We have begun the process of editing, finally, right!  We are using the edit Suite at Bright Spot Studios, which is also the home of Rucci Productions.  So a big thanks to Scott & Mike for letting us slide into the editing rotation.   That said, since we have after hours access we are limited in the time that we can work but after two days of editing I feel as though we have a great foundation for the the video.  

I began the process about a week ago and laid out the foundation for the video.  For the second session I asked Rob to join me.  Not only did it give me and extra set of eyes but it made it easier to get instant feedback.   Not to mention there is comfortin not having to drink alone.

And here it is, the final day of shooting.  We finished the principal shooting last week and had two more shoots we wanted to include in the video. The first was a final scene for the video of our lead running off with Logic.  Then later that afternoon, we headed to the top of a parking deck for a sunset guitar solo.

It was a bitter sweet ending to what was, at times, a tough shoot. Overall, this has been a great learning experience as well as a great way to get back into doing something that i really enjoy.  One thing that does stand out about this shoot were the great connections that we all made.  We really had a wonderful cross section of people participating on this project.

Finally, I have to acknowledge the crew that came out to volunteer on this shoot.  All were professional folks who currenlty work in the industry.  They gave their time and effort to project when they  could have been easily doing something else on their Sunday evenings.

On to the edit!

We have reached the third and final day of principal shooting.  This was supposed to be an easier shoot as we had very little gear and practically nothing to set up.  When you are shooting a low to no budget video its hard to provide the crew and cast all the comforts of an indoor shoot.   And this was apparent by the use of our "C" stand dressing room and parking lot buffet table.  Our crew and cast were great and made the best of what could have been a rough situation.

Once again we had some trouble with the home made globe light and the battery belt.  Since we had Scott's production van we just ran AC power.  Now this is a fine solution when you are static or do not have 5 fire dancers. 

Yes, we had 5 fire dancers on the set today.  I must say, it was very impressive.  And I learned alot about working with fire.  For example, the burn time on most of not all the "tools" was somewhere between 3 and 6 minutes.  Which meant that we had to be in sync with cast & camera.  Then reset as quickly as possible to get at least 2 or 3 takes.  

All in all it went really well and having a fire dancers and stilts had to have been the coolest look of the day.

On to last day shooting the last two sequences.

And so, we rolled into the Mecca restaurant in downtown Raleigh this past Sunday, with ballet dancers, doo whop girls, roller derby & a fire breather.  I think it caught Paul (the owner) & Alec a little off guard.  We had our crew crawling all over the shelves hanging lighting and black foil.  Not to mention all the gear and having to "black out" the front windows.  But once we got set up and ready the set looked great.  

Our dancers, courtesy of Margot were awesome.  Especially since we had to add some extra dance moves and choreography to the existing set up.  Margot was also really helpful with timing for Rob.  She also had Eugene come along, he was our bartender and did some great moves in the aisle of Mecca.

Yes, the dancing was great the overall hit had to have been Phoenix.   Outside the Mecca we had him blowing fire, it looked awesome and for the cast took some getting used to considering that he was right behind them spitting fireballs.

Overall a very hectic day but I think we really got some good looking shots thanks to Scott and David.  I am  looking forward to day 03, hopefully the weather holds but no matter we are going to add even more fire to the video.