At Colectivo Creative Media, we love working on music videos and collaborating with local artists in promoting their music. Music videos are often the chance for us to get real creative, have a lot of fun, and experiment with ideas we wouldn’t normally be able to try. We recently collaborated with Denton-based pop-punk artist, penny bored, on their most recent single, Conversations. We wanted to take a second to recap the project, share some design ideas, and give a glimpse into how it all went down!

Preproduction for this music video started months in advance. We started discussions in November of 2021 with plans to shoot in mid-January. To do the production right, there are a lot of moving parts and pieces of the production to consider. Early on, we knew we wanted to focus on 3 distinct locations with a different stylistic theme at each one and forgo a traditional narrative. We decided on a 90’s vibe living room, Skatepark, and vintage arcade. That part was easy, but securing each location would be a bit more challenging.

Photographs of each location we decided to use.

Free Play Denton Arcade

The arcade location proved to be the most challenging to find. Who knew arcades aren’t as prevalent as they used to be? Luckily, Free Play Denton just opened a location right off downtown Denton square and would be a perfect location that exceeded our expectations. Free Play offered to let us use the location before opening hours. The space was large, the games are well kept, and the staff was wonderful to work with. We couldn’t have dreamed of a better experience and filming process. In the 6 hour production day at Free Play Denton, we managed to shoot 5 unique setups and make the most of the opportunity. We couldn’t have dreamed of a better location and the shots we managed to get here are our favorites of the video. The bright neon lights and dark shadows serve as a great contrast to the rest of the video’s locations. Free Play Denton has taken the time to curate a great space that served well for our video.

That being said, we didn’t only rely on their practical lighting. We took the time to figure out how to best use the space available and light the artist in a way that made sense for the scene and location. Below is a quick shot breakdown of how we lit the shots up against the pinball machines.

Here are a few more behind-the-scenes shots from our day at the arcade… not playing hooky this time.

Railroad Skatepark

Choosing the location of the skatepark was fairly easy. Our production team was already aware of the park and knew a few good shooting locations within the space. Railroad Skatepark in Lewisville fit the bill. We did do a bit of location scouting ahead of time to ensure we knew the exact shooting locations within the park, but using this location was pretty much set in stone.

One thing we did not account for was how busy the park would be on a warm February night. There were probably about 50 skaters zooming by and interested in what we were doing. Additionally, we planned for about 4-5 hrs of straight-shooting at the park. Little did we know, the park actually closes at 9, with their own security guard to lock the gates up. This severely limited what we were able to capture at this location. In full transparency, this is why the location doens’t have as much use in the final edit (that, and the arcade is so dang cool).

The choice to shoot the skatepark at night was also done deliberately. We knew we’d have a lot more control over the light and be able to supplement the existing light easier than if we’d shot during the day. While we did have to fight the park’s floodlights a bit, that’s nothing compared to fighting the sun.

We did have a few more shots planned that we had to scrap for time. Ideally, we would have done a couple of angles in the large skate pool and a master-wide of the entire park with penny bored featured in front. We’re still pleased with how it all turned out and were pleasantly surprised at the support we received while shooting around all the other skaters.

Living Room

The idea behind the living room location was to replicate what a late 90’s/early 2000’s living room looked like, along with the kitsch, tube TV, and N64. Faith (penny bored) had the perfect location in mind in the spare room where a close friend was living. Immediately after our first meeting in November, she sent us a few sample pictures of the room and we knew it would be great. The shaggy carpet with the old couches, along with the old fireplace and built-in shelves made it the ideal location for the vibe we were trying to achieve.

The goal for the vibe of the lighting was to contrast the moody-ness of the previous two locations. The arcade has a very high contrast style, the skatepark had a medium-contrast look, and so we wanted the living room to be a little more flat and nostalgic. Since we only shot in a single room for the living room, most of the lighting was essentially the same throughout the different angles, with only slight adjustments being made. Below is some BTS, the final frame, and the lighting diagram for the room.

As shown in the image above, we used an old Sony Handycam within the shots and projected the live image onto the TV in the frame. During the production, we also recorded every take through the camera as well. One modern bit of technology we take for granted is being able to transfer files almost immediately. In order to get the footage off of this vintage camera, we had to play back almost the entire DV tape and record the playback in real-time on our computer. This was kind of a tedious process, but all worth it in the end!

From start to finish, the music video took approximately 3 full months to complete. Preproduction consumed most of that time with a few meetings, coordinating shoot days, finding locations, and nailing down the “look” that we wanted to achieve. The production itself was two days, shot over the course of 1 week, along with post-production being expedited in a matter of 2 weeks. All in all, everyone has been super happy with the final product and we’re so glad penny bored chose Colectivo Creative Media to collaborate with.

If you’ve made it this far and are still wanting more, feel free to reach out to us with any questions and we’d love to work with you on your next music video, documentary, or commercial project. We love spending the time crafting beautiful imagery and presenting an engaging story. Until the next one!