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Dwayne Coleman Music Video

When I first started this blog nearly a year ago, I made a promise to myself that I'd focus (pun totally intended) on each of the professions that I regularly work in, those being photography, video production, and lighting design for live audiences. As luck would have it, most if not all of the entries that have ended up here have been strictly about my photography gigs. I suppose this is because photography inherently supports visual discussion after the fact. You are left with an automatic record of the process with photography gigs because photography IS the process. When I'm doing a stage lighting gig, for example, I have to remember to bring a camera along, and force myself to stop working and shoot photos of the process. Usually, I have neither the time nor the energy to pull this off with any great level of detail.

Video production is a little easier to share here. Again, there's a camera (albeit motion pictures) involved by default, and I usually shoot stills with my SLR camera on-set quite a bit. Not only do I use digital stills on video shoots to document our set-ups, but I also use the SLR as a rough light and color meter. Shooting a quick photo and "chimping" what the light looks like on the SLR's screen allows me to fine-tune things before setting up the larger, bulkier video camera. The music video shoot I did last month for gospel artist Dwayne Coleman last month was no exception. As director of photography, camera operator, and editor, I shot lots of photos both for myself on the technical end as well as to share with you here.

West Side Theatre Guild Film Works and director Mark Spencer, whom I've worked with behind the camera since the summer of 2003, approached me at the beginning of March with their idea for the video shoot. There wasn't much, if any, budget to work with, and the scheduling window was pretty tight. We began shooting a little over a week after first sitting down at the table to discuss specifics like locations, a treatment (the story outline of the video), and deadline for the final edit, which ended up being less than three weeks after we wrapped shooting. As always, I was up for the challenge and even collaborated with the director a bit on the treatment (I came up with the homeless people idea you'll see later in the finished product).

The song for the video, Zion (written by the artist), deals with some of the negative issues surrounding the modern church, such as people losing touch with the true message of God and christianity. Using this as a stepping stone, Spencer decided to play most of the video's performance with Dwayne in a large, abandoned church, Gary's City Methodist. The church is a hot-spot for urban explorers and photographers, and was recently featured on an episode of The History Channel's Life After People:

Built in 1925, City Methodist served nearly 3000 parishioners at its peak. By the late 1970's, attendance had fallen to 300 or so, and the church could no longer afford to stay open. The building exchanged hands a few times after the church disbanded, and was finally left in the late 70's to begin the process of decay which continues to ravage the complex today.

City Methodist is a very dangerous place for a few reasons. The structure is extremely unstable - and that's putting it mildly. More than once during our day-long shoot in the sanctuary, myself and fellow crew members were literally rained down upon by bricks and plaster, knocked down from 60' high ledges by pigeons, of all things! Large holes fill the sanctuary floor which used to be covered with ventilation grates, removed long ago by scrap metal looters.

The little that remains of City Methodist's choir loft, most of it having caved into the sanctuary below.

The other danger for us artists in City Methodist is the sheer beauty and awesomeness which remains even in the building's state of decay. One could literally stroll through the sanctuary and adjoining school complex with a camera for days, photographing every decaying nuance still left after so many years of neglect. As I and other crew members fascinated with this building can attest, it's extremely hard to stay on task and get work done in this visually stunning gem!

This window contains some of the last surviving stained glass in the entire complex.

We started our day at City Methodist by loading in our 5000 watt generator to power the audio playback rig for the talent, a JBL Eon powered monitor speaker / CD deck, as well as providing power to jib operator Tom Szklarski's rig (more on this later). The generator would also provide power to a few hot lights and Kino Flos I bought along in incase I needed any fill.

The piano which Dwayne would play at the center of the sanctuary (pictured at the top of this entry) was brought in by our crew members the day before the shoot. We were supposed to have a black baby-grand piano, but the difficulty in getting it into the extremely unlevel and unstable structure caused us to go with a smaller, upright piano which was donated to us just for the shoot (meaning that it could be damaged on its way in). We considered using an actual, ruined piano that we found on-site near the altar, but the condition was far too bad to appear playable (we wanted to see Dwayne's fingers on the piano keys, and the church piano's keys were almost all missing).

