Kerosene

JohnPaul led the creative charge on Jetty Rae's films for Climbing Clouds and FALLIN, so as the writer and director of her third music video, Kerosene, I feel responsible for the pain I put our faithful cast and crew through in what became one of the more labor-intensive projects I’ve been a part of. I persuaded Jetty to walk through a field full of bull elk, hike hundreds of feet up a dune in a dress, and bounce back from 16-hours of filming the day before to run all day through the woods. Crewmembers Paul Genzink, Grant Floering, and Katie Fox went above and beyond. All three worked impossibly hard and rolled with the sometimes-hectic nature of the Kerosene music video project, packed into a long and daunting schedule that the proverbial “union” would never approve of. We’ll also be forever thankful to all of the volunteers mentioned in the credits, as well as the always cheerful and accommodating Jason Stewart, husband of Jetty Rae. Many thanks.

I won’t elaborate on the meaning of the project.  I think it’s shown by the events of the story itself and by the very authentic performance of Jetty. It’s not a happy or comfortable film, and so we feel privileged to be invited into such a vulnerable part of Jetty’s and Jason’s lives.

During the process of production and editing, Kerosene evolved into something beyond what I had pictured. Shots that I had only liked before became favorites shots, and shots that I thought worked brilliantly in storyboarding ended up finding different, stronger homes in the actual edited sequence. One of my favorite shots is of Jetty sitting on the wood floor with her back against the off-white wall.  I was inspired to put the shot in by a different music video I'd seen that was starkly simplistic, but after storyboarding the shot, I concentrated most of my attention on worrying about larger, more difficult sequences. In the end all turned out well, but I find I'm being completely surprised by beauty of the little things.

During our time on Crystal Lake filming the underwater sequences for Kerosene, we also filmed //WATER//, a small experiment in underwater filming techniques.

So between the the underwater work, filming with elk, flying dollhouse furniture, floating dresses, fire, smoke, and super slow motion, this project was pretty well rounded.

Kerosene was our second piece to be filmed primarily on the Sony FS-700 (Fallin being the first), which, if you’re in the market, is a whole lot of camera (500fps slow motion, high bitrate 4K cinema raw with 14+ stops of dynamic range). This film was also my first go on minor special effects and titles, which is something JohnPaul usually and rightfully keeps for himself. So it was a stretching time. But a very good time.  

The footage from the Fs700 grades for color very well, as seen below in JohnPaul's color passes for this project.




























CHEERS, and thanks for reading!

Matthew Bouwense

Creative Director
Eleven35 Productions

Home from Home || Roo Panes Music Video

In September we filmed another music video for Roo Panes, our British Folk artist friend from London.  Working with Roo is always interesting, both because his ideas are always great and unique, but also because every meeting and brainstorm session we have has to be conducted over Skype or e-mail.  I blame the Atlantic Ocean.

We've been EXCEPTIONALLY busy the past few months, and Home from Home was a last minute production that almost didn't happen, just because of time.  This shoot was day nine, ten, and eleven of eleven consecutive shooting days that I had between six different projects, so the original concept had to to morph a bit to accommodate the limited time resource.  But miracles happened, like finding a motorcycle with a sidecar and finding great actors and extras, and ultimately the fact that everything went smoothly is a miracle.  I'm not being dramatic when I say that this was one of the few projects we've taken on that actually could have failed, and we were prepared for that to happen, but it didn't!  Here is a teaser we released right after we released it wasn't going to fail and that we might actually have something.

We've been shooting with the FS700 for a few projects now, so it's been fun to shoot with a bigger camera that has a crisper image as well as the super slow motion options as well, but the biggest change we made for this project was with our color.  After editing, I worked with the footage to give it a fuller, smoother, "milky" look that's often seen in west coast lifestyle footage.  Smooth is probably the best way to describe it, but I've been getting into heavier grades recently for color, taking it farther and farther from the look the camera gives and closer to what I'm personally starting to favor.  The smooth, milky look is a bit different than the rich film look I traditionally try to achieve, but I'm all about trying new things and I really like the effect, so it's something that I'm continuing to experiment with as we work on our many current projects.  Take a look at the finished music video below and some before and after examples of the color grade.

