What happens when you spot one of the coolest retro Toyota’s driving through Houston’s Vietnam Town aka Bellaire?  You snapchat it of course… 

….then you get the idea of a night themed “Drive” shoot.  That’s when I asked Tommy Le or @tommyflyby on snapchat if he was down for a shoot. Of course he was up for it so we exchanged contacts and set up a shoot date and time.  He also wondered if I could set something up with Hai from @theJHfilms for a short, simple video.  I got Tommy in contact with Hai and we all agreed on a date to shoot, rain or shine.

THE IDEAS BEHIND THE “80’s Drive” SHOOT…

I had just finished watching Strangers Things on Netflix and found the soundtrack music a perfect fit for the shoot. I sent Hai a playlist of the music I wanted in the video and he told me to “GFY”.  Typical editor/close friend response…

Since this wasn’t our first video shoot together, we’ve learned on past shoots what we don’t need and what we needed more of.  We needed to simplify everything and get more closeup angles as well as more motion in the shots.  This meant getting in close with our Sony A7S paired with a 50mm or really ultra wide at 12mm.

THE SHOOT… 

The shoot date was set for Thursday evening in Downtown Houston.  Our meet up location was at the Chevron building on Smith St. The first half hour of the shoot consisted of getting footage inside the car cabin and as well as sound clips. The audio recorder was set up in the glovebox compartment. I honestly felt it sounded a little muffled so we will try a different method next time.

The second half hour of the shoot was mainly rolling shots.  Our car support / video rig was a Toyota Prius with Hai sitting in the rear, recording with a Sony FS700 Gimbal setup, and with the rear hatch up.  Don’t try this at home unless you have proper safety equipment.  Fair warning.

Our second location or scene for the video was along Memorial Rd with the Houston skyline.  Once we got our shot, I found a bridge, and got another idea for a shot.

You can check out our final product below. It is a bit short so we might have an extended version later! Give it a like and subscribe for more videos in the future.