“Medicine Man” Nik Rael

Client: Nik Rael

Director: Derek White

DP: Derek White

Production Co: Good Time Film Co

Location: MAHONEY IRISH PUB, POUGHKEEPSIE NY

Nik approached us after he was recommended by his pal. He called us and we played phone tag for about a month before we decided to set a date and get the ball rolling. He had an idea to play a show in front of friends and there was a girl there. Unfortunately we did not get the location we were looking for so we pivoted. The night before at around 8pm Nik finally found our leading lady, Trish, as well as a bunch of extras. ERIK JENSEN and I, having already shot a feature film at MAHONEYS IRISH PUB, went in unannounced and asked if we could shoot the following day. They had a party booked in the back so we had 3 hours with a hard out. We were thrilled and scared all at the same time because we got the space but time wasn’t on our side and it was a lot to do.

The next day we finally got to building our set. We light it tungsten and added some “bar lights.” Punches of color to hit shoulders and the sides of our talents faces. We created a little story line of a girl walking in to a bar to meet her ungrateful friend and then finding peace in Nik’s music before enjoying a night with him instead. It was funny, tasteful and to the point to so we got it going.

We started out with our wide shot of them playing and then got tigher and tighter. When we flipped it to the bar we just switched around some lights. The Amaran f22c was our main source because it is very shallow and with the short ceiling it worked great. We threw two fresnels on the opposite side of the bar out of frame to catch the edge on the patrons and our talent. We used 4 foot Pavo tubes around the bar to add hints of more tungsten light and then hints of those bright clashing colors to give it that bar feel. When we shot our movie LOOKS CAN KILL there last year, the fire department showed up because of all our haze. This time I simply used aerosol haze in a can and lightly sprayed it around our talent. To keep the haze down we did it minimally right before we started shooting. It worked out way better than I thought so the haze can stays in the kit now. MF LIBATIONS was used because why not, we love our pals at VALE FOX.

Other than Erik, EMILY KUCHARZYK was also on site to help. CHUCK MERRIHEW, who so happened to be an extra, is a legend in the HV filmmaking community and he helped out as well as star as the ungrateful friend. We completed everything within the time frame and had everything packed up before the party was starting to set up. This whole video was shot in a time frame of three hours but it was more like two because of the pre and post breakdown. We edited this in parallel to the HALLOW SANCTUM video in the post before so it was a funny juxtaposition to have to edit back and forth.

I never shot a country music video before so I hope you like it.

Shot entirely on a Sony FX3 in XAVCS-I 4K 10-bit 4:2:2. Edited and colored in FCPX with the UTOPIA LUT by Phantom LUTs to start the grade.