Mary Giles is one of the leading realtors in Erie County. With her extensive reputation, she's well known for her ability to sell homes quickly. Of course, quality photos and video of the homes is a really important part of this.
We've been working wither her for over 2 years to capture aerial photo and video for her clients.
When Aaron, also known as Justyfi, reached out to me once again with a Music Video idea, of course we had to entertain the concept.
The song, which focuses on many of the problems with rap culture, including drugs and violence, is fueled by Aaron's outlook on life, music, and his faith. As such, he wanted to steer the music video in a direction that pointed out many juxtapositions, where shots would be combining two unlike things, or symbolism would be used to point out interesting priorities in this particular lifestyle. Are you able to find all the symbolism in the video?
Stylistically, Justyfi had two visual inspirations for the style he wanted to emulate: Wes Anderson and Tyler The Creator. Wes Anderson's cinematography has a very "boxy" camera position where shots feel very intentionally placed, using a lot of centered shots and straight-on viewpoints. Many of Tyler The Creator's recent music videos also have a very warm, soft filmic look, with golden skin tons and punchy contrast. That became the primary inspiration for our color grade.
The video was shot over 3 days, with a shot list joint developed between Shoreline and Justyfi. On set, we used our Blackmagic Ursa Mini Pro and our Blackmagic Pocket Cinema 4K as our primary cameras, which are responsible for almost every shot in the video. Editing and Color was done in Davinci Resolve.
As my friend Aaron, also known as Justyfi, wanted to begin releasing his first music project, he knew that he wanted a cool music video to pair with the project's release. He reached out to me with a specific vision for his song "Lose My Head" on the EP. The song, which focuses on Aaron's desire to keep his focus on his faith and relationships as he grows, rather than losing himself in the process. The song lends itself in both feel and lyrical content, with a trippy, dazed cadence and punchy, fast lyrics. Aaron's vision for the music video was an interrogation, where he would be interrogated by hooded figures which would only later be revealed to be versions of himself. Stylistically, Aaron wanted to video to feel very dark and cold. Even the outside portions he wanted to feel as though it were night time, so that the entirety of the video felt as though it was dimly lit.The music video was shot in under 18 hours, providing an intense shooting schedule that started Friday Evening with pickup shots early Saturday morning. However, the shoot being done in only two locations with minimal scene changes made it achievable in such a tight timeframe. The video was shot on our Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K as well as our Panasonic GH5 for most of the video, with a few shots provided by a Sony A7S III. Our initial edit for the video was done in Premiere Pro, and then was transferred to Davinci Resolve for our fine tuning and color.
At the beginning of 2020, The team at The Chapel informed me of a plan to launch their new logo and branding towards the beginning of April. Along with that, they wanted to do a really cool set of long-form videos explaining the many things that would be happening as a result of the new branding, including changes in vision & focus, changes in their website, and more. However, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, we shifted our focus away from this project into putting together online weekend services. As the church team got their footing again, we decided to do a softer version of this new branding launch, where we would roll out some thing slowly, such as the vision & goals, but still launch the new logo and signage. So, we put together this awesome short launch video to show just how awesome this place is!
If you want to check out The Chapel, you can visit https://thechapel.family
At the beginning of the pandemic, the team at The Chapel had to make the tough call to follow the recommendations of the local health department and shut down the church for weekend services, where they would average 2000+ people each weekend across their 3 campuses. On the tail end of this decision was the decision that they still wanted to provide a full weekend service to their church family. We were asked to come on board with The Chapel to assist in making weekend service videos happen. We produced over 20 weekends worth of service videos in total, with each ranging from 25-50 minutes. Each of these videos included a worship session, which consisted of music performed by The Chapel's worship team, as well as a message, which was done by various staff members at The Chapel.