Draamakuu is the new hypnotic duo formed by the elusively incoherent rapper Draama-Helmi (Helmi Kajaste) and the dream-looper Kuupuu (Jonna Karanka). Pitti (The Pit) is the first single from Draamakuu’s forthcoming debut album Toinen vaihe (Another Phase) which will be released on Fonal Records 12th June 2026. The strange energy of the pit sparks curiosity and sucks people in from the sidelines. It is a hazardous punch in the face of a surprised bystander. 

Music by Jonna Karanka, lyrics by Helmi Kajaste, featuring Miikka Sipilä on guitar.

The single is accompanied by the band’s first music video, directed by Sami Sänpäkkilä. In the black-and-white video, the band emerges from behind a dancing mass. Riotous dancing fills the frame. Draamakuu sees everything.

Director, cinematography, editor: Sami Sänpäkkilä
Gaffer: Ilona Lehtonen
Props and organising: Veera Elo
Actors: Veera Elo, Ville Vernus Salonen, Aino Seuranen, Jeremy Korkiamäki, Samppa Ylinen
Assistent: Otto Karanka
Catering: Pyry Pynnönen
Music: Draamakuu (Helmi Kajaste, Jonna Karanka)
Thank you: Pethaus Ry

The post Draamakuu: Pitti appeared first on Sami Sänpäkkilä.

Directed, edited, cinematography, gaffer: Sami Sänpäkkilä, Assistants: Antti Haiko, Seppo Niskanen, Thank you: Teatteri Vanha Juko, Hanna Kaitila

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Director, cinematography, and editing: Sami Sänpäkkilä
Assistant: Tuomas Niskanen

Saunakamari Records will release Pasi Salmi’s third album ‘Kuusi kuulaa kalloon’ in the summer of 2024. The songs have been crafted slowly, intermittently, and without the pressure of release over the past three years. Various personal tragedies have slowed down the making of the album. “Kuusi kuulaa kalloon” is the opening track of the EP.

Pasi Salmi ja Kumppanit: Kuusi kuulaa kalloon – EP
Saunakamari Records SLCD-25

Ellinoora Hakulinen – vocals
Olli Joukio – drums
Juho Nordman – brass
Eeva Poijärvi – vocals
Turo Sinkkonen – bass
Saija Santavirta – vocals
Henrik Rothsten – guitar
Kai Johansson – samples

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Ohjaus ja leikkaus: Minja Koski, Sami Sänpäkkilä
Kuvaus ja valaisu: Sami Sänpäkkilä
Käsikirjoitus ja tuotanto: Minja Koski
Liikemateriaali: Ari Numminen
Koreografia: Ari Numminen, Minja Koski ja työryhmä
Tekninen työryhmä: Noora Vilamaa, Anne-Mari Musturi, Markus Karekallas, Miikka Ahlman, Minja Koski, Janne Louhelainen, Seppo Niskanen, Aleksi Kaufmann, Antti Haiko
Puvustus: Minja Koski

Esiintyjät: Miikka Ahlman, Suvi Blick, Ida Sofia Fleming, Antti Haiko, Markus Karekallas, Minja Koski, Aleksi Kaufmann, Janne Louhelainen, Elma Luukkonen, Seppo Niskanen, Sirpa Niskanen, Maria Nissi, Ari Numminen, Ilona Pukkila, Niina Rajaniemi, Oiva Saari, Otso Saari, Noora Vilamaa

Kiitos: Mikael Saari, Teatteri Vanha Juko, Opiston Kunkku

The post M: Mustarastaat tulivat appeared first on Sami Sänpäkkilä.

Haihtuu is a single from the upcoming new album Yön mustia kukkia by Paavoharju. Fonal Records will release the new album on CD, vinyl LP and digital format on September 8th 2023. The vinyl will be available as black standard edition and a limited edition black & white splash vinyl.

Video by Sami Sänpäkkilä
Animations by Sini Kosonen
Actor: Anniina Saksa
Music by Paavoharju

PRE-ORDER VINYL: https://fonal.com/shop/paavoharju-yon-mustia-kukkia-lp
PRE-ORDER CD: https://fonal.com/shop/paavoharju-yon-mustia-kukkia-cd
PRE-ORDER BANDCAMP: https://fonal.bandcamp.com/album/y-n-mustia-kukkia
SINGLE ON SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/album/4gtbIC03FOO4ydPYap452q

The post Paavoharju: Haihtuu appeared first on Sami Sänpäkkilä.

