My daughter Truth and her friend Erin wanted to do a video recording for their school’s Black History Month program so naturally I offered to shoot it and do a full-out production. The day they were ready to record, I set up the set at the studio while they were at school.
When they got in, I had the full set up finished with intricate lighting and three of my video cameras (my Blackmagic Pocket 4k on the slider, and Blackmagic URSA Mini G1 and G2 on each side), one manned by myself, my son Excel operating the slider, and the other set up for a stationary shot. I even pulled out my new Nanlite LED tube lights to give their video some color.
We ran into a hiccup before we started shooting because they had originally prepared to sing with a karaoke track from Youtube and then post the video for use during the streamed showcase. I let them know that there was a high chance that their video would get taken down from most online platforms for copyright and licensing so they needed to do it some other way. I had assumed that Truth was gonna play the song on her guitar but she had not prepared to do so at all.
Despite that, she sat down with her guitar and pulled up the song chords on her phone, studying it for around 15 minutes and shortly learned the whole thing. Once she learned it, she and Erin sang and played maybe 30 times (upon my request), only getting better by each take.
My wife Erica and her close friend Viola sat in the corner amazed by the pair and Erin’s boyfriend Felix sat to the side watching the whole production go down. I spent a day or two editing the video, color correcting and such, and the final product was pretty dope.
She said her classmates were surprised by the “quality of the video” and they got a decent amount of compliments for their performance. I hope this piece inspires.
