LanguagesWho hasn’t fancied the idea of becoming a music video director? George Cole discovers that for two young filmmakers, that became a reality thanks to a competition sponsored by Canon, Filmaka – an online global film network – and record label Surrender All.
The brief was simple: to make a music video to accompany the music of UNKLE’s latest single, ‘Restless’. The winning pitch would get the loan of a Canon XL H1 high definition camcorder, two lenses and a budget of £5,000. The second prizewinner was also loaned a Canon high definition camcorder, the XH A1 and given a £1,000 film budget. Many people pitched their ideas, but in the end, the judges opted for those produced by James Ward (winner) and Anastasia Kirillova (runner-up). But winning the chance to create your own music video was just the start – now, the challenge was to turn your idea into a professional-looking video in just a matter of weeks.
James’s story
Tumble weed blows across a barren landscape. A giant tap emerges from the ground and man drinks thirstily from it. He transforms into a strange half man, half machine with pram wheels replacing his legs. As he moves over the scarred landscape, storm clouds burst and the half man/half machine becomes an infinite number of clones. So begins the prizewinning video created by 27-year-old James Ward (aka Scubaboy), a freelance filmmaker from the UK. He’s also a designer, an animator and post-production specialist.
© Sam Napper
James Ward in post-production.
“I only saw the competition by chance,” says James, “I heard about it on a blog, but there was only one day left before the deadline and I was due to go head down to my in-laws in Devon the next day.” So James worked on through the night to produce his pitch, which included a rough storyboard. Then he went on holiday. “I had no expectation of winning,” he recalls, “so it was a shock when I got the news.” After a meeting with representatives from Filmaka and Surrender All, James got to work, with a three-week deadline for producing the finished product.
James’s video consists of hand-drawn objects and characters that were then scanned and digitally manipulated to create the desired effect.
Movement was provided by a mixture of computer key-framed objects and hand rendered objects. Added to this was video footage. But where did the video’s concept come from? “I read the lyrics of ‘Restless’, and the music has a repeating beat that made me think of conformity and uniformity,” says James. This gave him the idea of how society was changing the masses into an army of robotic clones and removing individuality.
James worked with cameraman Alex Try, who shot the footage, while James laboriously created the hand-drawn characters and landscape. “I wanted some live action elements such as the cranes, tower blocks and trees. I gave Alex a list of things I wanted and he went off to shoot them.” The XL H1 proved to be an excellent camcorder, adds James. “I was very impressed because there’s no other camera at that level that shoots HDV and has interchangeable lenses. And getting the kit with two lenses opened my mind to a number of possibilities. It meant I could do much more with the visuals.”
© Simon Mosse
James worked with cameraman Alex Try (above)
Both James and Alex also liked the fact that all the XL H1’s control buttons are on the camera body: “There was no need to go through a menu screen – if you wanted to change the frame rate – it was there. If you wanted to change the white balance, it was just there, and that made life much easier.” Another welcome feature was the XL H1’s SDI output, which meant that the digital video could be outputted with no loss in quality.
Alex spent two days shooting footage. “The stuff that Alex came back with was really nice,” says James. Although the finished video was produced in standard definition, James says working in HD offered many benefits. “The quality of the HD footage shot on the XL H1 was the best I’d seen. The resolution is much bigger which means you can pan and scan, and create 3D depth by scaling the footage, because you’ve got more to play with. I wouldn’t have been able to get the shots I got if I had been shooting in standard definition, because none of the footage could have been scaled up without it all distorting. I could use video in ways that I hadn’t been able to before.”
Video editing and animation software were used to manipulate the images and add the after effects, a time consuming process that took many hours.
Then the whole video was edited. “This was difficult because, when you’re creating animations, it’s difficult to preview them in real-time, so you’re constantly dropping it into the edit to see what works. Sometimes things need to be longer or shorter and so you re-create screens and render out the conversions. I would edit a bit, create more stuff and then re-evaluate it. Sometimes you’d take four hours to edit something, then another three hours to render it - and then find that it didn’t work.”
For James, the competition has not only enhanced his creative skills, but it has increased his confidence. “It’s been hard work but fantastic fun and it’s given me a lot of encouragement. Hopefully, it will lead onto to other things.”
Anastasia’s story
Hard-hitting and edgy, the second-placed video from Anastasia Kirillova pulls no punches when it comes to showing the grim life of prostitutes. Anastasia has worked as a creative assistant to commercial directors and also made her own short films, including one for the BBC’s talent scheme. It was this latter film that inspired Anastasia’s concept for the UNKLE video. “It was trying to mix a music video with a documentary and that was interesting,” she says.
On hearing about the competition, Anastasia submitted a visual and written treatment, which included a video link to a YouTube interview clip of an American prostitute. “I’d done some research and discovered the interview, which was both powerful and disturbing,” she says.
© Dan Kendall
Anastasia filing with the Canon XH A1 camcorder on the streets of London.
The video’s concept involved mixing three elements: a music video, a documentary and a fictional aspect, which would involve an actress playing the lead role of a sex worker.
Working with her producer Trevor Kelly, Anastasia spent two days on the streets of east London doing research. “We were looking for locations and approaching some prostitutes and getting to know them,” explains Anastasia, “and we very quickly realised that people weren’t going to let us film them. But after a while, we got to know the girls and they turned out to be the most giving people and were quite excited at the end,” she says.
The two-day shoot involved Anastasia, Trevor, a few runners, make-up artists and security personnel. The local authority gave them permission to shoot on the streets and filming began as soon as it got dark. Anastasia and her director of photography decided to opt for the Canon XH A1 high definition camcorder. “The camera is really good in low-light, which was an advantage. And it was also compact, so it was easy to carry about and less intimidating than a larger camera,” says Anastasia. “The picture and sound quality are good and it has things like professional XLR connections.” Anastasia adds: “I didn’t want to have a slick image; I wanted you to get a feeling that you’re really there with the camera.”
© Dan Kendall
The post-production process involved around one week for the offline editing. “There were lots of files to organise and it was a difficult edit because of the three elements - it took us a while to figure out the right balance between the three.” Following this work, time was spent on getting the right colour balance, adding special effects (like blurring faces) and adding some grain. Anastasia says: “The competition has had huge impact on me. I’d done short films before, but this was by far the most ambitious thing I’d done – there were more people involved and there were complicated shots. But the difficulties were good, because I learnt from them and it toughened me up.” And her verdict on the finished result? “It looks very real and that was I was focusing on. People tell me that it gives them a real view of life on the street and that’s what I wanted to achieve.”
To find out more about the Canon video products mentioned in this article or to try out or purchase Canon video products, contact your nearest Canon video dealer. For contact details just click here.
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