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MUSIC VIDEOS www.postmagazine.com 15 POST SEPT/OCT 2023 OLIVIA RODRIGO — VAMPIRE Sofia Kerpan, of Modern Post (https://modern- post.com) in New York City, recently won the 2023 MTV Video Music Award (VMA) for "Best Editing" for her work on Olivia Rodrigo's Vampire music video. Directed by Petra Collins, with additional editing by David Checel, Vampire was released in June and has already garnered over 55M views on YouTube. In the video, Rodrigo is found singing in a moonlit forest. After a flicker of sparks, it's re- vealed that she is actually on-stage at an awards show, where the set breaks down around her. Now bloodied, the singer continues to perform to the surprise of the audience, with the tempo quickening until she storm out of the venue. The nomination is not Kerpan's first in the cat- egory, as she was previously recognized with an MTV VMA nomination for "Best Editing" for her work on Lizzo's Good as Hell. Kerpan has worked with director Petra Collins in the past, and reunited once again for Vampire. "She brought me along on this one," recalls the editor. "It was exciting that it was the first single on Olivia's new project, and I loved Petra's concept, which used horror elements. I thought it spoke to some of the anxieties an artist might have when following up a big debut and feeling beholden to an industry." Kerpan cut the video using Adobe Premiere and says the project was filled with challenges, including having to work with changing tempos, emotions and genres over the course of the song. "That called for different approaches to the editing throughout," she says of her work. "The video was co-edited by David Checel, and found itself between the two of us, which is funny con- sidering the song is sort of two people as well. It starts off as a slow ballad and then switches to a pop/rock song. Mirroring that, the concept relies on a fake-out effect, so the challenge was to make sure the audience didn't expect what was coming. It's supposed to feel like a standard performance video in the beginning, and then there's a violent switch — the music cuts out and we discover Olivia is performing at an awards show ceremo- ny. Things become very chaotic after that." ANEES — SUNNY DAY Mike O'Brien (www.obfilms.art) recently directed Sunny Day, the new music video from independent artist Anees. The song comes from Anees' debut album, "Summer Camp," and was shot in the direc- tor's hometown of Mariposa, CA, where the artist is looking forward to his next meeting with his love interest, a young waitress from a local restaurant. Tony Zawahri served as director of photography on the project, which was intended to capture the area's natural beauty. "From the wardrobe to the production design, Tony and I were very mindful of maintaining earthy tones, as well as symmetrical framing," O'Brien explains. "Browns, yellows, greens and hints of blue were our go-to colors. Static wides were our favor- ite frames to shoot. There was so much happening in the production design that we felt any move- ment of the camera would take the viewer away from the beauty of the scene." Anees sings and follows a butterfly throughout the lush landscape, ultimately finding his way to the diner, where his dream girl (Priscilla Lam) is working. Visual effects reduce him in size to where he continues singing on the diner's counter, caus- ing a mild disturbance. Sunny Day is presented in a 2.5:1 widescreen for- mat and was shot using Blackmagic Design's Ursa Mini Pro 12K and Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro. "We thought, what if we deploy a fairy-like miniature version of Anees (his extended aware- ness) to secretly follow around the love interest," O'Brien recalls. "This gave us a fun and creative vehicle to further develop the story into what it is today. Also, by utilizing visual effects, we were able to amplify the magic that we were looking to create." Zawahri chose to shoot constant bitrate 5:1 in 4K using Blackmagic RAW to enhance flexibility in post production. "The flexibility of Blackmagic RAW in post is nice to have if you're runnin' and gunnin' like we were," says O'Brien. "The goal is of course to nail it in-camera, but it's nice to have that option to tweak white balance, tint and more if needed." The team shot greenscreen footage in 8K to allow for VFX flexibility. O'Brien edited the project using Blackmagic Design's DaVinci Resolve Studio. "I've always appreciated the streamlined func- tionality of Blackmagic Design products, from production to post," says the director. "Blackmagic RAW plays back like butter." The final grade went to colorist Shiny Syko, whom O'Brien found on Instagram. "Shiny lives in a small village in India, and I'm over here in California," notes O'Brien. "I reached out with the hopes he might be interested in bring- ing his unique aesthetic to the video, and luckily he did! With me in California, Shiny in India and one of our visual effects artists, Tim Maaskant, in the Netherlands, it was a truly global production." Additional VFX were created by Nick Shaheen and Tim Trabity.