Greg Stevens

I’ve now produced my second political satire video! It was about gun control, and involved a porn star, a realistic-looking fake gun, and a lot of driving.

First, if you haven’t checked it out already, please watch the video. It’s only 2 minutes long, and you might even think it’s funny. It also would really help me out if you go to Youtube and “like” the video there (the “thumbs up” button) and subscribe to the Liberal Bias Video Youtube channel. So please do! It takes a moment and doesn’t hurt at all.

 

 

You can go to the video on Youtube with this direct link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r1BM0xrJsg

Now that you’ve watched the video, I’ll give you some personal tidbits about the process of making this thing.

First of all, Josiah (the actor in this video) has been a good friend of mine for a long time, and spent several years in the military, so he seemed like a natural person to ask to play this part.  For one thing, he actually knows how to properly hold a gun.  For another thing, he has the military haircut.

He even came over on the day of the shoot with a big army duffel-bag full of clothes and things to use in the video.

And of course, since he is in the “adult film industry”, I knew there was potential to get extra video views just by tapping into that fan base.  (I added a gratuitous shirtless scene specifically for that reason. It’s true: I have no shame.)

One of the tips I’m always hearing about Youtube videos is that they have to have visual interest: it’s better when people are doing things and when backgrounds keep changing.  So although a lot of the content was based on Josiah speaking lines to the camera, I knew that I needed three things:

1) A gun
2) A truck
3) An open field that we could run around in

Luckily, all three of these things are very easy to come by in Texas.

Now, just to be clear: it’s not a real gun in the video. It is an M4 3181 AEG FPS-300 Electric Airsoft Rifle, M203 Spring Grenade Launcher. In other words, it’s a real-looking fake gun.  It’s so real-looking, that on the box that it came in, there is a big warning saying: “DO NOT POINT AT LAW ENFORCEMENT: MAY LEAD TO DEATH.”

I borrowed a truck from my friend Terry, after reassuring him that nothing bad would happen (“I won’t be seeing my truck on the 5 o’clock news involved in some kind of police chase, will I?” he asked me), and we drove down to the Design District in Dallas, which mostly consists of warehouses.

The rest of the story, you can see in the video!  We did several takes of each scene, so we spent plenty of time driving around the block over and over again, and hiding the gun whenever there was a car passing us.

I did realize that I need to get a really good mic clip for future shoots if I’m going to be doing video outside or in a moving vehicle: the sound quality on this video is the main thing that I’m not satisfied with.

But: live and learn!

This project was a lot of fun.  Check it out, leave a comment, and keep your eyes out for the next one!

 

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