HOW IT WAS MADE! HEAVEN 4 REAL VID!

This video had a VERY fast "turnaround". It was filmed July 21-23rd two thousand twenty five and and finished by August 6th of the SAME YEAR. I think this is probably my fav Heaven For Real song and when Mark (from the band) played me it I was like PLEASE let me make the vid! We'd been trying for a vid for a while now but it wasn't working. We tried doing it in the winter but no vid came out and we tried doing it last year too but no vid came out then either. I was starting to think Mark was starting to think I'm a phony who just TALKS about all the ideas and never follows through. Anyways, I guess MONEY TALKS BABY!! especially when u aint had any jobs in a long time so yeah I went kinda crazy doing this one and I just wanted some money so badly so I could continue funding my crazy twisted lifestyle. I sorta stopped doing filmed videos a few years ago after finding it just stressed me out too much having to think of all these moving parts that gotta come 2gether for 1-3 days of filming and it's just so many details and it drove me nuts. The last few videos I filmed (Wood Andrews - Sunsets, Napster Vertigo video...hmm...theres more..) I barely slept the nights before filming. I'd just be thinking so much about HD vs 4K and shutter speeds and angles and driving to pick up gear and if my credit card was gonna work and I'd picture the ppl on set waiting while the tripod legs flung out in all the wrong directions and also everyone looking at me while I thought hard on the spot about what the video even was. By 4am I'd be awake thinking how I'm gonna be half asleep on the set and how I invited all these people to help make the video and I'll never figure out how to defling the tripod legs and I might end up tripping on to the "craft services" table and splashing some tim hortin all over the SONY A7SII or the Blackmagic but then I'd be like well at least I'm not gonna break a RED or an ARRI AMIRA or wahtever SO by 6am I'd be sound asleep and at 9am READY TO FILM!!!!

BUT now I'm back into filming after going to talk to a professional about how 2 get to sleep and it's been more chill! Also Bea (who did the camera in this vid) said she wasn't really into filming anymore lately either for her own 2 stressful reasons but look at us now! Bea and I have different techniques for dealing with set-stress. Hers is to plan everything ahead and and be really meticulous and organized. Mine is to plan nothing so that when it's a total failure I can say to myself (and out loud to others) that I didn't actually plan anything so I'm not surprised it's not any good. Anyways, I think we make a good team despite these opposite approaches.

Bea on set planning and planning with the stars while Scott falls asleep standing up

I found these goggles on the ground a day after I said I needed some goggles. I don't plan I just cross my fingers and hope that it works good enough!

OKAY SO THE VIDEO

The video has a bit of an ambitious concept. I was sitting there in my room for a day or two THINKING and thinking of what the video could be. I actually told Mark (the singer) at first that I wouldn't be making a video with a narrative or maybe even jokes in it. Hah! I knew I wanted spOOOky and it fit well being played with Nosferatu type stuff. The old one not that shit looking new one. So yah, I was sitting there sketching while the song played and I thought hard trying to get my brain to start wandering..I realized I just needed ANY starting off point and I can elaborate on that...I looked at the paintings I'd done on the wall and the third one I looked at was this one of a weird hair salon...

A painting of a weird hair salon

So then I thought HAUNTED HAIR. I told Mark, "I wanna do something with HAUNTED HAIR". I asked around and no one had heard of a video with HAUNTED HAIR before. Not even James and he's seen every bad horror movie ever! Later I found out through Ashley about a Canadian movie called Peanut Butter Hair (not the name) that has a kid with haunted hair but by then it was too late cause she told me that after I finished the video plus whatever, there can be TWO things about haunted hair in the world.

I just search engined and it's called The Peanut Butter Solution...

WHATEVER!

So...a couple days later, the clock is ticking and I'm thinking of this video idea and what could happen and we needed a treatment for the label ASAP. I had like 4 hours left to think and all I had was the hair is haunted thing..THEN I scribble someones head coming off cause the hair cut it off. And then I was like woah, this head could fly around with the hair flapping!! That could work! That was kinda the breakthrough moment concept wise. I realized it reminded me of the movie Hausu. A head flies around in that maybe? Oh well, it's 2025, u know how hard it is to come up with a totally 100 percent original idea?? So yeah, someone gets their head cut off by their own hair (not what happens in Peanut Butter Man or Hausu!) but in a fun way not the other way...

When the head came off on the drawing I was like, "that could work"

The next big part of the vid I guess was that the body of the person runs around without a head. I looked up Halloween costumes and Tara and Bea helped think of how to do that. Tara is handy and she really helped whip this thing together. It's a hat with a coat-hanger on top and then some foam and tape that make the neck and then more coat hangers turned into arms and then wrapped with foam and then some fake hands stuck on the bottom. U get it??

Tara trying on the hat making sure it's perfect before adding hands and things

Fake hands in a bag

A blurry picture of the final product!

Me talking to Allie who is peering through the hole in costume. She's wearing that hat contraption, the arms are fake. U get it?

So that's the costume...what else...

Marlena Moore (the famous singer) came through with tons of costumes and set stuff. Thanks!! We wanted a John Waters vibe for the room and it actually turned out so nice with the colours but the plan was always BLACK AND WHITE so we just had to pretend not to notice how good it would be in colour. It was good practice for the future when we make a longer version!

Matisse the star PRE animation. She is pretending her hands are tied up by the hair!

Throwing hair in the air that gets blown by a fan for the scene where TARA is cutting hair

We made fake posters for the wall. Here's a funny one I made by altering a real one. Most people like Bank Heist, Miss Guilty and Le Croissant.

For the animation sequence I just had to cram it in real quick that the headless body finds this new head! It was tricky explaining the story in those 20 seconds but I think it's understood. The animation was also originally in colour cause it's just easier to do that than paint black and white. At first Mark said it's gotta be in colour in the video and I didn't totally agree but he hadn't seen it the black and white version yet and then he did and he was like, "NEVERMIND, it has to be black and white!" and I agreed! It was too confusing in colour...like is it connected to the story?? Yah.

Oh yeah IF you're wondering how I did the hair, it's 2D animated too but at a different frame rate than the video footage. BORING STUFF: This is about as technical and smart as I can sound....the video is in 24 FRAMES PERS SECOND, as is standard for "film". If I were to animate 24fps ("animating on ones") then it would take me twice as long to do and also just look too weird and uncanny or something. So the animation is 12fps. Watching it with the filmed video footage at 12fps makes the hair look way better! But the video kinda must be 24fps so the hair has to be the one looking janky and not so smooth. Every frame of animation is doubled. I still like how it looks but I gotta say, watching the animated hair at 12fps is better! I was bummed for 20 minutes after adding the hair to the 24fps track but I got over it. What can yah do! Maybe something idk about?? I dont really know much technical stuff about animating.

The animation was ALSO originally in colour!!!

Okay so huge shout out to MATISSE and TARA for their acting. They both did such a great job and it was fun to do a vid with Tara again! I'll update if there's more I'm forgetting.

You can watch the video in the video section of this website!