This piano we discovered in the sanctuary would have matched its surroundings perfectly, but was too far-gone for us to use.

While Tom was setting up his jib in the sanctuary, and after about 30 minutes of exploring the church's pitch-black boiler room, we headed to the alley behind the church to begin filming our actors portraying homeless people. Throughout the video, we are introduced to homeless people surrounding the church who eventually join Dwayne and the singers in the sanctuary. Actress and guild member Derricka Johnson was our first victim, wrapped in a pink blanket lying on the cold, alley blacktop.

Assistant director Rashaad Cherry (right) and first assistant camera Michael Hilmes (center) prep for a shot with actress Derricka Johnson (left).

We used a dolly with track to smoothly move the camera from left to right to reveal Derricka's face, and used a regular box-fan (powered off the generator) to blow pieces of newspaper through the frame, selling the illusion of harsh, cold wind. Though the camera dolly itself is equipped with large, air-filled tires, most surfaces are still too bumpy to use these tires for our moves. 99% of the time, our dolly rides on stainless steel tracks and special adaptors that use actual skateboard wheels to achieve buttery-smooth moves. Also, as we are not equipped with a "hi hat" to mount the camera low on the dolly, I usually have to improvise for low shots such as this one. You can see in the photo above that the camera is simply being propped up and leveled on the dolly floor with wood wedges and shot bags!

Director of photography Guy Rhodes eyes focus distance marks on a lens while setting up a shot using a Panasonic SDX-900.

While we're on the topic of cameras, let's discuss how this piece was shot. We used a Panasonic SDX-900 camera, which is a 2/3rd inch 3-chip digital video camera. We used it in 24p mode (which emulates the look of a motion picture camera) and shot in the camera's native 16:9 aspect ratio, allowing for greater compatibility with HD television as well as internet sites like Youtube which are switching over to 16:9 as a default. I used a Canon zoom lens for the entire piece, a 6.5mm-12X. We recorded in DVCPRO50 format, which yields a higher color sampling rate than regular DV video. This allows for more control later in color correction. With DVCPRO50, I can underexpose by as much as 2 stops in-camera and bring things up later in color correction without the image falling apart - it's quite impressive.

When we returned to the sanctuary, diesel exhaust from school busses idling across the street filled the room with visible shafts of sunlight. It made me wish I had remembered to bring our hazer; we could have created this effect the entire time! D'oh!

Jib operator Tom Szklarski operates his rig during a take.

After getting all of our homeless shots and church exteriors, we headed back into the sanctuary to begin our performance shots with Tom, our jib operator. The jib is simply a large, counterweighted arm (ours was around 25' long) which allows the camera to swoop up and over the performance area. The camera mounts to a platform at the end of the jib which remotely pans and tilts at continuously variable speeds. The jib operator also has the ability to control focus, iris (aperture), and record start / stop from the base of the jib. The frame is viewed on a monitor attached near the pedestal of the jib. During jib takes, this was the only monitor we had, so often times director Mark and I would be sidestepping / dancing alongside Tom as he did his moves with our heads craning into the monitor to see what we were getting.

A monitor at the end of the jib allows the operator and nervous directors of photography to see the shot as it's being recorded.

I must take a moment to emphasize how much skill it takes to operate a jib as well as Tom and some of the other operators we work with. The rig is very physically demanding. For instance, when the camera is at its highest possible position, the operator is often crouched into a ball near the floor holding the controls with his head looking straight up up into the monitor. A lot of back and knee pain after an eight hour day? You bet! Hand eye coordination is also highly important. When the jib arm moves down, the camera must often be tilted up simultaneously with a joystick near the operator's hand to maintain ideal composition. I've had several operators allow me to try moves on jibs at our shoots during idle moments, and I can tell you personally that it's VERY hard to do well.