 


written and posted by JohnPaul Morris, Eleven35 Productions

The Third & The Seventh

I DID NOT MAKE THIS.  But I hope to create work that is this stunning.  Instead of a Film Friday this week... since Film Fridays are all about staying inspired... I've decided to post a film that has been re-inspiring me every time I've watched it over the past 3 years.  It's called The Third & The Seventh, and I highly suggest that you watch it FULLSCREEN, and with headphones for the full experience.



Over the years I've tried to keep this film a secret, since few other pieces have had such a big stylistic impact on me and showing this film to other people feels a little bit like admitting that everything I do is stolen.  And maybe that's true.  Either way, for those who have not seen it yet, I've withheld it too long.

I hope you enjoy it.
--ALSO, this continues a conversation Matthew and I had earlier today that started over a lunch break at Taco House, which was about all the different things we wanted to do for Film Fridays.  Film Friday is a laboratory, a place to experiment and take risks, a time for us to test limits and see what's possible.  But most of our favorite ideas would take longer than a week to do any sort of integrity, assuming we're also simultaneously working on paid projects.

So we're going to start doing Film Friday's EVERY OTHER WEEK.  We're still going to post every Friday, so we'll have to figure something out to do with the alternate weeks.  Maybe Fire Friday!  Where we post a video of something we've set fire too.  Or Fired Friday, where we could take on a bunch of interns and every other Friday we have to fire one.  Or, no, here's my favorite idea:  Friend Friday, where every other Friday we have to put up a photo or post either of a friend or of their work. This could be a deep well, since by good fortune and the Lord's favor I happen to know a plethora of talented and interesting people.

Or, any other ideas?

Fallin

I'm so excited to post this film.  Jetty Rae officially released it over a week ago now, but I'm still just sitting happy about how well it turned out.  Very few films I'm done have so closely resembled the original vision for the project as Fallin does.  While we were filming, I remember looking at the takes playback on the monitor and thinking how does this look exactly like I imaged?  So I'm pretty stoked to post the finished project here, as well as some photos and behind the scenes video (very rewarding to watch).  And of course there are a hundred+ individuals to thank, especially since this was the project we pushed the big BE AN EXTRA campaign for (#beanextra).  Everything came together as it should have to produce... this.  Enjoy!  Or watch the official Youtube version on Jetty Rae's channel.

       

       Dancing in slow motion.
       Running in slow motion.
       Flying kitchenware, flowers, cutlery.
       A blizzard of confetti.
       A love story.

Fallin presents it's viewers with all of these things, and if it's half as much fun to watch as it was to film then I think we've done pretty well!  In the early meetings for Fallin I proposed a few different ideas, a slow motion dance hall, a dance hall that erupts into unified choreography, or a love story in reverse through time.  If I remember correctly, her response to me after I pitched the different ideas was something like "Let's do all of them."  Matthew was also at that meeting and immediately sided with Jetty.  So that took Fallin from being the simplest of the three music videos to immediately being the most complicated.  And I have no regrets.

But even outside of thinking about having to find 100 extras, a slow motion camera, a ton of confetti, wardrobe, and on and on, the first thing that needed to be done was to transform our mild mannered township hall into a lively 1950's dance hall.

Check out this nifty behind the scenes flick!

