New music video from Mitch Gettman directed and edited by yours truly. Check it out here: http://hearnebraska.org/content/stay-me-gettman-music-video

If you’re like me, you might have heard of Mitch before. At 15, Mitch started posting videos on his youtube account of acoustic versions of some of his influences like Radiohead, Jeff Buckley and U2. With view counts in the hundreds of thousands, he found an audience online. His reception helped to form a band here in town and he has been playing for almost two years now. With only the acoustic songs I had seen online, I was blown away with the mature and rocking sound of his new album. Gettman has written a solid album of mad bittersweet characters yearning after love, life, and happiness. In working on this video, we mused on the album title, a Jack Kerouac quote. We wanted to project what one does when errant love runs off. We both agreed that fireworks were a centerpiece image, exploring wonder and danger, energy and contemplation. Take a moment and let the sweet release of this video set in while fireworks make your heart grow fonder.

Insomnia sucks. I probably have a sleepless night once a month. And in those dark, fuzzy nights I can barely do anything but stare at a computer or TV screen. My last episode happened after attending a show at the Slowdown. The bands were all great but my shooting was way off. And I returned home kinda bummed in my effort. After spending a good hour tossing in bed, I got up and determined to spend the night editing something out of this jumbled mess. I had spent a few minutes between bands shooting the Galaga/Pacman/Donkey Kong arcade games that no one played in the corner. I loved the falling “indie bubbles” from the Galaga screen and the refresh rate/shutter difference that making a flashy ending to the video. After putting together montages of each band I experimented with adding the video game elements on top of the montages and settled on a screen composite layer. It didn’t really change the look of the montage but added the video game footage and also infused the texture of the super grainy footage into the clean indie bubbles. Normally, I’m a very clean editor, trying my best to make it look as natural as possible and being the “invisible hand”. But in my insomniac stupor, I wanted to screw things up. So I pitchbent the video game audio, chopped it up and repeated it, repeated the game over shot at the end, mirrored-flipped-flopped-slowed-distorted the indie bubbles, and made sure none of my montage shots looked like they synced with the music. It came together rather quick. And instead of taking a step back and doing an edit after some sleep. I finalized it and uploaded to youtube. I think now that I would have tried to cut out a minute of footage, but I’m still mesmerized by it. So what do you all think?

Bands:

Thunder Power

Bear Country

Joan of Arc

Been Reading:

Born Standing Up by Steve Martin

Cut by Cut by Gael Chandler

This is a big announcement for me. It’s a project that has been in the works for a long time. May I introduce “Welcome to Daytrotter” a kickass documentary that I’m helping shoot and edit. Here’s the description from our website

Welcome to Daytrotter is a documentary film about the people behind the music blog and recording studio Daytrotter.  Since opening its doors in 2006, more than 1000 sessions have been recorded in the little studio in Rock Island, Il and given away for free.

The roster of artists is impressive, from Death Cab for Cutie and Spoon, to legends like Kris Kristoffersen, to many bands out on the road to make a name for themselves.  The story of how a dedicated group of people took an idea and built it into one of the most important tastemakers in indie rock is even more impressive.

This feature documentary is currently on-schedule to premiere sometime in early 2012.  It is being shot entirely in 1080p HD with Canon DSLR cameras.

Connect with us online and through social media to stay informed on the progress of the film, and please consider making a tax-deductible donation to help us tell the story.  You can also help us show there is an audience for the film by liking us on Facebook.

The last part is real important, this is a film we’ve been paying out of our pockets for. We could really use any donations and there are some sweet thank you gifts that you could recieve.

Expect to see plenty of updates on the making of the film and all the nerdy tech stuff you expect from me.

This is my start into the DSLR revolution. I recently acquired a Canon T2i and wanted to try it out. I called up by friend Dan Welk who has a Canon 5D mark ii and we headed to the PCC album release show. Both cameras have amazing depth of field, rich color, and low contrast settings, which all evoke a film feel. I’ve been following the DSLR movement religiously but have only recently been able to dive in. And dive I will. Look for lots more footage up here soon as well as all the content I have planned for the site. Got lots of shoots planned in the next few months so I’m excited to use this little guy.

Tech: This was shot with a 5D2 and T2i. The 5D2 had a Rode video mic on it. The audio is a mix of a board feed recorded on a Zooom H4N and a bit of the 5D camera audio. The three sources (2 video + 1 audio) were synced by Pluraleyes (which tried real hard) and edited in FCP with minor color correction. My T2i struggled a bit in the low light so I bumped up the mids in post a bit and desaturated it. The T2i image has quite a bit less latitude in it compared to the 5D2. There is a bit of distortion from the board at the beginning and the crowd had no inhibitions about bumping into us so it gets jumpy from time to time. This was a great test of these new cameras.

Linkage:

Dan Welk

Canon T2i

Poison Control Center

Pluraleyes

I shot, edited, and directed this no-budget music video for the Poison Control Center’s single “Being Gone” off their new 2nd full length, “SAD SOUR FUTURE.”  The video was shot in the band’s home digs of Ames, IA  on sunny Sunday afternoon with a Sony HVRV1U. ”SAD SOUR FUTURE” will be released on Afternoon Records May 18th 2010!

Linkage:

Poison Control Center

Afternoon Records