Over the next two hours or so, we did around seventeen complete takes of the four minute song on the jib, with director Mark and I briefing Tom on what I wanted to cover. We did several wide takes, one take wide from above, several takes medium and close of just Dwanye, a few takes of the background singers and homeless people entering. We also did several "freestyle" takes where we asked Tom to improvise and move the jib in creative ways.

Once we were satisfied with our jib shots, I put the camera back on the tripod and moved in to get a few very close takes of Dwayne, as well as coverage of his fingers playing the piano. I ended up with a really cool image from these takes (which begins the first verse of the video), that of Dwayne's breath leaving his mouth as he sang backlit by the sanctuary's large, gold-colored stained glass window. We purposely waited 'til later in the afternoon to shoot in the sanctuary for this very reason. When we scouted it the day before, the gold "magic hour" light was hitting the same window, bathing the sanctuary in warmth. As I mentioned earlier in this entry, because of the large windows and great color, I didn't use a single light at this location. Sometimes it's best to keep it simple and let the location's benefits shine.


Day two of our shoot took us to a local playground where an elderly version of Dwayne, transformed over a two-hour period by Chicago-based makeup artist Nann Zbryski, would be jumped by some thugs for his groceries. As Dwayne's character tries to get things together, a girl skips over and helps Dwayne pick up his spilled fruit. We also shot a few takes of Dwayne performing the song at this location, again, using the camera dolly to keep things moving and vibrant.

The playground ended up being my least favorite setup of the entire project due to the lighting. Because of scheduling, we were forced to shoot around high-noon which, even in April, gives us very harsh, unflattering light in the Midwest. Even with several 4x4 silver reflectors and bounce cards, the light still ended up looking pretty crummy to me. The location was also wrought with poles and wires in the background which I couldn't really throw out of focus as much as I would have liked (exposing some of the limitations of a 2/3rd inch chip video camera, even with ND filters in and the iris wide-open).

Artist Dwayne Coleman channels his inner-mime for a take on-set at West Side Theater.

After wrapping at the playground, we move to the theater guild's large, proscenium stage. Makeup artist Nann transformed Dwayne yet again, this time into a white-faced mime. I must say when Dwayne came down from makeup as the mime, it was a little disconcerting. What was even funnier was that Dwayne had to run home to get a shirt he needed for the scene, driving across much of Gary, Indiana, in full mime face. Yes, he got several odd stares on the way.

Assistant director Rashaad Cherry rigged up actual makeup mirror light bulbs onto a table that Dwayne would sit at for the shot, appearing to apply his face paint as he sang. The bulbs would surround a "mirror" which we'd leave open, allowing the camera on the dolly to actually push through the frame of bulbs. I let these bulbs alone light Dwayne's face, running them down to about 75% on a hand-dimmer. I backlit Dwayne from opposing rear 45 degree angles with 2 Source 4 26° profiles with blue gels, using the shutters in the fixtures to cut the light off the camera and light only Dwayne. The mime performances ended up being some of the most dynamic of our entire shoot.

Here, you can see the dolly tracks that allowed the camera to push through the "mirror" opening. Note the can of Pledge furniture polish on the dolly, which we use to make the dolly wheels roll even smoother than they already do, and to stop any wheel squeaks or roughness.

Day three began with performance shots at Marquette Park Beach on Lake Michigan.

Day three, our last day of shooting, took us to Marquette Park Beach on Lake Michigan, where assistant director Rashaad and first assistant camera Michael Hilmes spent three hours building an elaborate sand-fort for Dwayne to sit in and perform, complete with army men and tanks. After shooting a few performance shots of just Dwayne on the beach without the fort, we moved in to the fort area when the light was nice.

Dwayne and his sand fort, which took nearly three hours to construct.

