Post Magazine

March 2018

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www.postmagazine.com 29 POST MARCH 2018 tasks. People specialize and our job is to connect the dots between the ideas and the talent. The second most challenging thing is making people buy off on ideas that you can't properly represent in an offline edit. There are big holes in the story that either have nothing or a really weak looking placeholder at that stage. People get scared and want to change their mind at that stage. You need to talk them through it and insist that they trust you. It's an uncomfortable process but you need to stick to your guns." Timber employed around 20 artists to com- plete the video, relying predominantly on Houdini and Nuke. "Those two tools are pretty indispens- able," Hall stresses. Flame was also used to round out the toolbox. In speaking with creatives within the post com- munity, many share that they enjoy working on music videos in that they offer a greater degree of creativity than some other projects. Hall agrees, that music videos offer an opportunity for his studio to experiment. "You don't have a product you're selling or an agency like you would with a commercial," he says. "Your job is just to make it cool. Everyone should work on a music video at some point in their life. It's exhilarating and you're reminded of why you started doing this type of work in the first place." Timber's lead Flame artist on the video was Chris Decristo. It was cut by editor Nick Gilberg and posted at Company 3 with lead colorist Dave Hussey. — By Linda Romanello TERROR UNIVERSAL: THROUGH THE MIRRORS The masked heavy metal group Terror Universal recently debuted their new music video Through the Mirrors on the horror Website Dread Central (www.dreadcentral.com). The project was di- rected, shot and edited by Wacy Jahn, who also serves as the band's vocalist, Plague. Jahn previ- ously directed their Dig You A Hole video, and is currently working on the upcoming Spines video. As both vocalist and director, Jahn had the freedom to visually express his interpretation of what the song means. In this case, Through the Mirrors represents the inner self that tortures the outer self. The track is off the band's "Make Them Bleed" release and its music video was shot in just two days at a rehearsal space in Dallas, where much of the band is based. Jahn says the band's access to the space was limited, so extensive scripting and preproduction helped them make the best use of their time. The video was shot by Jahn using a combination of his Canon 5D Mark III and Panasonic GH4 cameras. "We had a script that we followed on note cards, and spent a little time building the set," he recalls. "It's amazing what casting light can do. You can turn a space into a completely different area by just moving the lights to the left or right a few feet." The video cuts between a young man, who is fighting his own inner demons, and the band performing in their decaying masks. Much of the video was shot hand-held, with Jahn introducing intentional camera shake to underscore the stress the subject is feeling and the heaviness of the track. For shots where smooth camera moves were called for, Jahn employed DJI's Ronin-M hand-held gimbal. And for the band's performance shots, where Jahn appears on on-screen and couldn't operate the camera, he simply set up a tripod. After the shoot concluded, Jahn spent approxi- mately one week editing the music video using his Macs and a combination of Adobe Premiere and DaVinci Resolve. He also used After Effects for some of the stylized motion. "I do my best to capture everything in-camera," he states. "I love practical [effects]. That's how all of my heroes did it back in the day, so I try to do it as much as possible." The video was delivered in 1080 HD for its online debut. After the initial release on Dread Central, it was also posted to the band's Website and YouTube, as well as to the site of their label, Minus Head Records. "Technology is definitely the friend of a filmmak- er," says Jahn, looking back at how he was able to produce and post the project on such a short timeframe and with a limited budget. "[Gear has become] more accessible without having to break your wallet." — By Marc Loftus INDIE ARTIST KYLE MEADOWS TAKES VIDEO INTO HIS OWN HANDS Pennsylvania-based indie artist, Kyle Meadows recently released Goin' Down, a new video that represents the first single off his upcoming May album titled "Crossing Corners." As with most emerging, unsigned artists, it's a challenge getting your music distributed. With limited funds and no record label back- ing, Meadows took the matter into his own hands and got creative for the new song. Describing the video "as an eerie nostalgic home movie from the '90s," Meadows says his inspiration was "David Lynch's short film series Rabbits. I've always been fascinated by them and how creepy they can look. I had the idea in my head for a while, so I decided to make it into a music video." The piece is centered around a figure, wearing a spooky rabbit mask, who is later joined by another figure with an equally creepy mask. To create the piece and get the look he wanted, Meadows shot on a Sony Handycam that he picked up at a local thrift store. "The aesthetic of old home movies from the '80s and '90s is so appealing and beautiful to me, so I wanted to capture that feeling in the video." He says that he used the Hi8 camcorder and recorded to a VCR, then sent the VCR footage to a converter box into his computer. He then purposely recorded over damaged VHS tapes so the clips would glitch. All the tracking lines and distortion were recorded off of those tapes and placed in certain spots in the video. "Also, if you push the rewind button hard while trans- ferring the footage to your computer, it will glitch and give you a really wonderful result. Getting the timing right is tedious though." The footage was then imported into Adobe Premiere for editing, where he pieced the clips together as he saw fit, following what he describes as his "mental story- board." To complete the piece, he relied on just the basic effects in Premiere. "Fast color correction for higher saturation and an RGB trick, which I learned from watching YouTube tutorials."

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