In the dark theater, star projections moved across the onstage rock band; all was quiet on set as director, cinematographer, and editor Spencer Segraves (11) focused the camera on the first guitar, Jan 9. This shot, the final scene of Fri-yay Films’ latest project, their first music video, had an audience of 76 extras, making it the 22-member crew’s largest-scale scene.
The video follows a rock enthusiast, dubbed “Music Guy” and played by Eric Perez (11), as he wanders through places ranging from beaches to restaurant kitchens to the back of Vons, absorbed in the Red Hot Chili Peppers’s “Can’t Stop” while chaotic scenes play out in the background.
“The inspiration was a scene in The Amazing Spider-Man, where Stan Lee is listening to classical music on his headphones and in the background, Spider-Man is fighting the Lizard,” Segraves said. “So I just thought that would be amazing as a music video, where we can just have goofy stuff happening and the main character just be completely oblivious.”
Since October, Fri-yay has focused only on short films like Radman, the winner of a 48-hour film competition, and Sweater Weather, the crew’s entry for the upcoming Excalibur Spring Film Festival’s “short film” category. The music video, with no dialogue from the actors, allowed the crew to shift their focus.
“The difference is you don’t have to record audio, so it’s actually about 100 times easier,” Segraves said. “You don’t have to worry about lines, so it’s definitely a completely different world because you get to focus on your effects and your storytelling just through visuals.”
For actors like Phoebe Matcha (12), who reprises her role of Radman’s Karen in a cameo, this made acting in the music video unique.
“There’s no dialogue, so it’s definitely more [focused on] choreography and blocking,” Matcha said. “You do have to use facial expressions, you do have to move around and convey whatever it is the scene [needs], but it’s definitely been more [about] vibing to music rather than a regular movie setup.”
The crew also took a new approach to filming, experimenting with different artistic techniques.
“The whole thing is done handheld, so I follow [the main character] around holding the camera, and every time we cut to the next scene, there’s a transition of sorts,” Segraves said. “We just flick up and flick down, and he’s in a different room, so it’s a continuous shot. There’s a couple scenes I’m proud of, just nice shots [like] the beginning scene. We had this cool effect where the lights have microphones on them, so they were flashing to the sound of [the main character’s] drumming.”
Free of Radman’s 48-hour time constraint, the crew strove to make every shot in the video polished. According to writer, storyboarder, and producer Alara McPhee (11), this was done by prioritizing extra takes and preparations.
“This music video has been planned out meticulously,” McPhee said. “We have the storyboarding, we know who’s going to be doing it, we have time to schedule out days, we have time to edit, and we have time to change our plans. Radman was just ‘go, go, go, go, go,’ but now we have time to be less stressed. We have time to do safety takes and film scenes with multiple different angles. So I think we just were able to dedicate the time that we really wanted to for Radman, but couldn’t.”
According to producer Emi Nguyen (12), the company has elevated overall since Radman’s success, with higher production quality and new support.
“Originally, starting Radman, it was so hard to find actors and to find people who wanted to help, just because we had no ways to show that we had experience,” Nguyen said. “But now, we have [Radman’s] awards under our belt, and it’s a lot easier for people to see us as credible, actual filmmakers. We have a lot more people willing to help us out. We love working with so many different actors, and we love when people reach out and say, ‘Hey, I’d like to be part of this,’ so it’s really nice talking to people. And also, I feel like our quality has definitely gone up because we’ve practiced a lot. It’s a lot more professional now. Radman was very funny, but we have a lot more experience and time to put into stuff.”
Fri-yay has big plans lined up, with more scripts in the works and more accolades to be won. Radman and Sweater Weather will be submitted to the 2026 NATAS Pacific Southwest Emmys’ student short film category, and in the meantime, the crew will continue to work toward winning all five categories of the Excalibur Spring Film Festival: feature film, experimental film, music video, short film, and documentary.
But behind the scenes, according to McPhee, the award-winning Fri-yay Films is just a group united by a love of cinema.
“I’m into film, but without a group there’s not much you can do,” McPhee said. “I can watch films, and I can write stuff, but Fri-yay has given me something completely new. It’s just something that I never really even thought about. It’s like how you don’t know you’re missing something until you have it, and now that I have Fri-yay as a place where I can talk about the films that I want to do and all of my creative interests, and people can recommend [competitions and internships] to me, it’s amazing, and I just think it’s a community like no other.”
