The music video for Lullaby #2 was our first, and one of the biggest feats we'd pulled of to that date.
What was it like making this video?
After spending a few weeks debating the math and shooting different animation tests (as well as recording the audio in-studio), we filmed ourselves playing the song in real-time, and brought that 3-minute video down to 12fps. On the day of the final shoot, we projected each frame one by one on a big screen (we brought an LCD screen, as well, for the brighter part of the day), using stop-motion animation software to overlay a live video feed on top of that, and matched up our live-feed bodies with our pre-recorded bodies. We had also edited in karaoke-esque cues on the guide-video that would tell us which beat, chord, word and phoneme the frame was on (and a very loud, annoying click track that would tell us when the cameras were about to capture) - which was then supplemented by a crew of people crowding around the laptop, shouting out directions to different band members. We planned to advance the frame every eight seconds over the course of 6 hours, with the end of the video being at sunset. As more and more of our equipment succumbed to the salty wind and sand, bringing the shoot to its knees half a dozen times, our timetable kept getting recalculated and we were eventually advancing frames every 4 seconds or so to make up for lost time... but we made it, somehow - and the laptop eventually recovered once all the sand was dumped out. Getting the guide video and live feed required the use of an HD video camera, laptop, projector, screen, LCD, and whatnot, the actual footage for the video was captured entirely on simple still cameras (DSLRs) that were tethered together to a single intervalometer. The Wave Organ is half a mile out into the bay, so all the electronics are powered by a pair of gas generators - as well as the sewing machine, the tailor's desk lamp, an array of lights, a slide projector, and a teapot (for breaktime).
As for the performance, we brought in a theater costumer, Sarah Henshaw, who was to attempt to sew an entire blazer for Avery while the rest of the shoot was occurring. Sarah moved in real-time, layout our the supplies at about 4PM, and stitching on the pockets at about 9PM. The jacket project was done entirely in front of the camera, with no pre-fabrications before the shoot - though of course the final jacket is missing liner, hems, and a few other minor amenities. The other prominent character, the 'apparition,' was a structured improvisation of Kate Saturday, who's only strict cue was to approach Avery at a precise moment during the bridge and then promptly disappear. Avery's glances at the apparition, as well as his interaction with the tailor at this point, was scripted and calculated to the second for the shooting of the guide-video, and then recreated frame-by-frame in the actual video. One element that didn't quite make it fully into the final video was a projection of the cycling moon - we'd transferred 64 images of the moon to E6 film, and projected these slides onto the face of the bass drum... most of this became overexposed due to our poor planning, but the moon animation can still be seen for a few seconds during twilight. We attempted to frame our shot to include in the background as many site-seers, fisherman and passing ships, as well as the lights from across the bay (which, unfortunately, were obscured by the fog on, and only on, our shoot day). If you watch very carefully, a bagpipe player, Lynne Miller, appears in the background of two frames.
Here's the whole first test day in a few minutes -- rehearsing, brainstorming, checking the lighting and timing, goofing off, and more: