The Home of Every Day is a Canvas
The Home of Every Day is a Canvas
vid·e·o di·rec·tor (/ˈvidēō//diˈrektər/): Video directors are the creative force behind the making of a movie, commercial or other video production. They work with a staff of producers, writers, editors, lighting technicians, sound engineers, and production assistants. Video directors are in charge of the content that goes on camera and must be familiar with the technical aspects of making videos. They make decisions on the budget, length of a shoot, script changes, lighting, and any other aspects of making a video.
I've actually only ever written and directed one music video in my career! But, I have served in various roles on videos directed by others. For my client projects, I've written storyboards and then creative directed the shoots. And on a couple of indie films and music videos, I've done location scouting and continuity consulting.
Louie Bello is a Boston-based singer / songwriter known for his hit songs and highly produced music videos. He is a former Sony ATV writer and Boston award winner who can be seen on venues around the country from Boston to Texas. Louie has written and performed with dozens of National Recording Artists and he is the writer and performer of the title song for the ESPN documentary, PUSH. He has performed at music festivals including Boston Fest Red Gorilla Festival, SXSW, Phantom Gourmet’s Summer BBQ and his songs are placed on major networks such as VH1-The Kardashians, ABC-Lincoln Heights.
I’ve had the opportunity to work side by side with Louie on a handful of initiatives (many seen on this site) including shooting and designing some of his album covers, collaborating on planning an industry night acoustic show at my studio and more. Louie reached out to me in late 2020 about writing and directing the music video for his upcoming release “Jesus”, a crossover hit produced by Jordan XL (Mike Posner, Bebe Rexha, Fergie, Shawn Mendes, etc).
I had just finished working with Louie on the music video for “Money on Trees” as a location scout and continuity consultant, but directing a video was a whole new thing. Fortunately I was joined by the amazingly talented Cisco Santiago, Director of Photography and Shanda Foster, Producer, both of The One Productions.
Dear Joe,
Congratulations!
Peachtree Village International Film Festival has updated the Judging Status of your submission Jesus Music Video to Selected.
Long before the introduction of A.I. there was good old fashioned PhotoShop. We needed to raise hype for the release of the song and the music video, so I came up with an idea. What if we did a $50,000 marketing campaign in the city of Boston without spending a penny?
WAIT. WHAT? BUT HOW?
By creating digital scenes that looked real enough to convince people that we had billboards, murals, print ads and more. We even got a handful of secret-keeping loyal friends and fans to take selfies in front of a blank backdrop and then we “placed” them into the fake scenes. We rolled out the campaign on Instagram and in addition to the posts, we created virtual story reposts of photos from the campaign.
Then, just like traditional word of mouth marketing, people started talking. “Did you see that Louie Bello has a massive mural on the side of a building in Southie?!” “Did you see the ad for Jesus on the MBTA bus?” Eventually people were caught on that these “Ads” didn’t exist after they went to the places in the photos, and just as expected, that created even more buzz as the responses changed to “Can you believe they pulled this off, I had no idea it was a total guerrilla marketing campaign”