Directed by Minja Koski & Sami Sänpäkkilä
Cinematography and editing: Sami Sänpäkkilä
Script and production: Koski Minja
Lighting: Simo Saukkola, Markus Karekallas, Noora Vilamaa, Seppo Niskanen

Performers: Minja, Annika Hartikka, Meri-Tuuli Risberg, Mikael Saari, Esa-Matti Smolander, Markus Karekallas, Aleksi Kaufmann, Miikka Ahlman, Simo Saukkola, Seppo Niskanen, Elma Luukkonen, Maria Nissi, Saija Kivikangas, Sirpa Niskanen, Väinö Karhos, Nella Saario, Iida Aarikka, Mirja Leino, Lumi Indrelite, Topi Eskolainen, Akseli Matoniemi, Tiiu Tuominen, Minka Vilminko

Thank you: Teatteri Vanha Juko, Antti Haiko, Markus Karekallas, Lahden kaupunginteatteri, Antti Rautava, Pekka Enqvist, Pikkuteatteri, Joni Kallio, Lahden Seurakunta, Jani Mahkonen, Hollolan Seurakunta, Arja Auranen

https://m-official.fi

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Tamara Luonto Neiti B
Directed by Sami Sänpäkkilä & Kalevi Suopursu
Assistant director: Iiris Tuononen
VHS-whisperer: Kalevi Suopursu
Script: Sami Sänpäkkilä, Kalevi Suopursu, Bändi
Cinematography: Sami Sänpäkkilä, Iiris Tuononen
Editor: Sami Sänpäkkilä
Actors: “Veikko-Matti” Siltanen, Kalevi Suopursu, Sini Suvanto
Set and decorations: Kalevi Suopursu, Sini Suvanto
Gaffer: Sami Sänpäkkilä, Iiris Tuononen
Runner: Sini Suvanto
Thank you: Onkiniemi Ateljee, Inari Pusa
Label: Humu records, Hillotehdas & Lempi and Sylvi discs

http://www.humurecords.com/links/neitib.html

Photos by Iiris Tuononen

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The new Litku Klemetti album Kukkia muovipussissa will be released in March 2021. Litku Klemetti: Tour De France is the second single from the upcoming album. Sanna approached me with the script for the video in October 2020 and we were set out to shoot in December but had to cancel at the last minute because of an electrical problem at Sanna’s house. Then we had to cancel because Anna-Mari couldn’t get out of Helsinki due to the snow storm. We moved the date one more time because it was going to be minus 20 degrees celsius in Jyväskylä. When we finally made it to Jyväskylä in late January 2021 I was actually very happy because by then there was a lot of snow. It really helped with the lighting and looked great on camera.

The band had already scouted the area a little before we arrived and we found a nice little street that turned into a curved path and ended by the side of the lake. We began the ride at a spot that was brightly lit by street lamps so that you could see the gang of bikers properly at the start of the video. Moving along to the small path the street lights became fewer and the mood changed which worked well for the video. For the party that happens at the end we chose a spot in front of a bright street lamp that would provide some backlight. There was also a great view of the lake and a ski jump tower – a proper party spot.

The student union of the university of Jyväskylä lent us the electric cargo bicycle – thank you! I can’t imagine how we would have shot the video without it. Pekka Tuomi was driving the cargo bicycle and I was scooped inside the cargo box with the camera on my shoulder. We did a few test rides and were pretty happy with how it all worked and looked. We also soon realised that it would be extremely difficult to time the ride exactly to the song. We decided we would just do as many takes as it would require. Only limit was the amount of smoke grenades I had with me so we’d have to manage with ten takes.

Anna-Mari rigged aluminium tubes on the cargo bikes rear rack so that we could hoist a Mini Mix led light above Pekka’s head. The Mini Max was our main source of light powered by v-lock batteries – everything had to of course be battery powered. The whole lighting look was inspired by the flash photographs that Anna-Mari took with her film camera during the shooting of the Eleanoora Rosenholm: Moskova Metro music video. We fell in love with this Cassavetes style of lighting and figured it would be a perfect match for this video. Perhaps it’s nostalgia as that’s how I used to light my first videos. Make mistakes, learn, repeat mistakes. Let that be the only motivational catchphrase you’ll ever squeeze out of me.

