I was asked, recently, by longtime friend and collaborator J.D. Reager to create a video for his song “Hammer Mannequin”. The song features on his new album Where Wasn’t I, his third solo offering. Here’s the end result:

I have dabbled with video previously, but never was too satisfied with the results. Still, I thought it would be fun so I took a shot at it. I was supplied with some green screen footage of J.D. playing the song solo, which I believe Graham Burks (of Loose Opinions fame) shot. From there, I looked through at least a couple hours of video footage I’ve captured over the last few years … the odd time-lapse, cat videos, and lots of textures. Proof that I’ve planned to try my hand at a music video for a while, I guess.

I asked J.D. about live footage, and he directed me to a YouTube video filmed at B-Side, here in Memphis. I captured footage of the band (J.D. Reager and the Cold-Blooded Three) playing the song, and ran it backwards in the software. Since the song is partly about sports reporter Vince Cellini, he suggested some footage there as well. I captured a couple things that I could throw in very briefly. When that wasn’t enough footage, I shot some things near my workplace – traffic signs, street shots – and J.D. had some street footage from his time in Chicago.

Fun fact: the Chicago footage was originally to be used in a video for the Blindcopy single “Blacklight” – one of my semi-failed video experiments. It was too good to leave unseen.

The cats featured in the video are Moose (tuxedo cat) and Larry (orange tabby). I think a general rule should be that cats should always be featured in a music video, regardless of genre or vibe. No exceptions.

We went back and forth with drafts a couple times, and one last time to clean up a technical issue, and the rest is history: my first foray into video directing, as it were.