BenzBigBad Classic Videos
Better Off Alone - May 2000
Better off alone is the first real video project that I did after getting my new Canon DV camera. I didn't quite have a purpose except to learn more about my camera by something interesting, then my editing software by putting the video to music.
Now days I wouldn't do a project without a purpose and a plan of what the music & mood will be, but it turned out good for what it was.
The music was somewhat randomly selected because it was one of the electronic songs that I liked at the time. This was LONG before I knew of all the good music that I do now. These days I would probably never listen to this song by choice, but it is interesting for me to see & hear what I was thinking about then.
Anyway, I went off to Pacific Beach in San Diego, on a cloudy Memorial Day weekend and just shot what I thought was cool--bicyclers, surfers, little kids running around, the waves crashing to the shore, etc.
There was a really special thing that popped as the unplanned theme though. The shots under the pier were REALLY amazing, especially in black and white. The shot of the waves coming to shore in the shadowy, dank space was an interesting contrast to the vacationing folks trying to get some sun.
Watching the video almost 8 years later, I see some important things that I learned in this piece, including the use of video strobe (although the one in this video is not timed well), the capturing of many perspectives of the same location in order to get a broad "feeling" about the place, the use of reverse video direction to get a different perspective on motion, and how to make a good ending!
Later I would decide the theme of the video is about finding some special place hidden right beneath the mainstream, every day world. You just have to look for it and recognize it.
Trolley Dance - October 2000
Trolley Dance is a cross-city performance by the San Diego Dance Theatre. Basically there are performances at several
downtown trolley stops and each one has a different theme. One of my friends was in the last performance and that is
how I decided to bring my camera along.
The web site for this group is: http://www.sandiegodancetheater.org and there is an official DVD available (nothing that I worked on though) here: http://www.sandiegodancetheater.org/TrolleyDances2007DVD.html
Last Girl on Earth - November 2000
After having a few projects under my belt, I decided to get more creative and strategic. At the time I was REALLY into the Supreme Beings of Leisure and their song Last Girl on Earth. The song is intoxicatingly low and anguished. I saw and heard it as a fountain of perplexed expression--it certainly was not boring.
I drafted my new friend Wendy McNeill to play the part of diva, and she readily accepted.
The shooting was on a Saturday afternoon / evening starting at her apartment at the "pink palace", on the corner of Broadway and 20th, laced with drug use, sorrow, and yearning. Then we moved to the area by C and 10th, and then near the Churchill on 8th and C, where the starlet, despite being in public, was isolated and further chilled. The final scenes are warm in color as she gives in and she accepts the dull roar of sadness.
There were some really great videography and editing moments in this piece but that pales to the mood which Wendy accomplished--she really was The Last Girl on Earth.
Looking back, this work was timed well and captured something real about our place and time, and who we were at those exact moments.
Always Stay - Aug 2001
This was the beginning of the end for me! After shooting this video with Space Man Spiff, Clay and I started doing live video & music shows so I focused less on produced video.
This video was the most complex up to that time. I planned out the entire sequence of shots, scouted locations, and had a story line.
The locations were:
- The "rugged salmon" color house that I rented on the corner of Dove and University
- The trolley station at Washington street
- The Santa Fe train depot
The result was a fairly polished product that was spotenous yet professional.
One of the "accidental" great things was the outfit that the model wore. Her color scheme of red bottom and black top was inverse to the trolley car color scheme and it made
for a really great shot.
I will admit the story is a little cheesy and simplistic BUT I have have seen anyone watch the final scene and NOT see their heart melt and a smile on their face!
Lately - October 2005
This video was fun and almost an afterthought when Clay and I were in Japan (the same trip that I filmed "Japan: a Video Essay")
"Lately" was a top track on their new album and I thought it was a good potential for a video. At the end of the trip we had an extra day in Tokyo before the return flight so we decided to make a go of it.
I spent some time thinking about a story line and decided to play off the anime cartoons that I saw people reading in the subway. That turned into an facinating two-hour search through various books stores looking at the covers of the cartoon magazines to see if anything looked like a story we could work with.
The second order of business was to get a CD player so that clay could lipsync the music. We both had MP3 players but the song was not loaded on them and we didn't have a laptop to rip and covert to MP3. It was suprisingly difficult to find such a CD player, considering that we were in the middle of the Tokyo (Ginza, not Ahihabara).
We even got one of the girls who we knew in Tokyo to remake some of the scenes from the cartoon (like walking in the park), but later we decided not to use the footage and instead focused on the subway and Shibuya footage + the cartoons.
I didn't do anything with the footage until 8 months later when the final Space Man Spiff show was being planned. We decided to do some quick-n-dirty editing so that the video could be shown during the final show in October 2005.
So after that windup, here it is, Lately!
Adidas Commercial
This was mock commercial that I made with the lovely Michelle Lewis.
Natural Order -August 2000
The first band that I worked with was called Injest and this song is Natural Order. The video was shot at the Music Trader in Pacific Beach. Overall, it was a very simple concept of a live show, but I feel like the piece captures the band's energy and how it felt to be there on that afternoon.
For this video I opted for black and white as a way to make the content visually interesting and slightly nostalgic.