Madison Wisconsin 2010 yoyo contest

History

Steve Rhoden, a long-time filmmaking friend, approached me about directing a music video for his newly renamed band: Green Sweater Society.  I jumped at the opportunity; I had not directed a music video since “I’m a F*cking Pirate,” which also features Steve.  We knew each other in high school and created a number of movies under the heading flutter-by-boy.  The films that survived can be found on Youtube.

The Pitch

The idea behind this video was to introduce viewers to Green Sweater Society and give them a glimpse into the life of the band.  This included ideas of them hanging out, practicing, and performing live.

Production

To make this video I followed the band around for a day and filmed them between performances.  Some scenes were actually part of another shoot for the Green Sweater Society video, “Left Behind,” can you guess which ones?  Their live performance was filmed at Station 4 in downtown Saint Paul by John Burgess and Aaron Johnson, two friends I have worked with on a number of projects.  Sound was recorded with a sennheiser ME66 mic to make it easier to match the live audio with the master recording in post.

Post Production

A recording of the master track was played for the band to follow anytime they sang, which made syncing up the audio later possible.  Once all the scenes where synced they were place on top of each other in Final Cut Pro and I was able to cut back and forth between them, taking the best parts from each one.  The live performance clips were the only ones I had to synchronize manually since the band was not playing along to a recording.  I chose the most visually striking live clips and used them to build up to the performance at the end of the video.

Tech Specs

Camera: DVX100A

Editing Software: Final Cut Pro, Motion, and Magic Bullet Looks

Lighting: Lowel Light Kit

Audio: Sennheiser ME66

Total footage: 3 hours

Credits

Constance, Please

Written by: Green Sweater Society
Video Directed by: Daniel Reifenberger
Video Edited by: Daniel Reifenberger & Steve Rhoden