"Strangest Christmas Yet" w/ Steve Martin Music Video Released - James Suttles | Producer, Director & Director of Photography

In early September 2017 I was contacted by producer/director, Steve Delahoyde out of Chicago about DPing the music video “Strangest Christmas Yet”. The concept was based around Steve Martin’s holiday song included on his just released album. As with most projects these days, there were a few caveats; the main one being that we had less than 4 days to crew up, scout and prep the shoot. Add that to the fact that a hurricane was barreling up the coast directly toward use threatening torrential rain and wind and it was clear that we had a challenge in front of us.

Capturing the Performance

The music video “Strangest Christmas Yet” was shot over the course of 2 days where we had a full crew along with a Red Weapon shooting 8K and a Red Dragon shooting 6K in play for the majority of the performance sequences with Steve and the Steep Canyon Rangers. Luckily we had a day of rigging and prep as the art department worked to set dec the house so we took the opportunity to pre-light all of the sets and to build rain cover for the impending storm so that we were able to work some-what comfortably in the garage for the final performance portion of the music video. The first day of production was focused primarily on the performance with the second day of production focused on all “characters” that occupy the story throughout the song.

Christmas in September

In the end, through some creative ingenuity and a little luck, we were able to shoot everything we need both interior and exterior for the project with the ending shot of the shoot being the flaming tire rolling down the street. I’m proud of what we accomplished and excited to see what everyone thinks of “Strangest Christmas Yet”.