BRKNHRT - Hulvey
In January of 2020 I was chatting with a friend. At the time, he was working at Reach Records, and I asked, “got anything cool going on?”. He replied with, “wanna shoot 6 music videos?”
I was obviously really interested. The only catch is that the budget was barely enough to shoot one music video, let alone six. So I pitched the idea that each music video exist as a single shot. This would allow us to produce all the videos on a single day, and would tremendously reduce the amount of post-production. The label had gotten an exclusive with Apple Music, and the EP was going to be released on the platform with the 6 tracks, and the 6 music videos in a package. So having all 6 videos produced together really worked.
Then I was stuck with having to figure out how to shoot 6 music videos in one day. Instead of thinking about shooting 6 music videos, I started to think about the project as 6 “shots”. I can definitely get 6 shots in a single day.
Since the videos will be single shots, there’s technically no “editing”. Everything has to be perfect in camera. Hulvey has to get all of his performances perfect, camera movement, framing, timing, everything has to be just right or it won’t work. I’m going to take some time to break down each music video, the vision, and how we were able to accomplish what we set out to do.
The first track on the EP is “Damascus”. When I first heard this song, I was driving around my neighborhood in West Midtown at night. I knew right away this was the setting. This shot was our second to last set up of the day. Me and my AC/Swing, Reid Craft, started working on this hood mount rig around 11:30pm. We put a magnetic vibration isolator plate on the hood, and strapped it to the undercarriage for back up. We placed the Ronin 2 gimbal on the plate, and started dialing it in. We did some practice takes with Hulvey driving around the parking lot, testing his visibility, comfort level for driving the car, the gimbal, framing, etc. After about an hour we finally got out on the road. It looks like Hulvey is the only one in the car, but I’m actually tucked in the floorboard behind the passenger seat. I’ve got my phone connected via Bluetooth to the car, and using it for playback. I’m using a wireless monitor to view picture from the camera, and the Ronin 2 remote to operate the head. For lighting we put a 1x1 LED panel in the floorboard of the passenger seat. Not super motivated by reality, but hey, gotta have light from somewhere. About halfway into our first take, I noticed something on the monitor. It was raining. Then raining harder. Hulvey pulled into a parking garage. I hopped out and cleaned the lens, made sure the gear was okay, and we waited until the rain stopped. By now it’s about 1:30am. We finally get a moment without rain, and set out again. This time, the media in the camera won’t mount. Reid brings me a back-up card from basecamp and we’re on our way.
In pre-production I decided to use 14th Street going East starting at Northside Dr. I timed the drive at a certain MPH based on the length of the song, and our start and stop points. The take that you see in this video is the only full take we ever got. Hulvey did an incredible job performing this. All of the camera head movement you see in this was completely improvised. Sometimes when everything lines up, you only need one take.
With the single shot format, it was really important to me that we get some great locations. If you’ve ever tried to produce a video, you know that locations can be a bit of a mixed bag. Especially with low budget productions. It’s a lot to ask of people to allow their spaces to be taken over, and with very little money to be made from low budget productions, there’s just not much equity in it for the location owners.
The big question mark location was The Strand Theatre in Marietta. The big single from this EP was “Motions”. I knew this song needed a great location. After about a week of trying, I got in touch with the right person at The Strand. After some back and forth, they were extremely gracious to give us the location for the fee they normally charge small performance based productions, not film/video productions. I’m extremely grateful for their generosity, and their flexibility. This shot is our first set up of the day. We have from 11:00am - 1:00pm in the theater. We arrive around 10:30, get cars parked, unload the gear, and are ready to set up at 11:00am. The theater doesn’t have a traditional center spot light, just the PARs on the walls. We set up a 300D and let it play as a spotlight. Not perfect, but it works. There was an elementary school performance coming in right after us, and they’d placed assigned seat labels across the first few rows of seats. So we had to remove them, but without messing up the order. You literally never know what will slow you down on a set.
We spent some time dialing in our light levels across the empty theater, and I rehearsed the camera movements with Hulvey. You’ll notice the shot starts out wide, looking at Hulvey from behind. Then later in the shot, we see the curtain behind him. In order to accomplish this, we had our set photographer Elijah on standby at the button that raises and lowers the curtain. We started the shot with the curtain about 7 feet off the floor of the stage. As I walk underneath it, Elijah holds the button until the curtain closes. Hulvey gave us 4-5 great takes, and we were done. Company move!
