MAKING OF #2 - MUTE & LOUD
A few weeks ago we were contacted for a two-day video production. The production project was a music video for one of the Slovenia's ex EMA winners Omar Naber. First of all we thought it will be just another Slovenia-style track , but after we checked it for the first time, we realized this is a 100% future hit, with acctually good lyrics, audio production and brilliant execution of Omar ?!?! It is very rare to work on tracks like that in Slovenia and we are honored to be able to cooperate in this project and contribute our part of knowlege. Still we were on a long road to bring the thing to life in the best quality possible and satisfy our client.
DAY 1 - OMAR'S VOICEOVER
After we managed to set all the pre-production stuff with the project manager Natalija in less than a few days, we drove North-East near Ptuj to the first shooting location. The first set was the one with the Omar's vocal recordings we did in the scariest building ever. It was an old manor which was a school for disabled children for a long time, but abandoned for a couple of years now. So for the shooting setup we did the following. We picked up a simple location, which was some kind of a hall. We put some diffusing frontlights to light omar and some backlights to pop him of the backgroun. For the mellow mistery and softness of the scene, we put the smoke mashine into the back to get a diffusing enviroment. Because the song talks about the prostitute we turned the back lights red, which should symolize prostitution and here we had our location set.
DAY 2 - THE FASHION SHOW
With the extremely low buget, we had to improvise a fashion show. What we did in the reality was completely different what you are able to see in the music video. With the first look on the stage we all thought it was a waste of time and project to work on that kind of set (ugly, not enough extras, no runway etc). But we managed to get out the best of it and make a big look-a-like fashin show. We did it in three steps.
- For the entire project we planned to use the Canon EOS 5D mkII. It is a nice camera with full frame sensor, great image power and cool price. But as far as we had 3 adittional Canon EOS 7Ds on the set, we had a really good option in this situation. Because a Canon 7D has more narrow sensor than a 5D (1.6x crop sensor, instead of a Full frame sensor) we took it and shot this part with it. In a practical way it means it turns a 50mm lens (on a 5D) into a 80mm lens (on a 7D, because of the 1.6x crop factor), so by having the Canon 24-70mm L as the closest lens, it turned 70 into 112mm and enabled us to shoot much closer with more deph of field.
- Another trick to achive the the fashion show was to risk all the assistants on pretending to be a photographers to achive the paparazzi feel. We put some flashes onto the rest of 7D bodies and let them use them as a strobe light.
- The last trick on the set was the look of a crowded fashion show. But how to do it with just a little more than 10 extras ??? With on or two wide shots presented in video, we can revieal the secret that we put just two extras facing their backs to the camera and the rest filling the space in that narrow section of camera angle. The whole other space around was empty, but the angle looks as there were 100s of people there.
DAY 2 - THE HOTEL STORY
The most of the story in the video happens in a hotel. As we arrived there just after the sunset, the setup was done quite quick. The main shooting location besides the bathroom was in the bedroom, where a tragic abuse happened. Still both places were a bit dark, so we took some of the 1KW dimmed Kaiser lights to pop some light in both rooms. We set the crane and everything was ready for the action.
At this point we would like to point out our incredible actor team we have worked with. Besides She Divas girls, who performed really good on the fashion show scene, there is a girl who did an amazing job in the main role. Tjaša Resnik has an enormous acting talent and she was proving and improving it every single take we did (really cool girl to work with also). Secondly we would like to point out 3 really amazing male performacnes of mr. Jurko Starc, Gregor Širovnik and Denis Tatar who really did their job on the highest level. Besides the good work of actors, there are some other people we need to thank. The biggest ups go to, the girl who wrote the initial script which we pimped out a bit later, the girl who organised the entire video shooting and acctually brought us to this project ms. Natalija Rodošek. We thank Omar Naber who belived in the project since its beginning and everyone who helped on the sets. Last but not least there are three of us, who tok the whole realisation and post production part of the entire project of a music video, making of and press photography : Mark Pirc, Rok Kutin and Max Košenina. We did our best in given conditions and we hope you like the final resoults.
Article by | Mark Pirc
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