In addition to the Mini Max led light we rigged smaller led’s on a few of the bikes to give a little backlight for the  bikers. Most of the bicycles also had front and rear lights and Sanna and Elli were wearing decorative lights around their necks. Shooting black and white makes lighting a lot easier because you don’t need to match the colour temperatures of different lights. The biker in the front was carrying  smoke grenades that were set off midway.

We did eight takes but only finished five of them. One take was interrupted by an oncoming car and twice we had to stop because the playback was disrupted. That was completely our own fault as we didn’t have a proper place to put my phone in. It kept rolling around my feet in the cargo area and one time it fell out and almost got lost in the snow midway through the ride. The choreography with the bikers and dancers was finessed after each take. Out of the five takes we had two that were good and we ended up using the last take as that had the perfect timing. Watch the video below with some bloopers from the shoot.

Litku Klemetti: Tour De France
Director, cinematographer, editor: Sami Sänpäkkilä​
Gaffer: Anna-Mari Nousiainen
Script & costumes: Sanna Klemetti
Bikers: Litku Klemetti, Esa Vierimaa, Elli Kivivuori, Sami Keinänen, Aleksi Muhonen, Ella Valkola, Katariina Nikkilä, Janne Paavilainen, Tommi Hautala, Pekka Tuomi & Kukka Harvilahti
Making of video and photos by Anna-Mari Nousiainen

The post Litku Klemetti: Tour de France appeared first on Sami Sänpäkkilä.

Direct link: Youtube / Vimeo

Directed by: Kalevi Suopursu & Sami Sänpäkkilä.
Cinematography & Color grading: Sami Sänpäkkilä
Editor: Kalevi Suopursu.

https://helmilevyt.com/diskografia/amuri

The post Amuri: Masa appeared first on Sami Sänpäkkilä.

Direct link: Youtube / Vimeo

Eleanoora Rosenholm’s Moskova metro music video has been in the making for well over a year. I made the first draft of the script already in March 2019 and we had the final script writing session with Mika Rättö in early November 2019. In total we had three shooting days. This is the longest shoot and edit I’ve done for a music video.

The first idea I had was to do a choreographed musical inside a train cart with a SWAT team dancing with Eleanoora. We evolved this idea with Mika Rättö and added complexity, story and more characters to the script. During the shoot a lot of changes were made, as is usual in my productions, but we had a good plan for the three day shoot.

The first two days of shooting were spent inside a non functional tram car built as a showcase for the upcoming Tampere tramway. This was not our first choice though. We looked into shooting in an old 50’s museum railway car in Hämeenlinna but that turned out too expensive since the script required two full days of shooting. We lucked out and got a permit to shoot in a Tampere showcase tram car. It was a perfect solution since there was more space, amenities and it was logistically much easier. Although the location was great the tram car looked a bit too clean and new. After mulling over how we could make it look a bit more the part, I got the idea to use plastic protective sheets. My apartment buildings windows were renovated a year before and I had to use them cover all my furniture and really liked how they made everything look creepy. I bought a dozen of the plastic opaque sheets that come in 4×5 meter size. They weight almost nothing so just walking by makes them wave and move beautifully. We taped the plastic sheets throughout the whole tram car and it tied into the idea and the context of the script really well.

For lighting the tram car we used the relatively new Astera tube lights. Anna-Mari Nousiainen did extensive tests prior to shooting and programmed the lights. Astera tubes are amazing! They are battery powered RGB LED tubes and can be operated and programmed via an iPhone app. Basically you can program them to have any colour and pattern. You can make them flash or light up in sync or serial mode. Anita Ahola, Anna-Mari and Tuomas Bohm who worked on the lighting team spaced three Astera tubes evenly on both sides of the tram car and they were programmed to turn on and off in tandem one after the other. This created an illusion of the tram car moving. That and the plastic sheets waving as people walked by made us very happy about how it ended up looking. Not to mention that it was a very cheap way to cover such a big area.

This was one of the first music videos I did not film myself. Instead Anna-Mari Nousiainen worked as the cinematographer. I felt that it gave me much more time to concentrate on the actors and I really want to keep making videos like this if budget permits. For the shoot Anna-Mari did a colour chart based and a mood board based on our discussions on what we wanted the look to be like. Although I had recently bought the Blackmagic Pocket 4K camera I was not fully comfortable using it yet. The tram car shoot was in late November 2019 and was filmed with my trusted Sony FS700 and the Odyssey 7Q+.