Most people have seen the music video for “Yellow” by Coldplay. Classic music video. That video was supposed to be completely different than the way it ended up. They had tons of extras all come out to the beach, and then it rained. And kept raining, and rained some more. Long story short, Chris Martin had the idea to just go out by himself with the Steadicam operator and do the song. Proof that sometimes being spontaneous on set can yield incredible results. That was the first time I had ever seen a video where the lyrics lined up to the music, but clearly had been over-cranked to give it a slow motion look. Fascinating.
I knew when I heard this song that I wanted to try this slow motion performance effect. I took the song and started experimenting with different playback speeds. With hip-hop, increasing the speed of a song can start to make it nearly impossible for the artist to perform to it in real time. We landed on 150% speed for playback. With our base frame rate being 23.98 fps, we shot this at 35.97 fps, to match the 150% playback speed. Hearing the song at 150% for the first time on set was pretty wild, but watching Hulvey perform it flawlessly at that speed was amazing. We filmed this on the roof of a parking garage. Our AC/Swing, Reid, had a hose with a spray nozzle nailing Hulvey for the rain effect. The slow motion playback doesn’t translate how much water pressure is on Hulvey to get the desired look of the rain. It was hard for him to even keep his eyes open. We placed a 300D behind him for edge light, and to accentuate the rain. Two takes and we were done! Company move.
There’s a scene in Season 2 of Master of None where Dev and Francesca are taking an Uber home. Francesca gets out, and Dev is left in the car to finish his way home. The camera holds on him, as Say Hello, Wave Goodbye plays. It’s a truly cinematic moment. That scene was the inspiration for this shot. I wanted to create a little bit of a narrative moment, so we had Hulvey get in, the car drives down the road, then we hit playback. At the end, we hold on him until well after the song has finished.
To get this frame just right, we used a suction cup mount to the sunroof of the car. We placed a tripod head on the cheese plate, and mounted the camera to the head so we could tilt/pan into the perfect frame. To get some level on Hulvey we mounted a 1x1 LED panel on the back of the driver seat. We had a lead car with a wireless monitor to view his performances. I love having the camera hold at the end after the song has finished playing. Hulvey of course did a fantastic job on his performances, and we moved on.
I’ve always loved the look of a profile shot, and the single shot format seemed like a great opportunity to use it. This was our final set up of the day, and I don’t think we had the first shot up until about 2:30am. The original plan was to have Hulvey walk throughout the buildings along 17th Street going West, as we followed him from the street. My wife, Hannah, had the idea to use the 17th Street bridge to get the skyline in the background. Good idea to great idea.
For this frame, I’m standing up in the front passenger seat, with my upper body out of the sun roof holding the Ronin 2. AC/Swing Reid Craft is observing wireless playback while he operates the head of the Ronin 2 so I can keep my balance while the car drives. We had the idea for Hulvey to come up out of the stair case at the beginning of the shot, put in AirPods, and start walking. This was our only full take, and thanks to Hulvey, we got it. This shot had to be our last shot of the day, because to get the exact frame I wanted we’re driving the car in the bus lane, and the MARTA buses use this lane to operate until about midnight, pending changes in their schedule. I didn’t want to take a chance, so we had to wait until we knew the buses wouldn’t be operating. There are so many little details to consider when you’re trying to accomplish a shot like this. It looks simple, but simple is not always easy.
This shot was our second set up for the day. We took a lunch break after the first shot at the theater, then met up at the church location at about 2:00pm. Our incredible stylist Emily Martinez noticed one of the jackets she had for Hulvey matched the stained glass windows in the sanctuary, and it makes an amazing opening frame. Surround yourself with talented people, and great things can happen. Before we started on this one, Hulvey led the team in a prayer and it was an awesome moment. This was definitely our most complex shot in terms of blocking and camera movement. We wanted Hulvey to perform a verse while seated on a pew, so we had to block out his action, timing, and camera to get him there at the right time. We had three different exposures throughout this video. The opening/tracking shot, his seated performance, and the final performance from the stage. Balancing these different exposures was pretty tricky, given how wide our frame was at times, and the mixed practical lights across the sanctuary. I spent some time at the lighting console adjusting the built in lights across the trussing, and we placed a 300D up inside a small room behind the stage that houses organ speakers. This acts as a visual point of interest, and also provides about a 1/2 stop of bump to Hulvey during his seated performance. This shot took a toll on me physically as we kept going through takes and dialing in the blocking and camera movement. I was definitely glad this was the last shot of the day where I’d be carrying the gimbal.
This project was really fun, and the team at Reach Records did an amazing job rolling out Hulvey’s debut EP. I can’t wait for what’s next from Hulvey!
Dalton Lewis did an amazing job shooting our BTS videos. Here’s a little recap of the day.
Individual BTS videos: