Crystal Bowersox – Farmer’s Daughter
Director: Meiert Avis
The video was shot by the LA River, and at the Barclay Hotel.
The video is dark, like the song, but it does have a happy ending.
Its’ a personal video, about rebuilding your psyche, and not having to pass the damage on. I found the narrative very hard to shoot, as it bought my childhood right back. I got into a painful dissociated state that made it difficult to see the shots. As a result the thread is hard to follow. That may be for the best as it turned out, but some of the shots still make me cringe. However watching the whole video can still reduce me to tears.
Crystal is an original, she doesn’t really fit in the sausage machine, but she should have won American Idol hands down IMO.
When shooting small kids you only have so much shooting time. Twins are a great help.
These two were wonderful, intelligent and understood what the narrative needed from them as far as expression and mood.: Bianca and Chiara D’Ambrosio.
Children always bring incredible surprises to the shot, details that you could never plan.
“living truthfully under imaginary circumstances” Meisner
Working with children is the only time you get to direct, on set, with “the method”.
It can be method acting by proxy: the director gets to help the substitution through stories and context.
“Grown up” method actors tend to come to set already in character, and they usually don’t need the distraction, or want to be reminded about substitution techniques. thank you very much.
Don’t open the oven door while you are cooking a souffle.
I am not sure quite what role the director actually has. It’s different every shoot.
The main thing is to pretend you know what you are doing, even when you don’t quite have a handle on the scene yet.
This helps everyone else involved suspend their disbelief, and build your house of cards for you.
You can keep shooting the scene over and over, untill you understand it, and get it right.
Then you can shoot it some more, while you think about the next scene.
You don’t have to explain or justify yourself. If they smell blood you will be drawing back a stump.
My own children saved my life.
Director: Meiert Avis
Producers: Meiert Avis and Jeremy Alter
Production Designer: Philip Duffin
Canon 1D MIV DSLR Zeiss Optics.
If you want to see the glamor of the shoot behind the scenes: