"Hunting Season" The Epilogues, A Music Video Production Diary

Dillon Novak

Well-known member
The Song: http://vvoice.vo.llnwd.net/e6/4041879.0.mp3
The Band: http://www.myspace.com/epiloguemusic
The Production Company: http://www.vimeo.com/montaukmedia

So as of today I am beginning a new music video, if you have visited the 35MM Adapter section of DVXuser you
very well may have seen my previous work. I have started a new method of the idea process than I have used
on any of my previous music videos. Rather than writing a treatment (idea pitch) to a location i haven't found yet.
I have found the location first and will build my ideas around that. (this will save a lot of time as with my last
music video i spent about a month trying to find the right location.)

So i am between two locations right now. Both have their pros and cons.

Location One:
I found this location when scouting for that location mentioned from my previous music video.
It is the forest remains from the Hayman Fire that burnt down a good percentage of Colorado a few years back.

Pros: Really cool looking, not sure if i have seen another music video that had a location like this. So originality
is always a big factor. Most likely won't need a film permit. Noise from play back should not be a problem.
Lighting will be very easy/cheap and will look beautiful by just using reflectors.

Cons: Not much to work with story wise; the viewer could easily get board. Not easy to get equipment out to
ie. Band Amps, Drum Sets, Dolly/Tracks, PA System. No where to park really. About 40-50 miles away from
everyone involved. No Bathrooms.

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Location Two: I was thinking on how to spice up Location One if we chose to shoot there, so i went looking to see if i could
rent a steadicam and operator. I found this location from a local steadicam operator's reel i was looking at. Apparently he
had just recently shot at it and it just took my breathe away when i saw it. It was like a pre made set! So i contacted the
steadicam op and he sent me the info of the location manager from that shoot.

Pros: Awesome looking place, lots of wiggle room for a concept. Defiantly would be something different than i would
have ever done. The fact that most of the set design is still there. There is parking. Easy to get equipment in.
The look of it is definatly draws the eye.

Cons: Lots of tedious work to go through to book this location. The location manager from that shoot told me I may have
to get a permit, even though the property is privately owned, which is more money out on the budget than we need.
I have to talk to the lady and get her blessing and talk to the sheriff department. We will have to rent lights.
I'm not sure if sound is going to be a problem or not. No Bathrooms. It is about 70 Miles away from the crew
and about 30 Miles away from the band. Who knows how well the floors will hold up. They were using some
sort of ViperCam so who knows how good it's going to look with an HVX200a+SgBlade+Ziess Super Speeds

Below are stills from his reel.
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Pretty sweet locations. I like them both. Looks like a bomb went off in that house.

Seems to me if you think the first location might get boring for an audience, maybe it should only be used for the performance part of your video? You could do the narrative scenes at a separate location?

I've seen your other videos, and they rock, but you might consider shooting more than one location to create variety. I'm interested to see what you end up choosing to do.
 
Okay, so we chose to go with the first location and i've received the green light on the concept. (which is really cool!)

Now i am figuring out wardrobe and heading into pre-production!
The budget is super tight and it looks like I'm going have to contribute some of my own money
to make video the quality it needs to be.

Budget (Goal) is somewhere around $2,400. A lot of our equipment will be used by trade and
exchange for services with local film makers. So we'll just have to make due with what we can get our hands on.

We will be shooting on the HVX200 with the SgBlade 35MM Adapter.
 
I am done done with the story boards, so I thought maybe you guys might enjoy seeing a few here and there. I avoided putting all of them just for plagiarism sake.
Let me know what you think!

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Band-4.jpg

Story-2.jpg

Story-5.jpg
 
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Great picks for locations, the second one blew me away. I like the song too. Can't wait to see the video.
 
So the shoot is this Saturday...I am stressing out big time because it turns out the location stretches into
national forest rather than the person's property that we have permission from.

So I have been calling the parks dept. for permission to shoot. Letting them know that we had no idea that
it was national forest and that we just don't want to get kicked out half way into the shoot. So we'll see
what will happen.

I'm also hoping weather will be fine. Right now it is saying that it has 30% of rain...but it's still 6 days away,
and we all know how reliable that prediction is.

Over all I am still really excited for the shoot...It's the biggest shoot I have ever done. We have a twenty
person crew. The biggest problem that I have had with this shoot is that I do not have any help planning,
producing, organizing on top of all of the responsibilities that come with directing...But I think it will be worth it.
 
I have a really hard time believing anyone would have a problem with you filming in Colorado... or anywhere out of Los Angeles county for that matter.

As long as your not killing the neighbors with loud music.... honesty who cares if your shooting on a national forest... don't litter, and don't leave a trace and no one will mind. Your probably 5 miles away from the nearest person. It was smart of you to call and notify the parks and rec but it's public land and there for private (although maybe not commercial) use.
A permit.... Come on!

Respectfully... STOP STRESSING OUT. This should be an easy location to film at.



P.S. lol sorry for the rant. I hope the shoot goes awesome. Both locations look REALLY COOL. I wish I was there to be a part of it. Loving the Blade. Cheers and Good Luck.
 
The Rant was due to me spending 3 weeks trying to find a jail in Southern CA to shoot at. You want to talk about permits and red tape bullshit... whooooooooo.
 
Woo! the shoot went awesome. I couldn't have asked for more perfect weather even though the forecast was supposed to be 30% chance of rain all day. We didn't even have a brush in with the forest service. When I talked to them on the phone they seemed so hesitant to let me film there, I was positive they were going to come by and kick us out for having such a large crew.

But anyways it was a wonderful day. Here's some quick stills I offloaded last night. :)

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TEASER POSTED: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6GKVcTMHkA)
 
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