In Recess June 2022

Total Control

From storyboard to upload, Houston entertainment lawyer Erin Rodgers finds inspiration in making music videos

Interview by Eric Quitugua
Photos Courtesy of Erin Rodgers

Left: Erin Rodgers, who doubles as a Houston-based entertainment lawyer and a musician, creates music videos for her songs, giving her all of the input from storyboarding to editing. Photos courtesy of Erin Rodgers

Erin Rodgers has always been a musician but a slowdown during the pandemic provided a fertile ground for a new medium: music videos. Packed with an idea, editing software, and a phone—she doesn’t pretend to know how to use professional video equipment—Rodgers has found new dimensions to create within her sound. “I have to say I like all the videos I’ve made so far. At work, I put my clients first, but in my art, I am my first priority. I make work that I want to listen to and watch, and that’s worked for me so far,” she told the Texas Bar Journal.

WHEN DID YOU START MAKING MUSIC VIDEOS?
Recently, actually. I’ve been a musician my entire life, but early in the pandemic I had both the time and the motivation to learn to make videos. Years ago, I’d collected footage from my travels on my Harinezumi camera with the intention of making a music video with it. There were a couple months in 2020 when work was very slow, so I decided to try to get some of these creative ideas I’d been sitting on out of my head. I’d also just recorded a demo version of a new song (under my artist name, National Pleasure), which seemed like a good fit for the footage. Then, somehow, it was 3 a.m., I hadn’t eaten, and I’d been staring at the computer for probably eight hours—but I was completely immersed and satisfied. I hadn’t felt that way about a project in a long time, and I was hooked.

WHO ARE SOME OF THE DIRECTORS WHOSE WORK YOU ADMIRE?
That’s an interesting question, because I have to say that I don’t actually watch a lot of movies or music videos. Locally here in Houston, I’m inspired by the work of T Lavois Thiebaud (who has made videos for me in the past). I’ve also always liked Michel Gondry’s music video work—even though a lot of those are 20 or 30 years old now. They’re still so innovative and interesting.

WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE MUSIC VIDEOS? IS THERE ONE THAT MADE YOU THINK YOU COULD DO THAT TOO?
What inspired me to try was that my friends were making videos—some on a professional level like T, and some on a more amateur level like my other artistic collaborators who suddenly needed a new way to put their work out when the old ways weren’t possible. Someone sent me a quote recently that said, “The most important thing artists provide for one another isn’t inspiration, it’s permission.” That really sums it up. It wasn’t from watching a famous director so much as it was seeing what my own colleagues and collaborators were doing.

TELL ME ABOUT SOME OF THE VIDEOS YOU’VE MADE. WHAT ARE THEY LIKE?
I’ve made a few videos for my own music and for bands that I’m in, but the most objectively successful project I’ve had to date was for a concept I’d come up with many years ago that involves scoring footage. At the time I originally thought of the concept, I didn’t have the software to see it through. It was called “Traffic Jams.” I stood on a bridge over Highway 59 in Houston and had my friend film the traffic on his iPhone camera. Then, I assigned a note on the keyboard to each lane, and every time a car passed in that lane, played the note—much like a music box. The end result was very pretty and meditative, and apparently resonated with people—it got over 5,000 views on Facebook in just a few days. I used that to get a grant from the Society for the Performing Arts to make additional videos in that series. Those videos used footage submitted by Houston residents, to which I provided a soundtrack in the same way. Every note corresponds to something that is happening in the video—I play a chord on the accordion every time a car passes, for example. And on a completely different note, I recently made a stop motion video for my friend’s band, who is on my record label. That was extremely fun, and I already have plans for another one for my own band.

WHAT KINDS OF MUSIC DO YOU LIKE TO MAKE VIDEOS FOR?
About half of my videos are for songs I’ve already written and recorded, and the other half are songs that I wrote to accompany footage I took. I’ve also done some video production work for the Catastrophic Theatre when they were doing virtual productions.

WHERE ARE YOUR VIDEOS TYPICALLY SHOWN?
I post most of my videos to Facebook first, because its algorithm isn’t as kind to YouTube links, and that’s where I have the biggest network. As I mentioned, I also made a couple videos for Catastrophic Theatre, which were part of online productions that streamed for a limited time. Those were very fun, and I hope there’s more of that work in my future.

HOW LONG IS THE PROCESS?
That depends on how many cuts I’m making—I think the fastest video I’ve made took about two to three hours to edit, and the longest was probably the first one where I was learning, which took me probably 16 hours to edit. That’s not counting “Traffic Jams,” which took essentially no video editing, but it did take me about two hours to record and edit the music.

WHEN YOU’RE STORYBOARDING, HOW MUCH INPUT DOES THE ARTIST HAVE? WHERE DO YOU DRAW YOUR OWN IDEAS FROM?
My videos are typically for my own music, so the artist has all of the input. As far as ideas go, I’ve learned not to try to have them—I just have to let them happen, and trust that they will. There’s always a voice in my head that says, “What if this is my last good idea?” But it hasn’t happened yet. I hope.

WHAT’S THE BEST ROUTE TO TAKE IF ONE WANTS TO GET INTO MAKING MUSIC VIDEOS?
Just get started! There are certainly more talented and trained filmmakers and video professionals out there, with years of experience and better equipment. But you don’t have to compete with them—if you have a good idea and some video software, you can make something interesting. ^TBJ