jwere ust going off right down to the stand up bass dude! This is a video. This is a masterpiece! Who made this, how did they make it?

Back in 1989 there was no internet. And directors names were not on videos. So you actually had to do research. And low and behold I found out who made it.  And how. Some young guy named David Fincher? And he shot it all on a…….Drum roll…..Cymbal crash….

a super 8 camera?

Wait. What? A super 8 camera? I had a super 8 camera! So what was my excuse? I didn’t have one anymore. And this video made me decide to become a music video director. I was 18 years old. 

Not sure what that “Fincher” guy went on to do? 

darn these horses

The great thing about youth is you think you can do anything. There was a time when a lot of music video directors showed up. Everyone was now directing. It used to be me and about 4 other guys pretty much doing every punk and metal video. Then, there was 20. Darn this free market. When competition shows up it doesn’t matter how good or bad they are compared to your skills. Their mere presence makes people understand they now have choices. Maybe the other guy is better?  Maybe Darren isn’t that good? He’s all we have ever used. The band just wants to try something different.

Well, that’s what was going on. And so here comes As I Lay Dying. They had made videos with everyone but me. All the new guys had beat me to the punch. And here I now had the opportunity to make a video for them. So what do I pitch? An epic. A period piece. Horses, sword fights on horseback, crane shots over cliffs of death. Chases through barren wastelands. Ancient villages. Actors, extras, fire, stunts…What was I thinking? The label asked, you can do all this? Of course I can!

How? A four day shoot? Horses? Where do I get horses? Stunt men to ride the horses? Who brings the horses? Can they ride with swords? How do I direct them once on the horses? Why did I write an idea with horses? How much do horses cost?

Our budget was 40K. So I’m thinking 8k a day in expenses and I can still make a profit. Maybe. The best thing about filmmaking in Ca. Is you have everything within an hour of each other. Beach to mountains to desert to casting agencies to horse wranglers to crew.

The Melody Ranch is one the best places to shoot in Ca.
http://melodyranchstudio.com/index.html

Any location you need can be made to work there. So I knew the bulk of all action could be there. I approached everything like a play. I would set up all the action of a particular shot and rehearse with everyone at half speed. Once everyone knew what to do, where to run and what marks to hit we would go for it at 3/4 speed. I would plant 3 cameras to capture the action. One camera as a wide master, another camera close on main actors and another camera fishing around for inserts of cool things. Feet running, hair moving dirt flying. I would spend 20 min rehearsing and then shoot a 20 second scene 3 or 4 times with 3 cams rolling. And always do one series at with cameras rolling in slow motion.

This turned out to be the best method that allowed me to get everything done. Focus on organizing first, what’s the dance, and then cover it a bunch of times. Worry about the shots and angles last.

For the band performance it was easy. Just steal everything from Metallica’s Unforgiven video. Still one of the greatest music videos of all time. 

Come on get high on fire

Sometimes we complicate music videos. Whenever I meet a young director who’s made a few vids I give this piece of advice. Go make a video with as little camera movement as possible. Approach each band member like a photo shoot. Compose each member. Compose each shot. Lock off. Simple. I do it all the time. It’s a great way to get back to composing images as opposed to shooting. Video cameras killed the photographer. The photographer in all of us. DSLRs have helped us return to the art of composing. So with that in mind here is an example of me showing up, composing each band member, shooting maybe 8 or 9 angles and just letting the individual shots speak for themselves. Cutting to the beat, layering images and just dissecting the song by way of the parts. Anyone can make a video like this. Just compose, shoot and edit. Oh and it doesn’t hurt to be filming one of the gnarliest bad ass heavy bands of all time.