While finishing up the video project for Leper's song Fon Ghrein (Beneath The Sun), I had to meet with Skot Shaw to get a couple final shots. He had mentioned an idea a while back for another project though he didn't say which song it would be. He brought it up again while we got those shots and hung out afterwards. A couple weeks after meeting to get the final shots for Fon Ghrein (Beneath The Sun), we scheduled time on a Saturday to shoot this new idea he had.
This new project would be for the song Red Words.
I got a bit of a late start that morning due in part to helping jump the neighbors car. Skot had said to meet him at his studio so I dropped Elphie off at J.P.U.S.A. where she would hang out with Rachel while Skot and I worked on this video idea. It turned out Skot wasn't at his studio so I had to return to J.P.U.S.A. to pick up Skot and some of the equipment and props he wanted to use...then we headed back over to the studio to get a couple more items.
Skot's plan was to shoot with stone wall as the background. He had a church in mind as the location so we drove north to Winnekta, however, when we arrived, there was a pumpkin sale going on where Skot wanted to shoot. We looked around the church at other walls that we might be able to utilize then headed over to another church called Christ Church which we ended up using instead.
This was a fairly simple shoot. Skot played through the song Red Words a few different times, using acoustic and electric guitars and just the vocals as well. He had a chair and his scythe as props. We added in a clip using a deer skull as well. After this he walked up toward the door of the church with the scythe and finally, we got a shot of his shadow to wrap up the shooting.
When all was said and done, Skot realized he forgot his Bible he wanted to use during the song. Back at J.P.U.S.A., he got a Bible and we shot one more scene in his bedroom.
Skot told me how he wanted the shots to look and I took that direction to capture as he wished.
Editing did not take long once I had the time to work on it. I synced up one of the clips to the studio track of Red Words. I watched through to determine which parts from that clip were worth keeping then did the same with each of the other clips. The last clip I added in was the clip shot in the Shaw's room at J.P.U.S.A. I tried to mix up the variety as the video went along. It was fairly easy as there was not a lot that felt like "throw away" shots or couldn't be used.
I added in a couple clips using an old Bible I had at home. I set a fan to blow the pages so that they would turn and had the Bible opened to Scripture using Red Words. I decided to use this clip as the intro with the title text over top of it. I used it for an outro as well. I also captured a clip of the cover of the Bible which I over-layed onto the first couple seconds. I used it more in the outro. I took these clips and added them into a couple other parts of the video as well.
During both the intro and outro I added in a few other clips I shot that day including the church building itself, Skot's shadow, The chair with the scythe and with each guitar. I took one clip of the chair and sped it up showing the movement of the shadows. After getting feedback on the first finalized attempt, I moved a few of these clips around to different parts of the video. The outro was determined to be better as just using the Bible with the Red Words. I also had to adjust some elements to better sync up with the audio track.
After finishing the editing and piecing the clips together, I began to add in effects using gradient colorize to achieve the black and white look I prefer then adding in another colorize effect to add a little blue at Skot's request. I also added in the "bad film" and "vignette" effects but chose to not utilize any of the "bad tv" this time around. I doubled up the "bad film" and "vignette" effects, adjusting a few of the elements of the affects a little differently including the focus. To keep the blue appearance, I ended up adjusting the color then with the second dose of "bad film" I had to adjust out the saturation. I overlayed the file with the blue appearance over the regular clip of the bible to try to keep the Red Words showing as red while changing the coloring of the background to fit closer to the rest of the project. I think it ended up working well. Finally I added the text files to finish the project for Red Words.
Music, lyrics, and directed by Skot Shaw.
Filmed using a Canon Rebel T6s. Title and other text created using Motion 4 on a Macbook. Edited using Final Cut Pro on a Mac Mini. Filmed and edited by Joel A. Swanson.
