I recently got the very cool opportunity to shoot a music video for the electric and super sweetheart Chris Olathia, of the band Olathia. After laying some groundwork along with a few minor setbacks, a Cleveland landmark was decided on for the shoot location, the old Variety Theater.
All associated schedules lined up and the ambitious project was officially a go. The theater building while not in regular use at the time, has high hopes for it's resurrection back into the Cleveland scene in some form or another. However for the purposes of meeting the vibe & vision of Olathia's video, the dilapidated and defunct condition of the once iconic theater could not have been any better. It was perfect.
"and....that's a wrap!"
Such a blast was had by everyone involved and certainly an experience to remember in a building that holds so much early cinema & raucous music history. If you squinted & imagined hard enough, you could almost see the plaster falling from the ceiling as Lemmy abused the sonic limits of the building's structural integrity as Motorhead thrashed on stage in '84. Epic stuff. I really could blather on and on about this extremely cool day and the technical aspects of the shoot but some details just aren't ready to go public yet.
Special thanks to Chris who's inspired vision and focus along with her charismatic ability to make everyone in the room feel relaxed allowed me to do what I do best. Also, huge props to my key grip David Tilson for keeping things in order & located over so much dark and ghastly square feet as well as doing most of the legwork with these BTS images. With a creative, talented, and energized crew and cast of around 20, we pulled off what felt like 3 days of production work in 8 hours. That's a wrap! Here are a few shots from behind the scenes.
Gabe Fedor
