A good friend of mine, Sergio Rapu, was producing a Doomtree music video this week and like all good friends should do he was working to get me involved. My day job kept me from playing a more significant role in the shoot, but I was able to drop in Friday night for a few hours to shoot some behind-the-scenes footage.

The location was the Schmidt Brewery in Saint Paul, and what a gorgeous place to shoot in! It looks like it hasn’t been used for 50 years, and has tons of rooms and industrial spaces to use. There were at least 2-3 rooms in play at all times. While they were shooting in one, another two rooms would have people littered about setting them up. They even had a second unit crew wandering around the place with an LED light and DSLR shooting footage.

It was also quite interesting to see Bo Hakala, the director/DP moving about a resetting lights all the time. It’s pretty unusual to have a director take such a hands on approach, but Bo being the perfectionist he is I guess it’s not that strange. In the background of a section with P.O.S. they had several cans of dry ice producing steam and all kinds of flames. They even blasted him with giant fans blowing freezing cold air!

The highlight of the shoot though had to be Dessa rigged up and spinning eight feet off the ground. It was quite an ordeal to get her rigged and in the air, and I was very much impressed with the professionalism of the rigging crew. They did everything they could to make sure she was comfortable during the shots, and she performed phenomenally well.

Looking forward to diving into the footage and cutting a short piece. I got to interview P.O.S and Dessa on a few occasions. Also snagged a number of shots of director/DP Bo Hakala deep in thought and running into problems, which is always nice in videos like this! People like drama, and they sure had their fair share on this shoot, but in the end the footage they got looked amazing and I’m really looking forward to seeing the final video.