Anna Elo sourced most of the costumes and props according to mine and Anna-Mari’s colour charts and notes. The tram car scenes were choreographed by Diina Bukareva with whom I’ve worked on several occasions. Although the ideas were scripted beforehand we did a lot of improvisation on how people should move and how the invisible marionette movements should play out. Diina is a dancer herself and it was great to watch how she was able to pinpoint specifically how a marionettes hands and other limbs should move.

After the Tampere shoot I started editing the material. After I had the first draft of the edit ready we went over the script with Mika for the Helsinki subway scenes. We ended up filming in Helsinki with the Blackmagic Pocket 4K. I had already used it on a few more shoots and felt more comfortable that it would do a good job. It is also a much more lightweight and stealthy camera rig so it was a no brainer to use in the crowded Helsinki subway. In Helsinki the characters did their own styling and I think overall everything turned out amazing. We had a lot smaller crew and very little gear. We were stopped by at least eight subway guards to explain the rules of filming in the subway. It is allowed but you have to follow certain safety guidelines which are self explanatory. We filmed at the final stop of the subway and the platform was basically empty between the trains even though it was a Saturday.

I think the cameras mix perfectly and I am very happy with the image quality from both cameras. In the future I will be using the Blackmagic Pocket 4K more mainly because of the option to shoot in RAW and the very manageable file sizes that results in. With the Sony FS700 we shot in 4K Prores HQ and the two day shoot was about 674GB (2 hours of footage) in total. The one day shoot in Helsinki with the Pocket 4K in 4K BRAW Q5 was about 64GB (1 hour of footage). The difference is huge. The BRAW files are almost five times as efficient as Prores and I see no real differences in the quality. This alone is a great reason to use BRAW.

I did the title cards with After Effects. I know only the very basics and much of it was me trying out effects until I found out something I liked and using the wiggle code to animate them. We had planned that we’d grade the video together at my place with Anna-Mari but I ended up doing it alone because of the corona virus situation. We did however change some thoughts and frames over the internet to finesse the look. The black and white footage is found footage from the Moscow subway in the 20’s and 30’s and I also added some film dirt on top of everything for good measure and mood. I’ve been very excited to have had the opportunity to finally have all the resources (time, money, talents and crew) to try out everything I wanted. I also ended up editing the video much longer than I normally do just to make it as good as I possibly could.

Director, editor: Sami Sänpäkkilä
Cinematography: Anna-Mari Nousiainen
Gaffer: Anita Ahola
Script: Sami Sänpäkkilä, Mika Rättö
Costumes, Props: Anna Elo
Choreography: Diina Bukareva
Catering: Santeri Vuosara
Lighting assistant: Tuomas Bohm

Actors: Reetta Turtiainen, Noora Tommila, Mika Rättö, Diina Bukareva, Tuulia Soininen, Erno Iso-Aho, Juuso Määttä, Saima Kerko, Valpuri Kerko, Mikael Malila, Linnea Minkkinen, Sami Mäkinen, Ohmu.

Thank you: Maija Kerko, Paula Soini, Valofirma / Ville Väänänen, Pro Video / Sunna Junkkila, Tampereen Kaupunki / Antti Haukka, Satasairaala Ensihoitokeskus / Juha Lepistö, Veli-Ville Sivén, Pasi Salmi / Eleanoora Rosenholm -yhtye, Musiikin edistämissäätiö.

The post Eleanoora Rosenholm: Moskova metro appeared first on Sami Sänpäkkilä.

When I first received the track Keijukaisvalssi I had a hard time figuring out how to circumvent a literal approach. We met with Sanna and Pekka from Litku Klemetti and Sanna explained the backstory that she had for the new upcoming album titled “Ding ding dong”. The album tells the story of Hullu-Sanna (trl. Crazy Sanna) and her adventures. The character is the one singing the song Keijukaisvalssi (trl. Fairy waltz). This opened up a lot of possibilities and we started throwing ideas of how to approach the music video.

I’ve done my share of content that is based on purely visuals but during the past years I’ve really wanted to try to include as much narrative and ideals into all of my work. I love the fact that Litku Klemetti is one of those bands who put deeper thought into the lyrics and who try to portray their own ideals and thoughts. The script for the music video is very much a collaboration between me, Sanna and Pekka. Together we came up with a story of Hullu-Sanna transitioning from a non expressive hermit to an artist after meeting a merry band of like minded souls.

