Direct links: Youtube / Vimeo

Barry Andrewsin Disko makes interesting music because it’s very playful yet melancholic at the same time. It is very inspiring to create images to. I wanted to write a story for this music video and maybe the very first time I’ve managed to extract all the images I had in my head into the video.

The indoor scene was lit with a 650W tungsten which I mistakenly underexposed at least two stops. I’m not that familiar with the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera yet and it’s lack of a histogram or other exposure tools (par the peaking function to show clipped highlights) kinda threw me off. I’m not too happy about the lighting on that first scene for that matter. I only figured out how I should’ve lit the scene (another light from above and behind Jukka to give some separation from the wall) after the scene was shot. I wouldn’t have had the gear to do it anyways. Luckily with the Blackmagic Pocket you can push the exposure quite a bit so I managed to make it look decent.

Most of the video was shot with the Angenieux 17-68mm f2.2 zoom lens. It vignettes a bit when shooting at the wide end at the closest focus. This is due to the focus ring physically blocking the light when it pushes forward on the lens. The closest you can focus is 1.2 meters so in tight spots it is difficult to use. But I really love the look it has, especially on the long end. There’s a few shots in the video that bring out the best in the lens. The background out-of-focus parts are gorgeous, there’s a very nice organic feel to them.

The Blackmagic Pocket is such a lightweight camera that I attached it to a mic boom to get a birds eye view of the scene with the invocation of the cat. I used a five meter HDMI cable to view the image on a monitor attached to the other end of the boom. Worked really well. I can imagine shooting pretty wild perspectives with this set-up.

We worked fast, the whole shoot happened between 10.00 and 17.00. We had seven locations. I knew all the locations well so I didn’t have to do any scouting. Burning the dollhouse next to a public park made my actor and assistant a bit nervous. The only one who was all chill was Siena, the girl standing next to it! They say that kids and animals are the hardest to work with in movies so I like to do that as much as possible!

I really wanted to use color in this video. I decided that the main colors would be turquoise/blue, orange and red. This is the first time I’ve decided a scheme for a palette beforehand and actually stuck to it! I told the actors to wear clothes around this palette and looked for locations to complement. Everything you see was intentional except for the cool wall that Jukka walks by that says “Missä puut?” trl. “Where the trees?”. We were driving to our next location when we saw that and stopped by the road to capture the scene with one take.

Thanks to Wilhelmiina for the making of photos!

I’ll update my review about the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera to tell more details about how it handles in real world shoots.

The post Barry Andrewsin Disko: Yksinkertainen mies appeared first on Sami Sänpäkkilä.

First video from the new album by Barry Andrewsin Disko “Kuka siellä?”. Available on CD/LP and soon on digital.

We had a very small crew for this video. Here’s a good hint, if you’re shooting in front of suburban drug store with masked men, realistic looking guns and wads of cash you should definitely call the emergency services and let them know about it. They’ll be very pleased and actually it is common practice, something we do every time we use smoke on our shoots. Just so you don’t end up paying for the fire departments unnecessary visit or better yet you won’t end up under siege by 20 police men.

I had my fingers crossed for a rainy or a cloudy day for this shoot. The only light I used was my small camera top LED light to open up Jukka’s face a little bit. We used a c-stand to mark his heads place so Jukka would know where to put it when he came in front of the camera.

Ninni who shone in the Seremonia video in the tormented daughters role worked as a prop master on this video. She had done really realistic looking 20 euro bills and loads of cool wads of cash! And you know what, you can’t photoshop bills! If you try it will recognize them as such and tell you it’s prohibited to photoshop currency! probably sent out an email to local police as well… In the end you can’t really see the wads or the bills which is a shame. Gotta do another video with them more prominent though!

Jukka made a great appearance as himself in this video. He said he had a lot of practice trying to buy train tickets from VR. Mikko and Ville (also of the Seremonia-fame) you see as the bank robbers. I had in mind that Ville would be driving the car but it needed a bit of precision to get the car to stop in the right place, so we decided it’s not probably a good idea for him to try driving for the first time ever…

Directed, filmed and edited by Sami Sänpäkkilä
Prop master: Ninni Luhtasaari
Actors: Jukka Herva, Mikko Siltanen, Ville Pirinen, Antti Halmetoja
Thank you to Teemu Markkula and Petri Vaittinen!
Copyright Fonal Records 2012.

BUY CD: http://www.fonal.com/shop/barryandrewsindisko_kukasiella_cd
BUY LP: http://www.fonal.com/shop/barryandrewsindisko_kukasiella_lp
http://www.barryandrewsindisko.com

The post Barry Andrewsin Disko: Talitintti appeared first on Sami Sänpäkkilä.