Dynasty

A week ago Lumas and I drove down to Salt Lake City with a car full of gear to film a series of live performance videos. The reason we drove thirteen hours to film a couple of simple music videos is because, unbeknownst to many, my family is to photography as The Kennedys are to politics... or as the Bushes are to terrorism (they even photographed Little Bush). Mine is the only family to have four members awarded the National Award from the Professional Photographers of America (PPA). Serious. My amazing-photographer-of-an-Aunt Deanne Parry owns The Castle, a gorgeous events hall in Layton, UT with a tiny chapel and two baby grand pianos. My internationally-acclaimed-Uncle Drake Busath owns Busath Photography, Utah's premier portrait studio, which was started in 1955 by my grandparents.

My cousin Richard, who now shoots for Busath Photography, agreed to organizing a film shoot with me at The Castle on Monday, May 17th, despite being somewhat immobilized due to a recent knee surgery. I think we both underestimated the workload - I didn't realize we'd have to change three sets of batteries and flash cards out every 8-15 minutes and he didn't realize that when I say "I want you to help me film a song for an hour or two" I mean "I want you to work thirteen hours straight filming eight songs in two locations without a break and your only payment (aside from internet fame) will be a burrito at the mexican place across the street."

My cousin Richard is an absolute saint, and he hobbled around all day to make this shoot happen, climbing up on tables, downloading footage constantly, and remaining absolutely silent while I fumbled these songs over and over. My Aunt Deanne, who gave us free reign of the building for two days, helped us set up lighting and provided Kraft services. The icing on the cake was when my cousin Seth Castleton arrived and played cello on three songs from my upcoming children's album. Having so many amazing family members willing to donate their time to my weird music gets me stuffy. To quote Charles Manson, "This was surely a family affair."

Unfortunately, there is not much chance of my computer surviving the editing process, so I started with the simplest and shortest one first, a song called "I Tried" from my 2007 release, For the Love of Pete. I wrote this song at particularly low point in my career (in retrospect, it was probably a high point) and based it loosely on a hymn I grew up with, I'll Walk With You.

Though the Canon 5D Mark II cameras that we used have incredible color capabilities, I went B&W for this video because the song feels raw-er to me in monochrome:

I will attempt a slightly more complex video next, as I prepare for my west coast tour in June... pray for my little MacBook.