JSB: Live at the Marquee

February 5th, 2009

I'm now officially a resident of Halifax, Nova Scotia. I moved here five days ago to set up shop at Power Post Productions on Hollis Street. Continuing to work with Hemmings House and im excited for the possibilities that lie ahead with this move. Especially after Greg's positive results at the ReelScreen Summit in D.C. But im writing about another Halifax based project we were working on for the last nine months: JSB Live at the Marquee

I remember my first Jimmy Swift Band show eight years ago when they were called "Fly Jimmy Swift", which wasn't their first name, nor the first time they'd swung around to towns all over the place. I think I was 18 years old at the time. It was at the now non-existent "Barn" on the U.P.E.I. campus. My two friends and I rocked out in the front row the whole show. We had never seen anything like it. I recall days after the show hearing "First Tube" by PHISH and thinking it was JSB!

I, like many other fans, have been hooked to their music, especially their live show. So when JSB frontman Craig Mercer approached Greg about a live DVD idea at last year's ECMA's, we were all over the idea! But it had to be bigger and better than anything we'd ever done, or anyone would ever imagine. I truely feel we accomplished our goal....


Like anything, we we're way too busy on other projects to really be %100 ready to shoot such a show, but in true HHP fashion, we flew by the seats of our pants (to an extent) and went for it!

We secured at jib from our friends at IVS in Saint John, and a full Steadicam rig from our Director of Photography, Kelsey Smith.

The show was amazing! I remember being so nervous for hours before we started shooting...and having to pee a
a thousand times before I felt I was comfortable. It always happens to me when im nervous/pumped for anything. So we all got ready inside the Marquee while a late winter storm was dumping down on the streets of Halifax.

I was positioned at the front left of the stage, Lauchlan to my right. Greg on stage with Kelsey on the Steadicam, Steve and Craig wide right, and wide left respectively with Tidby roaming around whevever he pleased. Topping it off we Darrell maning the jib crane, coming inches from taking people's heads off with each swoop. The roof at the Marquee is quite low.



We all shot a wicked show and I had to settle in to start editing. A process that spanned over 9 months of being excited, heartbroken, pumped, anxious, frustrated, excited again, devastated, worried, beyond stressed, and so unbeleively proud and excited all over again! That's the film making process in a nutshell....well for me anyways!

Once I started post production, I had so many issues with formats. In our haste of being so excited prior to the show, coupled with a few errors on other peoples part, I was left with footage shot at 1080, 60i....720p, 30 fps...and 720p, 24 fps undercranked footage! ARGH!!!!!!!! What a nightmare. I compare to an artist sitting down to make a painting, with three different kinds of paint; Water based, oil and acrylic....non of which mix together properly on the canvas. (I don't think they do anyways....but you get my drift).

Although its not such an issue recently due to certain software updates, any young filmmaker out there.....DO NOT MIX FORMATS.....if at all possible. Make sure all your footage is either interlaced or progressive and at the same frame rate. Seems simple enough right? That's exactly what I said....but I was left to deal with the mess as the head editor.

It took me a month to sort it out. I called everyone in the business for a solution. Most responses being, " Wow...I have no idea how to fix that...you're kind of on your own on this one pal". But with some help with my friends at PowerPost and a few clever work arounds, we eventually started cutting.

And cut we did! I cut most of the show with Lauchlan taking shifts on it when he could. The band then wanted changes. Then Greg took it for a ride once we had the whole thing in near picture lock and stepped it up a notch!

Then the band wanted more changes, so we did them. Then between Lauchlan and myself, we spent almost 5 months putting in time whenever we could. It was essentially cut, but we wanted it to really capture the energy of the show, so that meant making 6 cuts in less than a second, or whatever. We have so many edits that last like 5 frames etc...its crazy. In the end there are thousands of tiny cuts all throughout a concert like this. Meaning during colour correction, we had thousnads of shots of correct. But JSB's music is so inspirational to cut to. I would start cutting this all over again if I could. It was just that much fun!

Personally I was really influenced by a few livd DVD's i've seen in the past; in particular: Coldplay Live 2003, which unreal! STS9 : Live As Time Changes, and Rage Agianst the Machine: Battle of Mexico City. These 3 DVD's are so well done and so original. So our goal was to create something amazing and origianl, with the flavours of our favorite productions.

In the end the band was really pumped about the DVD and so were we. Having the band members react so well was realy encouraging. Aaron the keyborad player did an amazing job on the audio as well. Such a huge part of a production like this....in my opinion, more important than the video. We even got a big plug on our favorite podcast Jaybird's Endless Boundries. Check out EB 572.

Creating live music productions is our companies passion. We all love it so much and have such a blast doing them. This particular DVD for JSB was a real honour and a blast for all of us. I can honestly say I will never get tired of shooting and cutting live music! It seriously just gives me butterflies just writing this.

Cheers.