It’s Monday, May 3, 2021.

I had just received an email with a link to the masters for the debut LP by ALEK FIN. The email did not have an album release date listed. I was receiving it early as a gauge of whether or not I was interested in working on a video for any songs on the album. Did any strike me? I knew several would before I even hit play, because I had a long history of being a fan of ALEK FIN’s music. The excitement of potentially developing original video content for ALEK FIN was only matched by the nerves of ensuring I’d do the work justice — after all, this new album was a culmination of a year’s worth of work to craft an absolutely stellar debut LP.

I first met Adam (ALEK FIN) over a decade ago when his song “Waiting Like A Wolf” was featured on Jay-Z’s now-defunct music and culture website Life+Times. I was so captivated by the world he had built sonically — and how he sounded almost like Jeff Buckley fronting Radiohead. Back then, I was running a music site called Mixtape Muse and immediately wrote my own feature on the track purely inspired by the love of what I was hearing.

Fast forward a few years to 2019 and I was tapped to develop, produce, and direct a music video for the title-track off of ALEK FIN’s “LMG” EP. Now, while I’d love to dive deep into that project here, suffice to say, it was the success of that collaboration that lead to this moment in May 2021.

Early camera test when stop-motion was considered as a technique. Picasso once said, “Inspiration exists but it must find you working.”

Throughout the remainder of 2021, ALEK and I would have many phone calls diving deep into the inspiration and intention of this new body of work. Put simply, it was very much about deconstructing the world around us, pushing people to find new avenues of awareness, “unlearning” to rediscover everyday things – from traffic patterns to a blade of grass – seeing everything with new eyes. What new perspective and meaning could you find in the minutiae of the simplest of things, things that you passed everyday but never really noticed?

Over several phone and Zoom calls — and many quiet sessions of ideation — many concepts were considered, discussed, abandoned, and/or exercised to a degree before arriving at what would be the final treatment that was greenlit and went into production at the beginning of 2022. Over a few months, I received various forms of imagery for inspiration.

An early idea played with the concept of visually paralleling seemingly disparate elements of the everyday by placing them in a frame built from the ALEK FIN logomark. How might the human eye, in its maze of color and lines find similarity with an aerial shot of traffic dancing around a circular intersection? Or how might the pedals of a flower mimic the leading lines of an eye’s iris? This concept first came about when the initial scope of the project was making some short videos for social to promote the album — focusing more on visualizers than something with any real narrative. I asked about imagery that spoke to him as well as a color palette that, in his mind, felt closest to the tone of the music — from warm to cold.

A page from the PDF outlining the initial concept for the video.

Even before the moment I knew I’d be working on shooting original content for ALEK FIN, I already knew I’d be asking my good friend Daniel St. Ours, a professional DP, if he’d be interested in working on the project. And from early conversations with him, it was decided that building a lot of the treatment around a probe lens was going to be pivotal in hitting the “deconstruction” direction of the overall project. Because without manipulating reality, this lens would allow us to capture what was in front of us from a totally unique, honest perspective that we would otherwise be unable to see with our own eyes.

On February 1, 2022, Dan and I shot all principal photography for the video in a day. Over the course of the next two months, I worked on the edit outside of my day job until we called V7 our final cut at the end of March. And while I’d love to get into more of the behind-the-scenes, what is used to create the imagery in the final cut, etc….I really don’t want to ruin the experience. Plus, I’ve waxed on enough already and today, this moment, is more about the work of ALEK FIN. So, if you haven’t seen it already, without further adieu…

Directed & Edited by Quinn Struke.

Director of Photography - Daniel St. Ours.

On Friday, October 28th, I released an experimental project at 5pm here on my website. I say "experimental" as it was a personal exercise in trying to compose a soundtrack unlike anything I had done before. It was available as the landing page to qstruke.com until today, but it is still available to check out at the link below.

VIEW: "The Echo of the Acrobat"

This is a belated post. Not too belated, but enough so that I felt I should label it "belated." Over the latter half of last year, I worked on producing a national promo video for ToolBank USA in between my other projects and responsibilities at work. I was fortunate enough to have the support of a number of individuals, so let me clarify that this was a team effort. I helmed it, but without the support of these other folks -- both at ToolBank USA and work -- this would not have been possible. 

This project took me to Baltimore, MD, Charlotte, NC, and St. Louis (specifically Eureka), MO. It was rewarding not just because ToolBank USA and its associates were thrilled with the end product, but more so because I met so many inspiring people along the way. I was fortunate enough to attend ToolBank USA's annual Summit at the beginning of this month where associates from all across the country converge in Atlanta to review the prior year and talk about the coming year.

At this year's Summit, they held a luncheon at a great local restaurant called The Iberian Pig. Among other things, they premiered the video for some 50 people gathered in the restaurant. I've made hundreds and hundreds of videos over the past few years, but I've never really had one "premiered" in any official capacity, so this was a really special experience for me. You don't do work for recognition, you do it because you love it and you're passionate about it -- otherwise, what's really the point of doing it at all? But having said that, I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel good to have this experience, especially since the last year was a really trying one for me on a number of levels. That's not to suggest a "I deserved this!" kind of attitude, but I definitely busted my ass on everything last year -- so, yes, it felt good.

But really, this video isn't about me. It's about a fantastic organization that's helping other fantastic organizations throughout the U.S. realize their missions of improving their communities in the most positive of ways. The thing that makes me happiest about this whole project is that I not only got to meet so many great people along the way, as I mentioned, but I also got to share some of these stories. By doing so, the video means even more to me. But more importantly, it's something that ToolBank USA is proud of and excited to use in furthering their mission, which in turn helps further the mission of non-profits around the country. This video was produced to be in line with their new brand identity in an effort to help launch and establish the next chapter of this fantastic organization. Check it out below.

EDIT: Definitely filmed on this trip to make another vlog, but just doesn't seem that good. Maybe one day, but it's so borrrrrring right now.