I love the fact that the band was willing to try an idea of a loosely narrative cinematic music video. The shoot was done in Kuhmo, Sanna’s hometown, and the video was filmed over a period of two days that included travel from Tampere to Kuhmo and back again. We shot the final Kuhmo market square scene on the first day during the evening and the lip sync parts on Sanna’s parents backyard. The prologue was done during the same night at Sanna’s relatives cabin. Next day we did all the bits where Hullu-Sanna meets the band and gets a new outfit from the Kuhmo flea market. All the locations are closely tied to the real “origin story” of Litku Klemetti which is the reason we travelled all the way to Kuhmo instead of doing it anywhere else.

Anna-Mari Nousiainen did all the lighting again as per usual on all my videos nowadays. We shot all of the video with the Sony FS700 and Odyssey 7Q+ except for the overhead body rig shots of Sanna being carried by the folk in the final scene. For that scene I built a body rig from some leftover grip stuff and attached the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K on it. It actually cuts super well with the FS700.

Ohjaus, kuvaus, leikkaus: Sami Sänpäkkilä
Valaisu: Anna-Mari Nousiainen
Käsikirjoitus: Sami Sänpäkkilä, Sanna Klemetti & Pekka Tuomi
Esiintyjät: Litku Klemetti-yhtye ja Kuhmon kesämuusikot
Kiitos: Kuhmon lähetyksen kirpputori ja Kuhmon kesämuusikot!

Litku Klemetti: Ding ding dong album out on 13.9.2019, Luova Records.
www.luovarecords.com
www.facebook.com/litkuyhtye

The post Litku Klemetti: Keijukaisvalssi appeared first on Sami Sänpäkkilä.

Direct link: Youtube

Visual Music Video Timecode Slate for lipsync

I’ve filmed over 50 music videos and playback and sync are always something that I’m looking to make easier for myself. I’ve tried many slate apps but they are all unnecessarily complicated. Using the audio player on you mobile is less then ideal since the scroll buttons are often very small and it’s pretty hard to find the correct position on the song. A Visual music playback system is necessary to achieve perfect lip sync on a music video even when doing slow motion.

I realised that for a Visual Music Video Timecode Slate what I need is just a simple video file that shows timecode, the waveform and parts of the song. It turned out really easy to make. I’ve used this visual music playback system on my two previous shoots and it’s worked great. It’s easy to scroll through the song and communicate with others which part of the song you want to film next.

I made a tutorial video explaining how you can do an iPhone music video slate yourself with Premiere Pro and the Quicktime screen recording feature. After you finish creating the playback video just put it on your mobile phone or tablet. VLC app for iPhone and iPad also let’s you play video files at double speed so you can do slow motion pretty accurately without having to create two versions of the song.

If you record a scratch track on your camera to sync with Pluraleyes or your NLE’s audio sync feature you can still use the timecode to fix possible sync errors or just to double check that the sync is correct. I’ve found that although the iPhone nor iPad doesn’t play the 25fps timecode accurately it’s still accurate enough to use to synchronise the footage in post.

The post Visual Music Video Timecode Slate System – How to achieve perfect lip sync appeared first on Sami Sänpäkkilä.

Direct link: Youtube / Vimeo

The artist M (or Ämmä amongst friends) is adventurous enough to go along with my crazy ideas. Minja Koski originally asked if I wanted to be the cinematographer for the music video for Jos tulen takaisin. But as the shooting deadline approached and we didn’t have a clear plan I started to propose ideas that eventually took over. Basically I hijacked the song. I ended up writing a script a few days before we began shooting.

 Color please!

In a way this project turned out to be quite ambitious. We had all the necessary crew members and we scouted the locations in advance with Minja and Miikka Ahlman who is the producer of M. A two day shoot which is quite unusual for me when it comes to music videos. Normally it’s just one day and a two person crew. Although the plan I had was quite loose the project itself was realised in a very organised manner schedule wise.

Hanna Kaitila had all the costumes planned out when she arrived. I had sent her an image with all the colors I had in my mind and based on that she created a variety of combinations Minja and Ida could wear. I’ve always had a problem making decisions on what colors to use. I end up using muted colours that often turn out quite bland on videos. Hanna had none of that and I really learned a lot from her on how to use colour effectively.

