Shooting a Music Video for The Prairie States

The start

The band The Prairie States reached out to us to create a music video for their single, Backroad (That 17 Summer). We love working with these guys and so we jumped at the opportunity to get to work with them again.

Pre-Production

For this music video, the band came to us with the idea of the lead singer, Mat, driving an old car around country roads. Starting with that idea, I’ve always felt like music videos work best with 3 or more ideas running together simultaneously to keep the viewer’s interest. We settled on the driving shots with Mat, the band performance in a character bar/performing outdoors, and flashback scenes with a female lead to add an emotional element to the piece.

Location Scout

Once the concept was locked in, we went ahead with trying to find a country bar for the band shots. We wanted that classic honky tonk interior which you’d think wouldn’t be hard to find in Alberta but so many have started to modernize and erase their original charm. After looking at numerous locations, Nick found a great location in Gibbons, Alberta: The Gibbons Hotel & Tavern.

The lake was luckily a friend’s cabin that they graciously let us use near Jackfish Lake. We then shot all of the other exteriors on a dirt road near by.

The Truck

We really lucked out with the truck, as I had recently saw a friend’s dad had purchased an old truck from an auction. It just happened to also be a Chevy to match the lyrics in the song. This was one of those set pieces that should have been hard to acquire, but everything lined up perfectly. It was a beautiful truck that really tied the video together. I’ve discovered that I don’t enjoy driving old cars around. They are loud and always feel like they are about to break down. Before the shoot I went to gas it up and had a moment of panic thinking that it might have been a diesel truck that I had put regular gas in… luckily I had guessed right. Again, I’m not a car guy

Casting Brenna

Brenna is an amazing actor who we’ve had the privilege of working with before, so it was a no brainer to cast her as our female flashback character. Her professionalism and on-camera charisma was a great asset, especially when you pair an actor and non-actor together like we did here. We shot all of the outdoor scenes in one evening. I knew we wanted to shoot all of Brenna’s shot at dusk, so we only had about an hour to collect all of the shots with her.

Production

The original production schedule was built around one full day and two half days to maximize light. Unfortunately, weather became an issue and the shoot ended up being two half days. The less time definitely tightened what we were able to capture, but I’m never opposed to creative limitations. I feel like the best work comes from limits rather than excess.

We shot the first day at the Gibbons Bar & Tavern covering the main band performance and a couple extra song performances the band could use clips of for social media. 10 days later, we met back up and shot all of the outdoor shots.

The Car Rig

For music videos, I always like to incorporate a new technique or skill to play around with. For this shoot, the obvious piece was using a car rig. I had never used a car rig for a video shoot, so I was luckily able to bring on our good friend and Gaffer, Dave Stoten, who really made it all possible. Not only do you have to set it up to make sure the camera is stable (yet free enough to avoid too much shaking) but you also have to make sure the beautiful vehicle doesn’t get damaged. Dave was the perfect person to ensure that everything work perfectly.

Everything went perfect… almost.

This shoot went about as well as a shoot ever does. We were of course limited by weather, but as I mentioned, those limitations always make for creative solutions. One thing that did happen while I was in the truck with Mat was that a cop drove by while we were shooting some internal coverage of him singing. The cop then turned on their lights, spun around, and proceeded to pull us over. At this point, I realize that I didn’t know where the insurance is for the vehicle and Mat didn’t have his license on him. The cop approached the car laughing and explained that he thought we were someone else. We breathed a sigh of relief as he started to walk away. He then did a quick 180° turn and came back to the window. He decided that since he had gone through the effort of pulling us over, he should at least check our license and registration…. Crap! I put on my best, sad, innocent face and luckily was able to talk the officer out of asking for it as, “We were in the process of shooting a music video and all of our papers were back with the crew and we were running out of light.“ Phew.

Edit and Grading

This project had a tight deadline, which we knew going into it. I ended up cutting the whole video in one very long day, the day after we wrapped production. After a few tweaks from the band and record label, I graded the video and it was completed one week later.

Wrap Up

Music videos are such a blast to work on. It is so fun getting to combine a bunch of ingredients and then seeing what you can come up with. This was a quick project with a tight turnaround, but I am super proud at what we were able to accomplish.

You can see the final video on our Film Page here and The Prairie States new album TROUBLE IS comes out January 12 if you want to listen to more!