P.R. Brown is an accomplished graphic designer, photographer, and music video director, who has over 70 videos under his belt. This includes clips for Marilyn Manson, Motley Crue, Goo Goo Dolls, and Death Cab For Cutie. He recently directed The Step and the Walk for Brit rockers, The Duke Spirit, and here discusses making the video.

How did you approach this project?

“This was the band’s first U.S. release on Shangri-La Records, and they wanted something performance-based but unique. The budget was low  just $40,000  but they wanted an eye-catching clip to introduce them to American audiences. So I came up with this hyper-stylized performance piece that was entirely green screen and featured the band in this ‘walking environment.’ Each band member is walking towards the center of the performance while there’s a whole circular spinning world going around them. So it all led to that center, and we shot for 12 hours straight at The Source in Hollywood.”

I hear you also acted as your own DP?

“It’s true, but only because the budget was so low. I shot it on my own camera, a Panasonic HVX 200 with P2 cards, so it’s all digital and records straight to the cards as HD footage. You just can’t do film on a shoot like this; it would have doubled the budget. I really love the workflow of the Panasonic and the fact that I can shoot and then edit in the next 10 minutes. There’s no digitizing of footage. The files come straight to my laptop, and then I just bring it back to my tower at my studio and edit from that on a Mac. I always do all my own editing and post.”

The video has a great look. How did you get those effects?

I used this crazy adaptor called a Red Rock Micro System. It basically let me put all my Nikon still lenses onto the HVX, so it opened up a whole new world of what you could do. The way it works is, the HVX shoots into a mirror with the lens attached to the adaptor, and it’s upside down and backwards when you’re looking at it on the screen, so it takes a bit of getting used to. It’s literally shooting a reflection of what the lens is picking up, and there’s a spinning glass plate in there that puts grain in. It’s the first time I’ve ever used it and I bought it especially for this clip. I found it on line and it worked out great, and as I’m also a still photographer, I have a slew of Nikon lenses. There’s also this really bizarre blurring that I did on the band, and I got that effect with this really cool accordion lens, the Lensbaby, which is just $100. Depending on where you pull it, that’s where your focus is. So you can bend it around and the focus just follows, and that was a big part of the whole look of the video, being able to attach that to the HVX camera. For a $100 lens, it’s the greatest trick ever.

CONTACTS:

Panasonic
www.panasonic.com/broadcast

Nikon
www.nikon.com

Red Rock Micro System
www.redrockmicro.com