Katrina Stone – I Like It – music video

Here’s another one I shot all in slow motion and using the spider steady stabilizer. I didn’t have shot list or story in mind. I just shot a bunch of footage and then I found a song that would go good with it and cut the video to the music. I learned one thing as a director though and that’s the fact that I need to make sure I direct. I didn’t tell my actress anything other than to walk around and I would follow her. However, I learned that to get better footage, I really need to be directing and telling the actors what it is I want to see and what shot I’m trying to get. I finally did start doing that and I think the video came out pretty great.

Larry and the Lamplighters – 7th Heaven – 1958 Chevy Impala

Another friend of mine with a really cool car. I convinced him to take a detour into Brea Canyon where I knew I could get some really cool shots of the car. I already had this song in mind when I was filming because it was the only 50’s sounding song I had a license to. I didn’t really keep it in mind when I got my footage but I made all my cuts according to the music. This video came out really cool. I shot the entire thing in slow motion though and playing back all the footage can get a bit tedious. I’m not that big a fan so I will use slow motion sparingly. The whole thing was shot using my spider steady stabilizer.

Shelby GT350 car video

My friend recently got a really cool car so I said, “you must let me film it.” At least one learning here. I told him not to drive too fast because everything appears faster on camera anyway. I was wrong. I had to speed up some of the footage in post. I recorded some footage on my phone while I was driving next to him and that audio is what I used throughout most of the video. I also didn’t take interesting enough footage of the vehicle when it was parked so I used the photos I took on my phone and edited it to the sound of his car revving. Everytime the car revs, the picture changes, making it a bit more interesting. I also added a LUT to it to make the footage look more like Gone in 60 Seconds. Beautiful car.

Chevy Avalanche Promo video

This is a quick commercial we did for the Chevy Avalanche. One of the first times I really started experimenting with B-roll and stock footage. Rather than focus solely on the vehicle I got some cool shots of the scenery and even added footage of the bird flying and the horse dancing around. People really liked that footage and now I make sure to include B-roll in pretty much everything. I provided the voiceover for this commercial as well.

Drive commercial

The coolest commercial I’ve done so far. I provided the voiceover for this commercial as well. Here we were trying to create that vibe of how cool it is to drive around the scenic desert landscape in a convertible with the top down. I filmed the entire thing with natural light using only one camera and a tripod. We drove back and forth around the same turn for four times, each time with me sitting in different spot. I added a LUT in Adobe to give it more of a classic look.

Friday the 13th commercial

I woke up. It was Friday the 13th. I thought what better way than to create a quick little video in the style of Deadpool\Ferris Bueller to advertise the killer deals on the SC Automotive World lot. I shot the whole thing in a few minutes, recorded the voiceover separately, and edited in a short time as well. The commercial was up on our Facebook page within a couple hours and surprisingly it was a huge hit with our customers. I used natural lighting for all of the shots with exception of that ceiling light again which gives the commercial an amateurish look in a few scenes. All in all though. I thought this commercial came out pretty good.

We Love Cars commercial

Now we start getting into the real fun stuff. I provide the voiceover in this video. This video was originally going to be a take on the Matthew McConnaughey Lincoln car commercials but, sadly, I couldn’t commit to the accent. Still, I got to experiment with some cool new angles, new sound effects, and got to do a lot of driving in a cool car. We ran this as an ad on the company’s website and Facebook page.

Jeep Renegade commercial

I really like this one. Originally, this was going to be another “Let’s check out this ride” episode but we decided instead to just make this a quick little product commercial. We drove around and I got my footage. This was my first time editing with music as my guide. I cut exactly 30 seconds of this song and added it to my editing timeline. I made sure that my footage had to fit in exactly those 30 seconds. This video went up on a Thursday and the car was sold by Sunday. Pretty cool.

SC Automotive World February commercial

This is technically SC Automotive World’s second video and again we used the green screen. This is one of those examples where I had to step up my directorial skills because our actor had just come home from work and his energy level was low. I had to boost him up a little. All in all though, I think this commercial came out pretty good.

SC Automotive World referral program commercial

We got a green screen shortly after filming our first commercial. That’s me on-camera. I learned how to use the green screen by watching a quick little video on Youtube. Actually not too hard at all. I did learn though that I need to use better lighting. As you’ll see later in the safety talks I did in front of the green screen, my face comes out really yellow and I didn’t do a good enough job of color correction when I was editing in Adobe. From a marketing aspect, I also learned something about not including too much text in the background. The first version of this video has the SC Automotive World logo as the background but since we were running it as a Facebook ad, Facebook sent me a message saying that the ad was not being shown to potential audiences because it had way too much text. This version seen below is when I changed up the background to the much cooler scenery you see here.