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MUSIC VIDEOS www.postmagazine.com 16 POST SEPT/OCT 2023 TESS & THE DETAILS — CANARY Tess & The Details recently released their first single and music video. Canary is off the San Francisco-based, female-fronted, punk-rock band's debut album, "Runaway," which will be released on November 14th via Double Helix Records. The music video for Canary incorporates Alfred Hitchcock's idea of using a blonde to symbolize a tragic, evil femme fatale. In this case, Tess is not be- ing tortured by the male protagonist, but is instead the mastermind. Devin Zamora of Cut and Develop served as di- rector, cinematographer and editor on the project, and says Tess and the band had drafted a loose script idea that roughly outlines videos for the band's "Canary" and "Runaway" tracks. Zamora says he read the outline as a Scooby Doo-style who-done-it, where each band member goes miss- ing throughout the storyline. "They described wanting to have a funny, almost slap-stick feel to the video, but with high quali- ty, classic cinema shots and some serious color grading, similar to Peaky Blinders," notes Zamora. "Once I had drafted a shot list, one of the hardest tasks was trying to fit everything within a two-and- a-half-minute timeframe." Zamora found inspiration in Hitchcock's Ver- tigo and Psycho, as well as some of George A. Romero's lighting and atmosphere techniques. Most of the effects were practical, involving the use of camera techniques, lighting placement, objects in the foreground and a fog machine. "We shot the storyline of the video primarily us- ing a Nikon Z6 with a 35mm lens, and the band performance with a Canon SL3 with a Sigma Art Series 17-50mm lens," Zamora recalls. "There were two other retro lenses used, and one additional camera that I'd like to keep under wraps. (A) huge shout out to Jason Coleman, our main camera op- erator, for bringing most of these visions to life." When it came to editing, Zamore says he laid every- thing out according to the initial shot list and tried to line footage up with the fast-paced nature of the song, while occasionally zooming in on specific shots. "The final edits happened with Tess helping to pick which shots to swap, cut or draw out to evoke the feeling of the song best." Tess & The Details are made up of Tess Stevens (lead vocals/rhythm guitar), Gideon Berger (drums), Dustin Galecki (lead guitar) and Lawrence Hood (bass). DEMI LOVATO — SWINE Demi Lovato's Swine video garnered more than a million views since it debuted two month ago. The song is centered around abortion rights, with numerous queer and trans people appear- ing in the video, which was directed by Meriel O'Connell and shot by DP Matheus Bastos. The video has a Renaissance-era aesthetic, with Lovato standing trial before a group of elders for her reproductive beliefs. Swine was nominated for MTV Video Music Awards (VMA) in the "Best Pop" and "Video For Good" categories. The project was edited by Zoë Mounatain, who, as a member of the LGBTQ+ com- munity herself, was thrilled to share her talents on a project with such an important message. "Jagger Corcione (@burberryboxers) was the producer who hired me for the job, and has got me on some of my favorite music videos," Mountain re- calls. "There was an amazing crew of women who workshopped the edit with me, along with director Meriel O'Connell (@merieloconnell) and producer Becca Standt (@beccastandt). EPs Evan Brown (@ evanmbrown) and David Gelb (@allthedave) from Drmbear (@drmbear) production company are also always so great to work with!" Mountain cut Swine using Adobe Premiere. She had just three days to deliver a locked picture from when she received the footage. "It was nuts," she recalls of the deadline. "This was also the first and only edit I've ever done where the artist had zero notes!" The main direction she received was to make the video feel chaotic. "I had a ton of support from the production team to get the edit where it needed to be in such a short amount of time." The MTV VMAs aired on September 12th.