New Music Video Released! “When We Say (Juicebox)” – Wes

Here it is! Our latest music video for AJ Rafael’s song “When We Say (Juicebox)” A little bit of commentary if you’re interested:

THE IDEA
Since the song itself narrates a very clear story, we made a conscious decision not to illustrate the video to song verbatim. Most of the video is a flashback of the couple. The chronology goes something like this:

Present: Noelle is at a cafe remembering / AJ is at the beach remembering
Past: AJ sings to Noelle at the loading dock (we are unsure of their relationship) / They used to go to the beach
Past: Noelle leaves AJ
Present: Noelle leaves cafe / AJ leaves beach / They meet each other / Noelle chooses to let go of AJ
Present: AJ goes to the beach by himself

I’m not sure if that breakdown was totally  necessary but that’s how we saw it. We purposely left it unclear as to how much time had passed. In terms of story, we tried to distance it from the lyrics while still hitting certain points. The song is about not being with the one you want. But we wanted to finish on a positive note. In the end, the feeling is actually of hope and thankfulness rather than bitterness and frustration. Everyone can relate to the lyrics and the video is no different. We all catch ourselves thinking of a certain someone. We find ourselves overwhelmed with emotion and memory when we see them, hear them, touch them. And not every story ends the way we think it will. The question is what you will take away from the experience.

THE CAST
Thanks to AJ, we were able to use friends for the entire cast. Noelle, the female lead, is actually from Hawaii so we flew her out to California for her part. It was definitely a fun atmosphere working with AJ and all his friends. Even the talented JR Aquino has an appearance.

PRODUCTION
We shot this back in February. A week prior we did some location scouting.

Recognize this spot in the video? Here is a pic of the precise momenT it was decided we used it. wows huh?

This video was a two day shoot. Our schedule was dictated by Noelle’s stay in California. And since she was in town for only two days, we had to work quickly.
Day 1
The first day we shot everything at the Hermosa Beach. A beautiful day and a chance to get some fresh air for once! As always we were racing against the sun to knock off all the shots we needed. Thankfully we were able to time everything and finish the closing scene just as the sun was setting.
Day 2
The second day was spent shooting around Los Angeles. We went to the Chinatown area and the Pasadena City Hall. We were on our toes because both areas were wide open in the public and it’d be easy to run into complications with security. In anticipation of possible problems, we had to prep well for these spots. The day before, we went to the loading dock and scoped it out from our car, sting style, to see what the traffic was like and if there were any security guards roaming. I felt like we were secret agent spies on reconnaissance mission. Luckily, on the day of the shoot, we didn’t encounter any problems. Nice. Some workers even came out to watch us shoot!
Finally, we closed the day at a cafe to shoot Noelle. We choose a local tea shop called Cofftea. Since there was really no way to hide, we had to be upfront with the owners and ask before we shot. Thankfully they were suuuuper nice and very interested in the project!

FUN FACTS
- This was the first music video we shot using some new equipment of ours, so we were very anxious, excited, but also apprehensive.
- Noelle and AJ have been friends since middle school!
- Timothy DeLa Ghetto came by the first day of shooting. Him and JR were on the side making a video of their own (Beautiful Girls cover LINK) while we were off working. You can see us in the background of that vid at 2:53, that’s us.
- As much as we WISHED this video was sponsored by Minute Maid…no it was not. It was made from our own pockets, our very shallow pockets. =P
- The City Hall location where they meet at the end was actually a place we shot before, just a different area. “Tech Ruins Romance: Destiny” was shot there, and we took note of the archway at the time thinking to ourselves, “ok, we have to shoot something there someday.”
- We first met AJ in Oct 2009
- The stool Noelle sits on at the loading dock, is the same stool from David Choi’s “Won’t Even Start” music video that we made. Recognize it?
- We had to go bottle shopping for just the right bottle. After going to 3 different places, we ended up just using one Wes already had in his bathroom.

Here’s a look behind-the-scenes! Courtesy of AJ’s flip cam, edited by AJ.