Rose Hill Drive

I had a unique (for me) experience a couple of weeks ago. Chris N. and I went up to her husband's office to be extras in a music video. It was for Rose Hill Drive's new song, "Sneak Out". Rose Hill Drive is a band from Boulder. I guess I'd classify them as heavy metal (although I don't know if that's the appropriate terminology this decade). Most of their songs are too heavy for my taste, but I really like this particular one. The whole process of filming the video was so much fun. We were amazed by how nice everyone was - the musicians, the film crew, the director, everyone. They were all so polite and kept telling us thanks for being there.

We were just supposed to look like people who work in an IT office. (But Pete and his coworkers were laughing about that because they all wear shorts and T-shirts to work, and the director wanted us to wear pants or skirts or suits.) I wore a black suit. I'm SO glad I have never had to wear that kind of attire to work.

The basic story of the video is that a geeky office worker (the lead singer, Jake) falls for a woman at work. Chris and I were there early, so they used us as stand-ins at the band members' desks to adjust the lighting and placement of props as they ran test shots. It was so interesting to see the whole process and see how much attention goes into the details. For example, the person sitting at the first desk is the drummer, and his drumsticks are lying beside his keyboard, along with a bottle of mustard - I have no idea why. The second desk is for the guitar player, and he has some guitar strings lying across his desk, and picks sticking in his keyboard (with a rather graphic image on them - it will be interesting to see if that shows up in the video). The lead singer's desk has an old-fashioned mic sitting on it, as well as three candles that are the hear/see/speak-no-evil monkeys. They worked so hard to line up the shot so that the heads of those monkeys are visible when Jake starts singing.

The whole process was a learning experience and a lot of fun. I'm glad I got to be a part of it.
You can watch the video here: http://new.music.yahoo.com/videos/--157370716

I am in the background at the white board. There are three of us "discussing a project" back there. There's a young guy on the left, Chris N. in the middle, and I'm on the right.