In closing I want to just clarify some things you might be wondering about.  First, all of the slow motion in Fallin' is 100% real, no footage had it's speed altered or enhanced.  It was shot on a special slow motion camera and Eleven35 Productions is now the PROUD OWNER of this camera!  The footage was recorded digitally and in color, and treated with custom built grayscale filters and grain after editing.  All of the flying objects are real, recorded in camera, though there are a few items that were recorded separately and were composited in, mostly items like books, knives and frying pans.  Yes, we did actually throw all of these items at our actors, but some of their best performances weren't necessarily during the exact moments when the coolest props were flying past them, so we added a few things so we could have the best of both worlds.  And who is the guy, you may be wondering?  That is Jason Stewart, Jetty Rae's husband.  Several candidates were considered for the part, but for a couple different reasons, Jason was given the role and did a fantastic job.

Special Thanks to our main filming locations, the Solon Township Hall in Cedar, Michigan, and Traverse City West Senior High who let us film all of the running sequences on their property.  Also our gratitude to 3 very important groups of people, THANK YOU

1.  All of our extras (couldn't have done this without you)

2.  All of our dancers and athletic types (we had some free runners whose skills flew quietly under the radar on this project)

3.  All of those who made our confetti (yes, all the confetti in Fallin was 100% hand made by about 8(ish) committed individals)

I should also mention that my own sister, Jenny Morris, who has toured the country and internationally as a classical ballet dancer, choreographed the dance sequence for the film.  So proud of her, happy we could do something together.

So know there's only one more music video left to finish for Jetty Rae, look for it next week!

- JohnPaul Morris

Film Friday //WATER//

It's Friday again!  Summer has been unbelievably busy, so a chance to get to the lake and do some underwater filming for the last Jetty Rae video was something we decided to take full advantage of. And while I don't want to reveal too much about what we're working on for the music video (no sense revealing too much too soon), we worked on another vignette called //WATER// that we're debuting as this week's Film Friday piece.



Audrey drove all the way out to Crystal Lake to be in the film, so a big thank you to her, especially for being such a good sport about spending so much time in the water, and so much time under it.

Crystal Lake was warm.  Really warm.  It was a happy surprise.  It's also amazingly clear, which is why we chose to film there.  It has the clearest water in Northern Michigan, or so Matthew's web research concluded.





We filmed at the Crystal Lake Yacht Club.  Stu, the owner, was very happy to allow us to film there with very few questions asked.  He made a point to come out and introduce himself, and even in a short conversation, it became clear that he's an extraordinary human and has seen and done a lot.  I'm hoping to hear more from him in the future.  Maybe at some point he'll be keen to share on the blog some of his life as an Arctic explorer.

It was a good day all around.  Any day I can get in the water is a good day, but it was good well beyond that.  Even the normal technical goblins that haunt every underwater shoot were unusually absent.  Looking forward to sharing more, especially the last Jetty Rae music video.  As always, exciting things coming.

[Behind the Scenes video coming soon]

Thanks for reading.

JohnPaul

Film Friday Up North

Our weekend was spent in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan with good friends, plenty of food, and an abundance of water.  This Film Friday was spent on the Great Lakes, experimenting with text blending, design, & some new color-grading techniques.  But more than that, this weekend showed that, even when I don't have to, I still choose to spend my free time making films and tinkering with imagery.  I still love it, even after it's been my full-time job for 4 years.

Below are some of my favorite photos from the weekend.

 

This weekend was fun though.  I wanted to see if I could track text to landscapes, and specifically if I could get the text to have reflections in the water.  Reflections are pretty easy to do in photographs, but in video, reflections move...a lot.  I wanted to see if I could find some uses for water distortion and ripple effects and see how finely I could tune the effect.  So below is the answer!  I'm really happy with how it's turned out.  It was also another chance to try to some new color-grading techniques I've been thinking about.





It was good to have some time off, especially GOOD time off, and it's Monday now, I'm back in the office, and really getting a lot done.  It's a real blessing to have a job I enjoy enough that I'm excited about starting again every week.  Looking forward to many more.  Also looking forward to another weekend up north while we still have summer.

( ^ this did not end well)  Click HERE to see more photos.

Enjoy!

JohnPaul