Lighting on the road

My trusty gaffer Anna-Mari Nousiainen was once again available to light the video. Because we were to shoot mostly inside a van while driving we needed a portable lighting set that ran on batteries. We rented a 40W Bi-Color Dedolight and a Led Velvet 2 that works with V-mount batteries. Two small Cineroid L10-BC LED’s were used inside the van. There was nothing to grip them to so we attached them with magnets to the metal body of the car. I originally bought the magnet hooks to hang a clothesline to my balcony. But just like all my clothes pegs they ended up on my lighting rig as well.

One Cineroid LED was placed to simulate light from the control panel and one as a backlight above and behind the driver. The same backlight was used as a backlight for the shots in the back of the van. The red light in the back of the van simulates the rear lights and was a battery operated Dedo light with a red gel on it. The Dedo light was also used in some shots as supplementary headlights. All in all very little light was used and I relied a lot on street lights and practicals available at the shooting locations.

Quite a few scenes were planned to happen during the golden hour and sunset but it rained for the most part of our shoot. All of those shots had to be reinvented.

Rigging the camera to the van

There’s a shot in Gus Van Sant’s film Elephant with two people in a car pictured through the windshield. When the engine starts the camera visibly shakes and you realise the camera is bolted to the hood of the car. I thought this was genius. The camera shake made the energy of the engine starting really visceral. I’ve wanted to do this ever since I saw that shot. Rigging a camera to the car is not that easy though and needs a lot of specific grip equipment. My new Blackmagic Pocket 4K camera rig weighs less then five kilos which made things a lot easier.

A car rig needs to be done properly. I would’ve tried to do it myself if need be. Luckily Anna-Mari is smart and knows the limitations of what we can and can’t do. She made sure I’d push to get Teemu Rosenqvist to do the rigging. Luckily Teemu was available and we allocated two hours for the rigging which was exactly how long it took. It’s not difficult but it’s important it’s done safely. We managed to get great shots without destroying my brand new camera.

The Blackmagic Pocket 4K has a bluetooth connection that allowed me to control the camera with an iPhone app. You can read more about that in my Blackmagic Pocket 4K review.

Editing with Davinci Resolve

This was the first project I’ve edited with Davinci Resolve. Biggest reason was that I shot the video with the Blackmagic Pocket 4K camera in Blackmagic RAW format that is not supported by Premiere Pro yet. I’ve been using Premiere as my main NLE for seven years but I’ve been curious about Final Cut Pro X and Resolve. I even attended a two day Final Cut Pro X course some time ago but to be honest I didn’t find it worked for me. Something about it felt unintuitive and I didn’t get the workflow it promotes.

Editing with Resolve felt much faster compared to Premiere Pro. Just after a few hours of editing I was comfortable with it. You can set the keyboard shortcuts to match Premiere which helps a lot. All the settings that require at least 3-5 clicks in Premiere seemed to be accessible much more easily with Resolve. Stabilization, crop, zoom, effects are all visible at all times. It would be possible to set up Premiere Pro in much the same way. In Resolve However it’s very cleverly laid out and you don’t need to adjust things nearly as much as you do in Premiere. Resolves audio workspace is also much better in every way. The colour correction workspace is the only thing that is quite a bit more complicated compared to Premiere and takes a bit longer to understand. I am seriously considering it being my main NLE despite a few downsides.

Choppy chop laggy playback

Because of the 4K BRAW format Resolves playback got quite a bit choppy especially after I started adding colour correction. My iMac from late 2012 with 3,4 GHz Intel Core i7, 32GB RAM and only 2GB GPU really struggled with the footage. If I disabled all colour correction I was able to playback full speed in half resolution. Despite that I feel the BRAW footage is so flexible I will most likely be using it over Prores. A brand new computer with more power would solve the issue of course.

Not completely Resolved…

I had quite a big scare after seven days of working on the project. While editing I didn’t have a single crash. Resolve crashed on me just as I was about to render the final version of the video. Ok, I thought, no problems. With Premiere Pro I experience crashes all the time. When I restart it usually opens a recovery file and there’s even autosaved backup files to boot. At most I’ve ever lost ten minutes of work with Premiere. But this crash completely corrupted the project. It would not open what ever I tried.

