Getting Down with Down

Last week we released the “Down” music video. This is made even more exciting because this
is our first ever self produced music video. We did the entire video DIY. A few months ago
Jeremy and Raul approached me and Josh to tell us they had a great idea for a music video
that we could film ourselves. Of course Josh and I were on board before we even heard the
elevator pitch because we’re easy going, good looking, strong, smart, ambitious, and very - very
humble. But after we heard what they had to say, we were ready to help! Jeremy had a vision
and the rest of us were there to help him bring it to life.
Hopefully you couldn’t tell but there were two locations that we filmed in. The first location was a
hotel room and the second location was at our very own Raul’s parent’s house. We were
concerned about being allowed to use a hotel room because we were going to be making noise
and using a fog machine. Basically we were concerned about getting kicked out due to our
shenanigans. Raul cleverly came up with the idea to call the hotel, posing as a representative
for a made up record label and informed management of the intention of our visit. We all had
our fingers crossed this mad lad’s plan would work; and to our surprise, it did! The concierge
was thrilled to be involved in the filming of a music video and with that we were good to go!
The hotel room ended up being the perfect set for the video. The colors of the walls, sheets, and
floors worked really well in combination with the lights and fog machine we brought. We had
planned on having aesthetically pleasing set to work with but this ended up being way better
than we expected.
Raul and Jeremy took the day off from work to get to the hotel room early in the morning and
get straight to building the set. I had to work during the day so unfortunately I had to get to the
hotel in the evening. When I arrived, it was about 5:30pm and filming was already well
underway. This is basically how the whole day went; one person is filming, the one being filmed,
and lastly another person was swinging the lights around and controlling the fog machine. It was
a sight to behold! Us stooges were actually able to come together and get this done!
I know what you’re thinking. But what about Josh? Where is he? What the hell did you monsters
do to him? Well hold your collective horses because Josh is fine, he was just out of town that
day and we decided it would be better not to play drums in the hotel anyway. But that does bring
me to the second day of filming, this time at Raul’s parent’s house. The second day of filming
was pretty much the same as the first day but now we could get Josh’s sick drumming shots! I
spent most of the day outside pretending to be the gaffer by “Macgyvering,” some outside
curtains to completely stop the sunlight from getting into the room. If there’s one thing I learned
from this experience it’s that duct tape is my friend. But I’m willing to bet, at the time, gaffer tape
would have been a better friend to me. Back on topic, sorry I tend to digress from time to time,
just ask the guys. So the second day of filming went really well. We got all of Josh’s sicknasty
drum fills, some more individual shots, and then wrapped the day up by taking a few new
promotional pictures.
When we were getting ready to release the video, I asked Jeremy to give me a quote to
describe his vision for the video. You can tell me us if you think he captured his vision. I’ll put
the quote here. He said, “I guess my vision for the video was to capture the isolation conveyed
in the lyrics using real world places to help the video feel more connected to the song. But I also

wanted something that was cinematic and visually stimulating, so I tried to find creative ways to
make these everyday places look more fantastic (E.g using colored lighting, dry ice, and fog).
Overall I think I was able to strike a pretty good balance between the two.”

Whatever that means....? Nah I’m just kidding I really think Jeremy did a great job leading this
project and being involved in it was so much fun and a wonderful experience. I hope you
enjoyed watching it as much as we did creating it!

Written by Alec Davis