Paradise

Paradise is a music video for Carl Jackson, who wrote and performed the song and directed the video. He plays opposite an actress, and the story follows her as the paradise he's singing about. As director of photography, every shot and cinematic moment was mine to find.

We shot it in a single evening on a lone stretch of beach off the coast of San Diego, with a crew of three and my own Blackmagic Pocket 4K. There was no shot list. It was run-and-gun, deciding what would look good in the moment, and most of the frames I like best came from ideas on the spot.

The real deadline was the sun. If we'd lost the light, the whole shoot would have been scrapped. In about four hours, we got every shot of the video plus the B-roll, and wrapped before the light was gone.