I emailed the project file to Blackmagic support and they took a look but could not recover any data from it. Total loss! Forum posts about corrupt projects in Resolve made me realise that if it happens you’re not gonna be able to rescue the project. Although there is an autosave function in Resolve you need to manually turn it on for every single project! I went to bed thinking that I would have to rebuild the whole edit.

In the morning I woke up remembering that I have a Timemachine plugged into my iMac! I’ve had it for seven years and never had to use it before this. I browsed the Timemachine and there it was. Resolve project database that was saved an hour before the crash occured. Usually I save Premiere projects on my RAID drive along with the media files. Had I done that with Resolve I wouldn’t have been able to salvage the database from the Timemachine as it’s set to backup the system drive only. Lucky me! From now on I’ll be doing regular backups in Resolve and also make sure the autosave function is turned on for each project.

Credits and links

Director, cinematographer, editor: Sami Sänpäkkilä
Gaffer: Anna-Mari Nousiainen
Grip: Teemu Rosenqvist
VFX: Pasi Viitanen
Costumes: Hanna Kaitila
Runner: Miikka Ahlman
Actors: Minja Koski, Ida Sofia Fleming
Thank you: Valto Koivula Oy, Sami Karttunen

M – Näytän missä asun LP / digital (Solina Records)
Digital / Spotify

www.m-official.fi
www.facebook.com/Mtehtaantytto
www.instagram.com/mtehtaantytto

solinarecords.com
altagency.fi

The post M: Jos tulen takaisin appeared first on Sami Sänpäkkilä.

Direct link: Youtube / Vimeo

Pelle Romantika & Kuolema-Duo’s vinyl Luontorunoja is an amazing album. It combines the doom like drones of Kuolema-Duo and spoken word poetry of Pelle Romantika. The making of the video took a similar interdisciplinary manner. We wanted to include modern dancers in the video and Diina Bukareva was asked to participate to do all the choreography’s.

The set-up was very simple. One location in an empty room with the band in the middle and the dancers around the band. We used the beautiful natural light from the large opaque windows as the main light. On the other side of the room we had a highly reflective silver fabric. This was hit with a 300W and 650w tungstens and moved at all times to create waves of flickering light on the people.

I shot with the Blackmagic Pocket 4K for the first time. I’m very excited about the new camera and an in depth review will follow shortly.

Set photos by Teemu Rosenqvist.

Director, cinematography, editing: Sami Sänpäkkilä
Choreography: Diina Bukareva
Grip & Gaffer: Teemu Rosenqvist
Assistant: Arsi Keva
Dancers: Tuulia Soininen, Emma Huhtala, Iris Niinistö, Taru Kallio, Alexandra Salin, Anniina Luojus, Suvi Pouttu, Aino-Maria Kangas, Minna Sihvonen, Sebastian Krühn.
Music: Pelle Romantika & Kuolema-Duo

Luontorunoja VINYL available from: Levykauppa Äx / Swamp Music / Fonal Records

The post Pelle Romantika & Kuolema-Duo: Monstro appeared first on Sami Sänpäkkilä.

Direct link: Youtube / Vimeo

A music video for Eleanoora Rosenholm. Their fourth album Talvipalatsin puutarhassa was released in November 2018.

Directed, edited and cinematography by Sami Sänpäkkilä
Gaffer: Anna-Mari Nousiainen
Organizer: Anna Elo
Actors: Henna Seppälä, Anna-Mari Nousiainen, Juhana Hirvonen, Julia Elo, Jarno Malinen, Noora Tommila, Pasi Salmi, Mika Rättö.

The post Eleanoora Rosenholm: Oopium China appeared first on Sami Sänpäkkilä.

Direct link: Youtube / Vimeo

Death Hawks’ new song Atitlán from their fourth full length album is my third video for the band. All the videos we’ve done have been very different in technique. Black Acid was shot on super 8 and on Beyond Thyme we used UV lights and paints.

Teemu Markkula and myself cooked up the idea on what the video should include in terms of looks and story. The choreography, lights and the visuals were mostly done at the studio. Teemu had some reference images so we kinda of had an idea of the colors we wanted. The clothes were all Jukka’s stage clothes as he’s a professional drag artist.

