Taiyo Na - Lovely to Me (Immigrant Mother) - Using the GH1 in documentary style music video

[Gary San Angel]

Hi everyone.

 

I recently completed a documentary style music video for New York based artist Taiyo Na for his song Lovely to Me (Immigrant Mother). It's a music video dedicated to not only immigrant mothers but all our moms. It was completed just this past Thanksgiving and done in time to commemorate and give thanks to our moms. And I wanted to share it here.

 

The process of this film was a community based one so much of the main footage was shot by youth and adults who had very little experience using a camera. So in many respects this piece is a different kind of music video not that aesthetics are thrown out the window but that it is a much more process driven creation where in the goal is about empowering communities through an artistic process.

 

The "mom" footage piece was shot with two GH1s with the stock lens on auto focus. Although I hate working with auto focus, we just didn't have the time to teach people how to use the camera, the goal was more here's a camera point and shoot with it. So in a way this is an experimental process, so yes from a technical stand point some footage shows some of the GH1's issues and problems.

 

But I wanted to post this MV to show that sometimes we focus too much on the pixel peeping and the things that suck or are lacking about a camera and not enough time on the content or heart of a piece. Ultimately, we are telling stories be it in pictures or in a moving image. If that story is powerful enough I think then sometimes we can look beyond the negatives and see the real possibility of doing a lot with so little.

 

And that's sort of what we did with this music video. Looked at using what we got now and to push it as far as we could to tell a compelling story.

 

I hope this little piece can inspire others to go out and shoot with the little you have and not get trapped in the trappings of always having to have the best camera, the best rig, etc. etc.

 

Please enjoy and share Lovely to Me (Immigrant Mother)

 

Much respect,

 

Gary

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAK9XGd-JKI

 

Panasonic GH1 720 / 24P

14-140mm F4.0-5.8

Canon FD 24mm F2.0

Canon FD 50mm F1.4

Canon FD 85mm F1.8

indiRAILSpro MP

indiSLIDERmini

Wondlan Pegasus II DV Stabilizer

Edited December 12, 2009 by Gary San Angel