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MUSIC VIDEOS www.postmagazine.com 20 POST JULY/AUG 2025 THE PRETTY WILD – LIVING DED The Pretty Wild, a sister metal-core duo, recently called on director Joshua Shultz (www.joshuashultz.com) to produce the music video for their new track "Living Ded." The video weaves together both Western and vampiric themes, with the sisters performing in an old church, lit through natural light via its large stained-glass windows. A group of vampire bounty hunters have tracked the sisters to the location, and are looking to take them down with their long riffles. But the duo can see it coming and are about to turn the table. Shultz recalls receiving an email from the women a few months ago, noting that they were fans of his photography and music-video work, and wanted to collaborate. "Originally, it was to do a photoshoot," he recalls. "Before the email, I wasn't familiar with their band, and then after I looked at their stuff and I was like, 'Whoa! These girls are incredible!' Not only are they super talented, in so many different aspects, but they're such great, kind people." The one-day shoot took place at a church in the town of Victoria, TX. Making things tough was a lack of electricity and water on the 100-plus degree day. A generator helped to power the lights, fog machine and a single fan. "We were all profusely sweating," he shares. "And then, I remember there was the guy assisting me (Juan Eff). I gave him the 1st AD credit, but he really was just assisting me with whatever I needed. He was a local guy. He did a really great job." The indoor shoot at the church went longer than anticipated, leaving only 45 minutes for the outdoor segments, which Shultz recalls as being "run & gun." Shultz shot the video in the raw format using a Canon C300 Mark II and Blazar anamorphic lens. The video is presented in an extremely wide aspect ratio. "I actually shot it in even wider," he says of the final edit. "I shot it, and it worked great, but I was like, I feel like the label isn't going to let me go as wide as I want. I cropped in to what's called 4K Academy. It's not your 16-by-9. It's a little bit wider and felt a little more cinematic. In-camera, I think I shot 2.39:1." His intent was always to present the piece in black & white, so he kept an eye on the highlights and shadows while monitoring the shoot, but still struggled with the monitoring the bright outdoor sequences and will use a better moni- tor on future shoots. He used Adobe Premiere to perform the edit, putting the performance footage together first and then adding the narrative elements. "I always sync the audio first," he shares. "I should have just done the nar- rative and then edited the performance underneath that, but I wanted to see what all the performance was like first, and then I built the narrative, which ultimately worked." He sent The Pretty Wild a first cut and received only a few notes back, allowing him to quickly move on to the color grade. The black & white look was designed to emulate film stocks from the 1980s, with high contrast and grain. "The girls are incredible leaders, and they put a lot of trust (in me)," he shares. "Because we didn't have a lot of time, I would do the notes immediately and send it back. I think we had two rounds of notes and then I colored it. They had no notes on the color. They loved it!" From the completion of the shoot to the final delivery was just 10 days. He ultimately delivered a 4K file. – By Marc Loftus HALIMA - COCOA BODY Director Bellamy Brewster (www.bellamybrewster.com) recently completed work on a new music video for Halima. The Cocoa Body video has the look of a hot and hazy club, with strobing lights and fit dancers surrounding the artist as she performs the track from her upcoming album, "Sweet Tooth." According to Bellamy, who is based in New York, the project marks a con- tinued collaboration with Halima, having worked with her a number of times in the past, including on last year's Ways music video. In the case of Cocoa Body, the video was shot over the course of a 12-hour day at a studio in Brooklyn's Bushwick neighborhood. Roy Garzon and Jordan Kaya handled choreography, and musician Oludaré Bernard, who plays djembe on the track, appears in the video too. Halima, who grew up in London and now resides in Brooklyn, says the project was inspired by her time in Lagos last year, where the kinetic energy from the clubs she visited stuck with her. The video was shot by Peter Garajszki using an Arri Alexa Mini camera and made use of several lighting techniques. A single light was positioned off-camera and moved around throughout the shoot to create the intense feel of a club's strobe and the hypnotic effect it can produce. The choreographed scenes with Halima and her dancers were lit using a three-point setup. The video was edited by Oli Chen using Adobe Premiere Pro and came together over the course of two weeks. Brewster then spent several days fine tuning the color grade, boosting the saturation in Blackmagic Design's DaVinci Resolve. "We had a lot of room to play," he says of the raw footage, noting his intent to simulate the look of the Nigerian club scene. Brewster went for a color grade that was nostalgic, saturated, grainy and gritty. "It was a pretty smooth process," he shares. – By Marc Loftus