After a couple of weeks doing only 5x5 material, it was a true joy to make something separate and with another collaborator. I had worked with her before on similar material and potential projects have been superficially talked about for months, but this time we made something happen.
The entire pre-production process of this was riddled with self-doubt. Oh God, my biggest camera weakness is effective motion and I’m doing a DANCE video? How the hell is this going to work out?
Answer: Lots and lots and LOTS of takes from all angles. Luckily, the talent was patient and willing enough to perform the choreography an exhausting number of times. I made sure to get every nook and cranny when it came to framing. Close ups, wide shots, hand held shots, tripod shots or what have you, I got them all.
This made the process a lot easier, and truthfully a whole lot more enjoyable than it would have been with less footage. I wasn’t stressed about not covering a certain moment adequately because my shooting was so comprehensive that day. I really could be a bit more picky with the takes I use,
I went on a bit of a different route with the style of the imaging of this video. I’ve noticed that most of my previous content looks so clear and digital. I wanted to see if I could mimic an older time, where film was still being primarily used for films, especially dance centric films of the 80’s. It would also compliment the audio well, which has a hum of a tape recorder throughout its entirety. There should be roughness with both sound and video.
I added a bit of a film grain overlay on top of my footage that I captured in the Cinelike D color profile on my Gh4. It provides a slight yellowish tints to its mid-tones and highlights which I think is befitting for my intended style. I also upped the tape recorded noise a bit to really capture an older era.
I think the fact that I’m primarily an editor mixed with my general anxiety as a person causes my editing to have a more frantic nature to it. Having the talent watch the cut herself and give feedback, I realized this piece needed to breathe, and I wasn’t giving it a chance for it to do so. I have gotten that critique several times before, but I can’t seem to shake that habit off.
Maybe I’m just not good at stopping to breathe.