Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1013519
www.postmagazine.com 24 POST AUGUST 2018 says the director/DP. "There is some truth to that, but there are certain things that you are never going to recreate." Directional lighting, he says, is one such example. That effect, he prefers to capture on-set. Both videos were edited at Zwick Post (www. zwickpost.com) in Los Angeles. "We had two different editors cutting the two dif- ferent videos," Grasso explains. "What I typically do is, [we'll] put together initial cuts and it comes back to me and I give it a few passes with a little tweak- ing, but I worked very closely with them on this." The videos were cut inside Adobe Premiere Pro and Grasso himself used Premiere to add his stamp to them. "I give a lot of notes initially," he explains, "but it happens with every edit: we build a rough cut and I give notes, but I can only go so far. I have personal things that I like to do that are a little harder to ex- plain...so I took the cut, physically, and did a pass." Apache Color (http://www.apache.tv) in Santa Monica handled color timing, helping to achieve the highly polished final look that plays up the twins' beauty and style. "Color timing is massive," says Grasso about achieving the final look. "I color pretty much all of what I do at Apache Color…They are the best. We did a full color pass and they really made it pop." Grasso says music video budgets can vary, and with each budget increase, there are height- ened expectations. "That's always the case — even if budget gets bigger, there is a bigger 'ask' that comes along with it. That was the case here. In terms of music video budgets, they were pretty reasonable. But because we were shooting a high-gloss, pop video with all of these different elements, things add up fast. While the budgets were decent, it definitely felt like a low-budget, scrappy shoot." SELENA GOMEZ — BACK TO YOU Good Company (www.goodco.tv) in Los Angeles recently produced and posted a new video for Selena Gomez that draws inspiration from the works of French director Jean-Luc Godard. Back To You appears more as a short film than a music video. Directed by Scott Cudmore, who is represented in the United States by Good Company, the video has a retro, bubble-gum aesthetic that Gomez was instantly attracted to. "The idea was to make it more of a short film," Cudmore explains, "which has been my approach to music videos lately — going against the traditional formula of what a music video is. I am attracted to breaking the mold of music videos, cutting the song in and out, having dialogue. It doesn't have to be a landscape of imagery. It can be entirely new." The concept loosely follows a French, new-wave film in which a young woman runs off with her ex, somewhere in the south of France. Cudmore says the team modeled the narrative loosely off of that concept, copying certain scenes that helped serve as a visual framework. Good Company's executive producer and co-founder Brian Welsh says that while music videos can be a challenge, due to strict budgets, the team agreed that this project needed to be shot on film — 16mm — in order to achieve the desired aesthetic. "Celluloid was the concept, and was critical for the aesthetic we were after," Welsh explains. "It's been a long time since we did a project solely on film." The shoot was initially scheduled for two days, but ultimately had to be limited to just one. All of the colored lighting effects were captured in-cam- era, much like they would have been by Godard. According to Welsh, they avoided the urge to use many of the modern tools at their disposal to create the video's look. "[We] took great care to keep it simple," he states. "To use what they had available in the 1960s and not get overly complicated. Staying true to the references Scott set up in the beginning was critical for the outcome." Alex Hammer cut the project. While he is based out of Good Company's New York office, he worked on Back To You from their Los Angeles location. "I enjoyed working on the more narrative side of it," recalls Hammer. "I had to approach it with a steady hand and be very clever with move- ments and choices." Hammer cut the video using Adobe Premiere. "The act of cutting was very simple," he explains. "There were no tricks to tell the story, which is a testament to the planning ahead of time." The 16mm film was scanned to 4K at FotoKem, and Hammer was then given proxy files for the edit. In addition to the final cut, he edited an alternative version that was much more complicated but not as successful in conveying the story. "Side by side," he says, "this was the one that was right." Dave Hussey at Company 3 handled the color correction. The video has just a single visual effect — the car burning at the end. While the car is real, the fire was added as a CG visual effect. The group joked that setting a vintage Alfa Romeo ablaze at the dry ranch outside of LA they used for the shoot just wouldn't have been practical. All total, the production and post of Back To You spanned eight or nine days from shoot to final delivery. ROZZI — UPHILL BATTLE LA director Ryan Parma wore many hats in the production and post of a new music video for Dance On, a digital-first programmer for dance entertainment. Parma collaborated with choreogra- pher/creative director Blake McGrath to produce a three-minute video for the track Uphill Battle by art- ist Rozzi. The video is driven by the dance of Taylor Sieve and was shot over the course of one day at Brick House Studios in Los Angeles. "The choreographer Blake had approached me to direct the video," recalls Parma. "Blake said, 'I'd love you, Ryan, to direct this.' And funny enough, when I got the song, I was like, 'Rozzi?!' I know Rozzi. She's a friend of mine! I called her to let her know I was directing a dance-concept video for her song and she was so excited." Parma has worked with Dance On in the past, Sleep It Off was editied in Adobe's Premiere Pro. Back to You was shot on 16mm film.