This didn't get nearly enough screen time in the video, so I'm giving it some more love here. Note the toothpick staircase that allows the soldiers to reach the top of their lookout tower!

Just as we began shooting Dwayne in the fort, with the sun quickly setting, the batteries in the boom-box which we were using for playback began to die in the cold, causing the playback track to skip - a nightmare for both Dwayne's performance on camera as well as my sync'ing during editing later. We all banded together and quickly swapped batteries, slightly improving the skipping problem but not eliminating it. You gotta roll with the punches doing these kinds of projects, and this was just such a test! We finished up at the beach getting some b-roll of Dwayne walking away from and towards the sunset, using a variety of "hard" filters in front of the camera lens to enhance the colors in the sky.

Why is it skipping? Are these batteries the new ones or the old ones we just took out???

Director Mark Spencer (left) tosses chunks of bread into the air to attract seagulls to our frame and Dwayne along the water. You can see a piece of bread fly through the frame during the final cut of the video if you look closely!

First assistant camera Michael Hilmes diligently packs camera equipment following the shoot.

Our last setup of the day and the video as a whole, ironically enough, was cut from the video altogether in editing. Given our limited budget, it's extremely wasteful for us to do a set-up and not use it at all, but after showing a few trusted colleagues as well as average viewers my rough cut, it was determined the scene just didn't fit in with the rest of the video's vibe. The scene was supposed to portray Jesus Christ by a campfire being led away for crucifixion. It was the only scene I spent any degree of time lighting, and I was fairly happy with the way it turned out, visually at least. Oh well, it was good practice.

The "Jesus Tree" scene, as it became affectionately known throughout the edit, was cut from the final version of the video. The trees in the background are nearly 400' away, and required as much power cable in order to light them.

The actor sleeping on the ground near the campfire is being lit with my Ford Escape's headlights (at right, above). I taped cuts of color correction gel over the headlights to cool them down and make them appear more like moonlight. I've used this trick on locations with limited power several times.

Going into the edit, I had a little less than four hours of footage (most of it very usable) to cut down into a four-minute video. While this might seem daunting to someone just getting into video, it's actually pretty normal for us. I've edited 90 minute feature films that had 48 HOURS of raw tape going in. I captured all the footage from Dwayne's video in full DVCPRO50 quality into Final Cut Pro, where I split it up into sub-clips based on location and content.

Click this image for a large screen-capture of my Final Cut Pro layout during the editing of the music video, which I explain below.

As for syncing all the performances with the mastered audio track of the song, I use a fairly straight-forward technique. Most seasoned pro's are shocked to find out that I don't use timecode to sync things on muli-cam shoots, or shoots that need to be sync'ed to audio, like this one. When we're on location shooting, I record a "scratch track" using the on camera microphone as it picks up the playback from the boom box that the artist is lip-syncing to. In post, I simply lay a take with its scratch audio track under the final master audio track. I sync the two together by ear, and confirm things are in sync visually via the waveforms as well as on screen. Once I've snyc'ed a take, I delete the scratch audio track only from that take, leaving the video track in place. I create a new video track above that one, and continue sync'ing all my additional performance takes with the master audio.

Dwayne's video left me with 19 or so sync'ed tracks on top of each other. To begin cutting, I drag all the tracks' in points to the right, and then begin pulling them over to the left to my edit point one by one until I find a shot I like. I use the blade tool to cut that track where I want the shot the end, and then continue on and on like this. Pink "markers" flag interesting shots or moments within each take, which I mark ahead of time when I'm reviewing my footage, much like tagging photos in Photomechanic. Green markers above my sequence mark the different parts of the song (intro, verse, chorus etc.) so I can keep an eye on pacing as I go. Once the director approves the cut and picture is "locked", I merge the tracks into one, where I proceed with color correction and effects. From there, it's ready to be printed back to DVCPRO50 tape for mastering, as well as being compressed for Youtube and DVD distribution.