The whole shoot only took about 6-7 hours including lunch and that speed is due to the fact we had a good studio (Visual Works in Helsinki) and loads of people doing their thing. Lighting and VJ setup was simple. We had a 650W tungsten with a soft box and a grid high up on the ceiling. We also had an amazing portable and wirelessly triggered fog machine that was super easy and fast to use. Jonne Pitkänen did the front projections and Ilona Lehtonen did all the back projections.

All the effects except for the double exposure shots are in-camera effects. We had a few crystals that we shaked in front of the camera.

Director, camera, editor: Sami Sänpäkkilä
Music: Death Hawks
Choreography: Jukka Kuronen, Teemu Markkula
Projections: Ilona Lehtonen, Jonne Pitkänen
Gaffer: Anna-Mari Nousiainen

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Direct links: Vimeo / Youtube

This video is a homage to staying at home and reading a book, listening to music or watching a movie. It’s our third video together with Islaja. I still think the first one we did for the song Rohkaisulaulu is one of the best videos I’ve ever done. The second one was for the song Pimeyttä kohti which is a poetic tale of evolution of humans and the journey from birth to death. I’m not sure how well it comes through in the video, but that’s the idea.

Sun luona taas (trl. At yours again) was a very spontaneous video. I first had an idea that we worked on for hours but it just wasn’t working and I felt it didn’t have any personality. It was too mellow and soft. After we had lunch I decided we needed to change everything. I was happy with the video being mellow but not happy about the pussyfooting around up until that point (trl. kissan tassuttelua). We needed something simple and rough. Something that would show that staying at home reading a book is cool. Hopefully you also have someone to water you like a flower.

www.islaja.com
From the album Tarrantulla released by Svart Records (2017).

The post Islaja: Sun luona taas appeared first on Sami Sänpäkkilä.

Direct link: Youtube / Vimeo

Tehtaantyttö is the second music video I’ve done for the band M. I think this is my first music video that hasn’t been shot in one day.

Planning the first scene with the car falling from the sky I was certain we’d have to do some computer trickery. But when I explained my idea at the junk yard, they just told me: “No worries, we can easily lift the car up to 10 meters in the air and drop it”. It was very controlled and they knew exactly what angle to drop it in to get it to land upside down. Seemed like maybe they had done it a few times before…

The rest of the video was shot at Omenapuutalo in Helsinki. We had a few tungsten lights blazing straight through the windows, Anna-Mari also rigged some party lights and we had a super small smoke machine that you were able to carry in your hand. We didn’t only choreograph the dancers with Maija Nurmio but we also had to choreograph Anna-Mari’s actions, you can see her three times in the take and in between she’s using the smoke machine. The script was quite planned but the choreography was mostly done on the spot with Maija.

A huge thank you to everyone who worked on the video!

Directed by Sami Sänpäkkilä
Music by M
Choreography: Maija Nurmio
Costumes: Hanna Kaitila
Gaffer: Anna-Mari Nousiainen
Extra sparkles: Mikko Mällinen
Thank you: Valto Koivula OY, Valofirma

Dancers and party peoples: Ida Fleming, J-P Köykkä, Anna-Mari Nousiainen, Miikka Ahlman, Hanna Kaitila, Tuukka Pasanen, Aino Voutilainen, Maija Nurmio, Kati Korosuo, Elina Puukka, Ilona Pukkila, Emma Komppa, Carola Kuittinen, Simo Saukkola, Jussi-Pekka Parviainen, Saija Kivikangas, Hannes Mikkelsson, Minja Koskela, Minja Koski.

www.solinarecords.com
www.facebook.com/Mtehtaantytto

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Maria ja Marsialaiset on julkaissut ensivideonsa kesäkuussa ilmestyneeltä pitkäsoitoltaan “Pysy hereillä” (krypt-121, Ektro Records/Full Contact).

Uunituoreen musavideon “Tällä tiellä haamut liftaa” -biisiin on tehnyt Sami Sänpäkkilä. Paina playta ja hyppää kyytiin – luvassa on mystistä menoa maantiellä.

Directed, edited and filmed by Sami Sänpäkkilä
Runner: Ilona Lehtonen
Stunt driver: Anssi Kasitonni

The post Maria ja Marsialaiset: Tällä tiellä haamut liftaa appeared first on Sami Sänpäkkilä.

Direct link: Vimeo / Youtube

Music video for the artist M song Lampi. Filmed with practical lights, one take, handheld.

Thanks to Virhiä family for all the help!

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