So I had the opportunity to Gaff a couple of music videos last month, and it occurred to me that I should be sharing more of these experiences through my blog, so here goes.

It was a four day shoot with 2 days for the Serius Jones video, and 2 days for the Redskin video. We were shooting on 35mm Vision 2 stock, and lighting setups ran the gammut.

I’ve done lighting for a few videos before, but I had never had the opportunity to do lighting for Rap videos. Here’s what I learned.

1. You need lot’s of scantily clad women
2. You need a charismatic rapper
3. Interesting locations
4. A DP whose willing to strap his ass to a helicopter
5. Some good running shoes incase someone starts shooting

Now I would have thought in the city of Seattle that you were more likely to hear gun shots at a peace rally than during a music video shoot, but apparently somebody took the term “shoot” a little too literally.

As far as I know, no one was hurt, and luckily we were on the last shot of the day so packing up and leaving were no big deal.

I’ll post more when I’ve seen how the videos come together.