If you've made it to the end of this blog without skimming, congratulations! I hope you enjoyed a little insight into what I do outside of the photo world I've shared with you over the past year. Ready for the finished product? Without further adieu, Dwayne Coleman's Zion:

Catching The Next Wave

If there's one thing that pains my ear drums more than anything else, it's when photographers complain about being stuck in a creative rut. After all, most of us have been blessed to be involved in a career that also happens to be our life's passion. Hearing colleagues complain and rant about a creative art form we're all supposed to be jazzed about doing can be quite annoying.

So, when I hit my own photo slump late this winter, I kept it quiet for the most part. I only told a few people about how I felt as if I was "phoning it in" at assignment after assignment. Sure, I was shooting photos that were good for the newspaper's needs, but certainly not anything that was showcasing my personal eye for things. The events I was photographing were, for the most part, things where people were hardly doing anything, if at all. They were assignments full of people sitting around at tables, or staring at someone talking blankly in front of a Powerpoint screen. No matter how much I tried to work these situations, sometimes staying for an hour or more, the visuals just weren't there.

Here's one of my gems from "one of those" assignments a few weekends ago. Is this image what the paper needed to tell the story? Yes. Clip winner? Doubtful. Personal vision exercised? Disappointingly, no.

Not only did I keep my slump quiet for fear of violating my own disdain for others' rants, but in an era where many photographers are struggling to find any work at all, I was happy to be getting regular freelance assignments. To dig my photo slump even deeper, a big increase in work on the video and stage lighting design end for me early this year left my still game really out of practice.

Braving a steady, biting northwest wind, Scott Bort pressured me into shooting surfers on Lake Michigan with him last Sunday, and I'm glad I went.

While at the lake, Bort shoots me shooting water jetting into the air as 8' waves pound the end of a pier we were using to get different angles of the surf action. (Photo by Bort).

Out on the water, surfers were enjoying some of the best conditions so far in 2009 after a very long, iced-over winter.

A welcome relief came on Sunday when my friend Scott Bort called me up and told me he'd be out at the lake front shooting surfers and invited me along. I started shooting lakesurf back in 2004, and whenever conditions are favorable, I make the trip out to one of several hot surf spots along the lake's southern shore. The tight-knit local surf community has learned who I am by my often wind-tattered hair flapping around over my large white 400mm lens over the years, and its members usually welcome me to a session with a warm smile or respectful head-nod. Many of them have even supported me by purchasing prints of my work.

Even though I've shot surfing countless times over the past five years, and even though many photos from session to session have a similar vibe, the surf photo op. on its own isn't what really draws me to the lakefront. There's just something soothing about being out there for a few hours on the edge of nature's awesome display. Having a visually engaging subject matter doesn't hurt either!

Sunday's waves were especially large for Lake Michigan, cresting as high as eight feet on-shore. Standing at the end of a nearby pier, I could feel the vibration dance through my shoes as the waves pounded the end of the manmade structure. It's a great experience to look out at the waves and see nature moving and shaping the shoreline, for the most part, out of control of human beings, and even putting manmade structures like the pier to the test.

I suppose the waves and the surfers that love them might serve as an interesting metaphor for the lives of us creative types. Sometimes we're at the top of our game, riding the wave and having a blast. Other times we're stuck between sets, waiting to paddle onto the next crest. But we've always got that next wave to look forward to. Even when the water is calm for a while, the waves always return, and they're always pushing us closer and closer to that "shore" of career goals many of us (like myself) set for ourselves as early as middle school.

Riding in the "tube" is common for surfers in most oceans, but not so much on the Great Lakes.

As creative types, we're truly spoiled in a lot of ways. Not only are our "jobs" our life passions, but sometimes the subjects of our work allow us to see deeper within ourselves, and better understand where we're headed in the big picture. I don't know of too many other lines of work where one is afforded such a privilege.

I know when I'm in a slump, it's not too long before the next set of waves is there to ride.