The Reina Williams Music Video

The set of the music video

THE MEETING
I met Reina Williams years ago when meeting with a group of creative artists to discuss working on a pilot for a local television show. In the meeting I liked a lot of what she had to say – game recognizes game or for this purpose - art recognizes art.

When we all exchanged info she gave out her MySpace, (remember that?). The one cool thing (only cool thing?) about MySpace was that you could post music tracks there. I really liked what I heard and when you find someone like that you remember them. She is also quite prolific. Her music has already been featured in shows on CBS, NBC, Cinemax, MTV as well as various feature films.

"Credits Include . . Monte Carlo (2011) Hawaii Five-0 (CBS) "Table for Three" (2009) Friday Night Lights (NBC) Melrose Place (CW) The Hills (MTV) Punk'd (MTV) and more. . ."  — SelecTracks/Bug Music

She was also voted "Best Solo Artist" in the City Paper's Best of Baltimore [2010].

THE PART
When it came time to find music for my film The Part I contacted Reina and she graciously let us use her music. (You can read more about that on the blog for that film here )

THE ORIGIN
Since she let us use her music we’ve become friends. I not only became a fan of her recorded music, but her live performances as well. I’ve seen Reina perform at least a half dozen times (You can see one of my cell phone pics below) and it is always great!

Reina & friend performing live at Joe Squared April 1, 2010.

After her performances we would talk about doing a music video and tossed around some ideas. When the time came I told her I would direct the video and after a couple more ideas (part of the creative process) it was a GO!

THE SONG, THE STORY
The song is called easily enough THE VODKA SONG. The story for the video was written by Reina herself and I just had to break it down for shooting purposes. My job was to visually make the story just as fun as the song itself.

THE SETS
The video was shot over two days at two primary locations. The great Joe Squared and a location in East Baltimore. The first day was at the former and the second at the latter.

For the first day we had to get there bright and early to shoot the video before Joe Squared opened and we had a lot of great people to come and be extras at that early hour. The second day wasn’t as intensive. We didn’t need the amount of extras and we didn’t need to get there as early. Both days went great and we got every shot that I planned. Something always good for a set.

THE SOCIAL NETWORKING
Since I only joined Twitter like 5 minutes ago I decided to try and have

There is a lot of downtime for the director on a set like this while the DP (Director of Photography) and crew set up the lights and the camera for the next scenes to be shot so I decided to take pictures and post them live on Twitter with my own unique brand of commentary. I even established our own hashtag (Twitter people know what that is) where you can STILL get the updates about the video. The hashtag is the easy enough

Ultimately it was harder than I thought it was. Turns out I didn’t have as much time as I thought. There were several directorial decisions that had to be made and it took forever to upload some of the pictures. Next time I think I’ll get a PA (Production Assistant) to do it. LOL.

On both of our social networking destinations I tried to update the progress of the video and still am. I also thanked a lot of the people involved in the production on our Facebook Page.

You can see a slideshow of some of the photos from the sets below and you can always get more up to the minute updates on the post production of the video on our social network sites (linked at the end) as well as see more photos and a LIVE PERFORMANCE VIDEO from the set.

I’m not just saying this because she’s a friend of mine, but I think Reina Williams is on the verge of stardom and (I’ve told her this) it was an honor and a privilege to direct this, her FIRST music video.




You can see a BIGGER version of this slide show here