Filming Paul Brandt’s “I Was There” Music Video – Part 1 of 4 – Nashville

This blog post is Part 1 of my experience filming the Paul Brandt “I Was There” Music Video for the Edmonton Journal. Later posts will cover filming the actual video. Today’s post is about traveling to Nashville to capture Paul recording the song.

You can also view Part 4 – Action and Editing, Part 3 – Real Characters,  Part 2 – Video Gear and the 7P’s, and Part 1 – Nashville

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Country music star Paul Brandt records the official theme song “I was there” for the 2012 World Junior Hockey Championship at Ocean Way Studios in Nashville, Tenn. on October 24, 2011. Journal photographer Ryan Jackson is shooting the official music video and will be traveling around Alberta for the next month capturing junior hockey players and fans.

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So one day I go to work and ask one of my editors what my next project will be. “Your shooting a music video for the World Junior Hockey Championship….. oh and Paul Brandt is singing the song…. oh and you actually have a budget!” she says.

I was amazed! A few months earlier I had seen that the New York Times Magazine was creating music videos to go with stories and I thought that was so innovative… and now here I am with the same opportunity!

I had filmed the music video Pearson “Purity of Heart” and it was one of the best experiences of my life.

This was going to be a chance to really push my cinematic skills and create something cool.

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The Edmonton Journal and the Calgary Herald were going to be official media sponsors of the 2012 World Junior Hockey Championship and our marketing heads and editors wanted to do something innovative and different.

The idea was that we would use the power and reach of the Edmonton Journal and Calgary Herald to get submissions for ideas and inspiration for Paul Brandt to write a song about hockey. The theme was to be “I Was There”

Chorus radio, which was another official sponsor would help pay for the recording of the song in Nashville and then they would get the song for their radio stations.

Hockey Canada helps pay for the music video and they get a theme song and theme music video to play before all of the World Junior Hockey Games.

The Edmonton Journal pays for me (through my normal salary) to spend two months working on the music video with the help of staff writer Amanda Ash.

The Journal owns the music video and gets exclusive behind the scenes photos, blog posts, tweets and stories for the paper.

A newspaper creating a music video is also very innovative and shows the Journal is pushing to become more than just a “snoozepaper”

Paul Brandt benefits by getting tons of promotion at the same time as his new album and concert tour begins.

Albertans and the Journal’s readers benefit through participation as we used crowd sourcing to help write the song and also find characters for the video.

Finally proceeds from the sales of the song went to a charity to help under privileged kids play hockey.

So the whole project was pretty win-win for everyone and I got to shoot a music video for the Edmonton Journal!

The following are some behind the scenes videos and photos from recording the song in Nashville. We didn’t end up using any of the footage of Paul in Nashville in the final music video for continuity sake. It was still worth going down there though to meet Paul and discuss ideas for the film.

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A fun video reporter Amanda Ash shot of our travels in Nashville. Pretty cool.

Here is a short time lapse of Amanda Ash and I setting up the video lights for Paul Brandt.

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The next blog post will cover filming the video.

Here is the final result

Tags: #iwasthere

360-degree view from the Empire State Building in New York

In October my wife Ashe and I went to New York for a week. It was exactly “like the movies”. An amazing experience.

A panoramic view from the top of the Empire State Building in New York City on Oct. 7, 2011. This image was created by stitching multiple images together. Panorama by Ryan Jackson, ryanjackson.ca

Click on the above image to view a 360-degree panorama from the top of the Empire State Building in New York City. Panorama by Ryan Jackson.

The panorama is HTML-5 compatible so it works on iPhone, iPad and Android devices as well. EXTRA cool with an iPhone 4G or iPad2 with gyro.

We stayed at The Warwick Hotel which was built by media baron William Randolph Hearst  who is the guy that inspired the movie Citizen Kane.

Here is a view from the top of 30 Rock at night.

Speaking of 30 Rock.  Ashe and I went to see a taping of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and Ashe got on TV as a game contestant!

Ashe bought a lot of clothes and I went to the world’s biggest camera store, B&H Photo Video, and bought the crazy Canon 8-15mm Fisheye lens.

The Brooklyn Bridge with the Canon 8-15mm lens on a 5D Mark-II.

Ashe and I in Times Square.

Lisa and Aaron Engagement Photos – Movie Theatre Montage

Aaron proposed to Lisa in a movie theatre so I thought it was fitting to create an interesting illustration photo of the two of them together in the same theatre.

My friend Jimmy Jeong made this same image years ago and I’ve been wanting an excuse to copy the idea ever since! (p.s. his is much better!)

For lighting it was simply an Alienbees Einstein with a 48-inch Octobox on the couple and a second Einstein with a honeycomb grid modifier to give them a rim light. I shot dozens of images and then layered them all together in photoshop to create the montage. I used the new Alienbees Lithium battery packs for power which are amazing!

We also made some fun autumn photos!

