Video backdrop series, part 3: "Follow"

Part of what made this project so much fun was the open-endedness of it. The band had the final say on what stayed and what went, but otherwise I had all the freedom I could want, allowing for my own artistic expression to be layered on top of their music. The vision for "Follow" was one I set out to construct deliberately. There was a feeling I wanted to convey and, while I did struggle with getting the flow of it right, I'd say the results were more or less successful.

This one can be filed in the literal category -- not literal in the sense that the lyrics are directly translated to the screen but rather in the sense that most of the images are identifiable as what they really are. The band said they wanted abstract, but in this case I took a risk and gave them figures on a moon-drenched beach, rolling (then crashing) waves, and even a lifeguard stand. These images were meant to create a sense of place... and it was a place I like to be. In fact, I was at this same location enjoying a bonfire under a full moon a few nights before the shoot. That was the inspiration.

This shoot involved some low-light photography, which is always tricky. You don't realize how dark the world can be until you take a camera outside after the sun sets. Some of my images turned out grainy and/or blurry. For consistency, I degraded the good shots to match the bad ones in post-production. This gave the video a kind of vintage film look that appears like a stylistic choice rather than a shortcoming. Maybe.

The snippet below is my favorite single shot from this backdrop. It's 45 minutes of a rising moon condensed into 20 seconds. It was a tricky shot because I didn't know exactly where or when the moon was going to come up, what arc it would be following, and what exposure I needed on the camera. And I only had one chance to get it right. I learned that shooting time lapses of sunsets are much easier than moonrises.


And here's a clip from the show. This recording turned out only so-so, but you can see a few shots from the backdrop in it and hear some of this wonderful, emotionally complex song.