EVERYDAY POESY
The New Year brings with it new challenges for everyone, its a time to start over fresh and push ourselves to do better. Although most of the world will be briefly inspired to do more this year, few will have the discipline to achieve their goals. We've followed Delly Everyday for a hand full of blog posts, he's grown to be a close friend and collaborator, with the Reelbros team. At the start of 2018 Delly announced he would attempt to release a new song every day for 365 days. When I first heard about this I had my doubts, although I did appreciate this amazing brand move to honor his name. However the more time I spent around Delly the more I realized his work ethic is unrivaled, and the countless hours he spends in the studio are supported by more countless hours at his day to day job. His story is nothing short of inspiring, and we felt the need to tell it, so the world could know. Therefore this year Reelbros Media has chosen to follow Delly throughout the journey, everything from shows, studio sessions, and even candid moments with friends and family. Our goal is to create a short format documentary, telling the story of what its really like to release a new song everyday for a year and the struggle of discovery for an artist in todays world.
3:00pm Sunday afternoon, and a text comes through that Delly will be visiting a local studio to record some tracks. The chance to capture him in the booth can't be missed, the team builds out the hand held rigs and jumps in the wagon. Headed for 24th street we rendezvous at the studio. Digilabs Studio is a small single booth located on the edge of downtown Phoenix, the booth is small and dark, but at the center stands the microphone perfectly silhouetted against the pattern of the foam sound deadening. We quickly say our hello's and immediately throw up some Quasar Science tube lights in the booth to cloak Delly in soft light. As the subtle beat pulses through the headphones, Delly began to lay down his bars, all while I stood an arms length away camera in hand. Its always remarkable to be so close when a creative practices their craft.
Over the next few hours Delly would record in excess of five tracks, each one carried a different vibe through the speakers. Bouncing back and forth between the booth and the board Delly over saw the entire process to make sure his creative vision would fill the room with sound. As the night went on tracks were mixed and mastered, segments played over and over to insure the highest possible quality before their release. The grind that was happening in this room was the norm for Delly and his friends, they had been working on this project long before the ball dropped on December 31st.
Frame grabs from the Sony Cameras (Rokinon Xeen 85mm T1.5 & 50mm T1.5)
Our cameras nearly rolled the entire time, as to not miss even the smallest moment. Often times you find yourself in an edit, falling in love with the subtle details capture when no one knows the cameras were on them. The Cinema Xeen glass brings out the full potential of our Sony A7SII's, the perfect blend of crisp focus and smooth bokeh. My favorite focal distance has been the 85mm, a near perfect frame for portrait work as you fill the frame with your subject. By now hours had past and Delly had flipped through his note book fifty or so times, always stopping to adjust a line of lyrics with his pen. With each day he looks to grow as an artist and put out a song better then the last one. This will be the first of many night we spend in the studio with Delly, as its where he is in his element, the perfect environment for "Poesy" (the art or composition of poetry.).
After this session, we spoke with Delly about a concept for a music video we had been thinking about. We threw back and forth the details before setting up a shoot for the coming week, it would feature his Day 11 song, "Give Em' Some More" and a particular piece of Phoenix infrastructure that would undeniably mark it as a Phoenix video. The song brings its own vintage vibe, as Delly's own lyrics are place over Busta Rhymes 1998 beat. The plan was in motion...