Trash the Dress Photos – Kelly and Tracey

Beautiful Time Lapse Video of Commuting in Edmonton’s Suburbs

With beautiful time lapses and scenery, Journal photographer Ryan Jackson has captured the different ways we commute from Edmonton’s suburbs. Learn how Canadian’s commute and follow our three commuting challengers to work in a fun way.

I spent about a week and a half on this project to wrap-up Elise Stolte’s living on the edge series about Edmonton’s new growing suburbs. I followed three commuters who get to work in different ways. Since they leave for work at 6:00 AM I had to get up at 4:00 AM each day so I could commute down to the south-end and then video them going to work. I then shot tons of footage of cars, bikes, trains and walkers getting to work.

I wanted all the images to have a certain mood so I shot everything in the morning with my white balance on Tungsten to give that cool early morning feel.

David Pritchard took part in our commuting challenge. He lives in Summerside area and typically drives the Century Park LRT station and then takes the train to work downtown. Pritchard poses for a photo before heading to work on August 24, 2011. I simply used two Canon 580EX flashes zoomed into 80mm placed to the sides of the car and pointed at his windows. I rolled the windows down to reduce reflections. I had orange gels on the flashes and the Camera white balance was set to Tungsten to make the image blue.

Kim Halmilton took part in the Journal’s commuting challenge. Hamilton usually rides her motorcycle to work downtown from her home in north Edmonton. She poses for a photo in front of her home in Edmonton on August 25, 2011. I used two speed lights placed behind her with orange gels on them. Camera white balance set to Tungsten.

Kevin Wirtanen took part in our commuting challenge. He typically bikes to work downtown from his Terwillegar home in south Edmonton. Wirtanen poses for a photo before heading to work in Edmonton on August 23, 2011.

Pritchard poses for a photo at the LRT station before heading to work.

Here are some behind the scenes images. I build an 8-foot long slider and motion controller that I used for a couple of the scenes.

Thanks to my friend Kevin Hill for helping with this time lapse scene.

Most of the time lapse footage was shot on my Canon XH-A1 video camera and then sped up 20X in Final Cut Pro X.

Here I am all setup and ready to shoot David Pritchard at 6:00 AM. This project involved a lot of preparation as I only had about 15 minutes with him before he headed to work.

This video was also my first time using Final Cut Pro X. I must say the program is pretty powerful and amazing. It makes use of all of your CPUs and has background rendering so you can just keep editing without waiting for anything. Do I like it better than Final Cut Pro 7? For some things yes… for others no. It takes a lot of time to get used to. The speed and added features are AMAZING but the complete change in interface and way of editing is frustrating. Hopefully it will get better with time.

Interactive Video Series of Alberta PC Leader Candidates

For the election of the new Progressive Conservative leadership candidates I wanted to do an interactive video like I did with the federal election candidates. The general idea is that I ask all the candidates the same questions, in the same style and then Lucas Timmons at the Edmonton Journal build a website that lets you jump right to the questions and issues that concern you.

Instead of watching 30 minutes of video in hopes of getting the information you want, you can jump right to the questions and issues that matter to you and compare.

Click on the above image to see the interactive website.

I lit all of the candidates the same with our three 500 LED video lights and white background. I asked them each to look into the corners so I could have them looking at the candidates that is currently talking in the video.

Here is my setup. Just a big white sheet for a background. I pointed two 500 LED video lights at the background and then had a third 500 LED light above them on a boom. I used a Canon 5D Mark-II with a 50mm f1.2 lens for video and a Sennheiser G2 wireless mic and a BeachTek DXA-5DA mixer for audio.

The great thing about this setup was that after the video interview I could do portraits.

Here are a couple of my favorite photos of Gary Mar and Ted Morton.

New green energy power co-operative SPARK

Here is an example of when simple props can really add to a picture. I wanted to illustrate “power” so I grabbed as many extension cords as I could find.
I usually shoot at low apertures to blur out the background but here I wanted Jeff, Paul and the solar panels in the background to be sharp so I shot at F9 with a wide lens to get lots of Depth of Field.
I lit this picture one Canon 580EX speed lights to the right.
1/160sec, F9, ISO100. 16-35L @ 32mm. Read the story: Alberta’s first energy co-op eyes green power

GigaPan panorama of Folk Fest fans 2011

View this image in Full Screen and zoom in to see yourself with amazing detail!

Here’s me setting up our GigaPan Epic Pro at Folk Fest. Photo by Jack Bawden. I used a 1D Mark-IV and a 24-105mm F4L lens to make the panorama. I would have rather used a longer lens like a 200 or 300mm to get more detail but I only had the first three songs to shoot.

New Bike Lanes in Edmonton

I love assignments like this. “Just make a pretty picture” to illustrate new bike lanes.

Aerial photos of south Edmonton

I was lucky enough to be sent up to do aerials of southern Edmonton for a story about urban sprawl. Here are a few of my favorites. You can view more here. I must say I didn’t realize how much Edmonton had grown until I saw all the new houses from the air.

 

It’s amazing that I’ve only lived in Edmonton five years and I can say “I remember when this was all farm land”.