February 16th, 2011
I had another shoot today. It was a pretty hectic location shoot with multiple crews all trying to get they’re own bits. Ultimately, I had enough time to set-up the shot and we just waited for our moment with the talent.
After my work day, I had plans to meet up with Kent Hutchison who is the lead singer and songwriter for the band Cue The Moon. My buddy Steve is the drummer and I’ve been planning on doing a music video for one of their songs. It was a really good meeting. I walked away pretty excited about preparing for the shoot day.
I went into the meeting knowing a few things. The music video would be a single shot that would ultimately go through the slitscan effect. The video would open with a shot of the ocean. The camera would dolly back to reveal that the ocean is actually on a TV set on a podium. The TV set and podium would begin twisting (similar to the effect from this day). The camera would pan left to reveal a miniature stage with red velvet curtains. The curtains would open to reveal a couple of mobiles hanging and spinning with the aid of some DC Motors. The mobiles would be one of the ones I filmed from this day. The slitscan technique would seamlessly switch from one technique to another. This is as much as I had figured out.
Kent was really into the idea and together we worked out what the other two angles would be. The camera would pan left from the mobiles to reveal two slick-haired politicians twisting in an embrace and then finally it would pan left again and dolly along a miniature landscape that ended at a paper-mache mountain that is twisting on a lazy susan. I had always loved the idea of a mountain twisting like clay.
It’s going to be a very complex shoot but it’s also just one shot. It will be practiced and practiced and practiced. There is a remote pan and tilt head you can rent which actually records your camera moves so that you can play it back exactly as you performed it. This might be the perfect rig to rent for the shoot. I timed out the song into sections in order to see how much time we would be able to hold on certain things. I think it will be quite interesting to see how these four angles look transitioning from one another after the slitscan effect is added.