Since joining up with the amazing team over at Southern Reel in November, one of the many projects we have been wrenching on is the music video for Blackberry Smoke’s “Pretty Little Lie”. This was my first chance to work on a proper music video, and what an honor to be a part of the team tasked with the video of the first single off their new record, “The Whipporwill”!

I am very proud of how this video turned out, as well as proud of everyone involved for adding their own touches to make this video what it is! This was a team effort, and it shows.

And if you look closely… you might recognize the guy smoking the tires up in the Camaro! ;)

Before any of this video can begin to make sense, please visit Team Rowdy and get an idea of what the Hot Boy of the Year (HBCOTY) is.

With that out of the way, Alex\’s criteria for this year\’s contest was a video shot with a cell phone. I thought it had to be edited on a phone as well, which is one of the reasons I wanted in on this. Turns out, I was wrong… but it made it that much more challenging! It is such an awesome idea that I wanted in on the fun. Since the BMW is broken at the moment, I decided it would be funny to make a video about my truck.

We all know that when you peel the layers back, I\’m a good ol\’ boy who likes to chat up the CB in my truck on the way to the shooting range. So I thought this would be the chance to really embellish this and make it over-the-top. What started out as me jotting a few ideas down, turned into a script which turned into a 3.5 hour shoot with Greg of my spitting coffee (dip spit) out before every over-twang\’d line. I even had a pair of truck nuts 2-day aired to make it in time.

I color graded the footage on my phone with Magic Bullet Movie Looks, did the visual effects with Action Movie FX, and edited it all (including voiceover) using iMovie for iPhone. I even uploaded it straight to Vimeo from iMovie. This video never once saw a computer. AT ALL!

I had an absolute blast making this from every angle… and I can\’t believe we live in a time where something like this can be made using a cell phone. It is absolutely incredible! Special thanks to Greg Thore for helping me shoot this, and to Alexander Grant for coming up with the idea for this contest!

A short stylized animation I created at Artistic Image using fully-rotoscoped footage that I shot using a Canon 7D. I match-moved the scenes and used Trapcode Particular to create the chaos that trails behind the skateboarders. Rowbyte Plexus was used in the first clip as well. This project was an immense undertaking, consuming nearly two full-weeks of rotoscoping alone.

I\’ve had this vision in my head for well over a year, and it is really awesome to finally see it all come to fruition!