August Burns Red
One of my favorite bands to work with over the years was August Burns Red. Those guys are not only amazing humans, but some of the most talented musicians I’ve ever worked with and still going strong today. They were gearing up to release their album “Constellations” and asked us to shoot a music video for their first single called Meddler.
Their album cover was the inspiration for the video. It had these dark figures holding orbs in the sky using what looks like rope. So we wanted to find a way to bring this to life.
For the performance, we found a giant open field that was perfect and we go to scout it. We’re walking up a the hill to the flat area and I think I see a spider on me and flick it off. And then another one and I call it out. I’m immediately told that it was a tick and find out there are many more in this area. We did not have time to find another location. So day of the shoot we pack cans of Deet and spray ourselves down. Steve Hoover even went as far as to gaff tape every opening of his clothing shut.
We shot this at night and wanted to give the illusion of hanging orbs of light overtop of the band’s performance. We get there in the late afternoon and start setting up a truss to hold all of the lights overhead and build track for the dolly around the band. After it got dark, I quickly realized that maybe we should have just shot this in a studio. But I’m still proud of how the performance looks to this day.
The concept, again, was based on the cover art. We bought a few full body black suits and weather balloons we filled up with helium. Myself, Steve and a few others took turns running around with the balloons. This was a blast and we looked so dumb, but it worked! We pushed the color pretty drastically in post to emulate the album covers.
Funny story. Back then I had a tendency to keep all of the old music video props in my basement. After the concept shoot I took all of the black suits and threw them in a trash bag and tied it shut. This ended up in my basement. A few years ago, I found it but did not remember what was in the bag. I opened it and the worst spell ever took over my old house. All of our sweat was just stuck in there for years. Barf.
Oh and to end the long night shoot, our grip truck got stuck from sitting on the soft ground all night. Had to wait for the property owner to wake up and bring a large tractor out to save us.
