Colorful and eccentric rapper DRAM is back with another crazy music video, this time for his single “Gilligan” featuring Juicy J and A$AP Rocky. As an artist whose music has reached top 20 in the Billboard charts, DRAM and his label Atlantic Records wanted to create something visually spectacular but also have that WTF factor oddly mixed together like chicken and waffles.
What resulted was the beautiful American retro style of Director Nadia Lee Cohen, whose proper 60s-inspired American aesthetic combined with the quintessential “ratchetness” of modern hip hop culture to create this brilliant music video. The costumes, set design and cinematography are all stunning. The content.. Well, we’ll let you see for yourself! (NSFW warning!)
But wackiness aside, DRAM’s music video is quite a feat, thanks in a part to Mike Marasco. The Hollywood filmmaker has worked with a huge list of famous music artists including Beyonce, DJ Khaled, Nicki Minaj and brands like Beats by Dre, Pepsi, the Superbowl and much more. A master of music video cinematography, he shared his story on why he really wanted to try out a Bolt wireless system.
“For big productions like these, there are so many moving parts on set that wires are a giant headache,” he explained. “We wanted something that works well and gives us complete freedom to move around on set.”
Going Wireless
Marasco employed two cameras: RED Dragon 6K and Weapon 8K with 25-250mm Cooke lenses. Connected to the cameras via SDI were two wireless monitoring systems: Teradek Bolt 1000 and Bolt 500. The Bolts fed live camera feeds to production monitors in the video village wirelessly, sending the video from transmitter to receiver with near-zero latency.
Using wireless systems made everything more efficient on the production set. With high-profile shoots where tons of talent and crew were present, being wireless gave him and his team one less issue to worry about. It also allowed Director Cohen and the 1st AC to monitor the shot from video village instead of having to follow camera ops around, saving space on set where 40 people are moving around.
“For hip hop videos, you kind of have to create this fun and crazy vibe,” said Marasco. “We decided to go with the Bolt because it just has a good reputation in Hollywood. Needless to say it worked perfectly! When we had it on the Movi Pro and a 50 ft. jib, there was no way to put wires on those. Having the Bolt was essential for those shots.”
Check out Mike Marasco’s work on his Instagram @mikemarasco.
And Nadia Lee Cohen @nadialeelee.
More info on our Bolt systems can be found here.