This past July I spent two days filming a music video for a recording artist and friend of mine, Teresa Peterson. The video was created to help promote her new EP (extended play) album Freely Fully.
Freely Fully is now available through iTunes and for $3.96 is a total steal! To snag your own copy, go to Freely Fully on iTunes!
A lot of people have asked about the production of this video, so I thought I would take a moment to give a little behind the scenes write up on it.
Calling Me Higher was shot over two days at the end of July 2014.
For the forest scene, we were actually in the middle of a reservoir. The small path that Teresa walks on is mainly a service access road for the gas company to use to get to their pumps. And the occasional fisherman can be seen quietly casting from the shore there. If I would have turned the camera to the right or the left you would have just seen water everywhere. Actually I think there are a few shots where it is in plain view.
I picked that spot because of the tree canopy that it provided, it also allowed us a reasonably private and uninterrupted day of shooting. I say reasonably because at one point we did have a guy and his dog walk through the shot during one take. And it's not like he was off in the distance unaware of what we were doing; he walked right through the shot past Teresa. It was hilarious.
The forest road location was also shot at the reservoir location. It was nice because it gave us a second scene and allow for the transitions between the rocky gravel to the city scene later at the church.
All in all, I think Teresa walked about 15 miles that day. I did too but backwards.
Okay, on to what everyone wants to know. Where did you find that church? I have been asked this question only about a million times.
The church is St. Mary's in Massillon Ohio. The building was built in 1876 and designed by architect Leon Beaver. I discovered this church the year before when I was in Massillon filming another project. The blackened towers can be seen for miles and I was captivated immediately by the building.
Since that point I've been trying to find a project that St. Mary's would be the perfect backdrop for. Father Gretchko and his staff were very generous with their time in allowing us to take over for a day.
The church is very overwhelming to film. I took several takes with a full wide shot but it was really just too much to take in with the camera. Teresa was only a small yellow dot in the middle of the screen, which really ended up being very poetic. I left one take in there to give the full scale of the building but in the end we kept with the medium shots.
The piano belongs to some friends of mine who were kind enough to allow us to take it away for the day. At first Teresa's husband James and I were rather nervous moving it around, but by the end of the day we were just hauling it around and were just like "let's do this".
As you can see in the music video and her EP, Teresa is crazy talented and was loads of fun to work with. If you haven't already bought your copy, I would highly recommend it. I find myself singing her songs to myself throughout the day. They're the kind of songs that get stuck in your head for all the right reasons.
I hope you enjoyed the video and a little look behind the scenes. Be on the look out for more from Teresa. Who knows - there might even be another music video shot in the coming months.
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| James and Teresa |
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| James, being himself |
