NAMI
“Nami” played by Lauren Stevenson, is a short clip attached onto an
Editorial Photo Campaign published by L’OFFICIEL Baltic. Created and directed
by photographer Steph Pedersen.
Going into this project we knew we wanted to create a fashionable video that was unique and stylistic but still in line with the main photos. With the shoot day fast approaching we set our alarm clocks for 4am aiming to let the day lead us.
For video it was Mitch Kara and myself working video/ lighting throughout the morning.
I was lucky enough to have a kit of Leica Rs on loan which really allowed me to develop a look to the project. The kit has this crazy 45-135mm Angenieux/ leica R crossover zoom lens which I used a lot. This lens along with lots of movement in the ocean, Lauren’s poses, the texture of early morning light, water and clouds gave me the idea to try and pull off some slow zooms as the master/ hero shots throughout the project. Mixed in with a lot of tripod work on 60mm & 90mm prime lenses and some handheld on a 15mm wide and 35mm prime it felt like the right style to blend the mix of extreme wide and long angles for the whole clip.
Mitch then clutched it in for us with some great underwater footage that I got to sprinkle throughout the clip. Beautiful underwater textures, glimpses of Lauren on a surfboard and that epic shot of her looking out at the sunrise at 0:27s. Giving the clip some much needed magic and ultimately bringing the edit to life.
When it came to post production we took everything we had to revise the direction we wanted to go in, as we did this the phrase “Lets make the beach feel like the desert” came up and that became the theme we ran with.
Along with trying to give “Nami"s” character some mystery, I relied on sound design and the colour grade to lean into the desert vibe as much as possible. Creating an isolated violent tone to the sound design with high winds, rolling oceans and crashing waves, using risers and atmospheric sounds to accent the long zoom shots. The redish yellow tones, early morning sunlight and desaturated blues in the colour grade I felt gave the harshness we wanted but less the sandy Arabian desert and more a rugged beaten cost, sapped at by salt and wind.
FASHION SPEC
Check out the published final work here:
& a BTS Clip of the day here:
BTS
The Timeline
This is my first attempt at writing out a full breakdown of a timeline from one of my edits. I’m in no ways a master editor but I do love the art form and process. I hope to talk about this more and more!
VISUALS
Above is a peek into how I move and chop clips and audio around to craft the edits I make. Whilst I wish this edit was a lot cleaner and more presentable, you can see the changes and layers I placed to eventually get this edit into a final picture lock. As you can see above It was a rough balancing act as we had a mix of footage spanning from sunrise onwards and collecting this all into an edit, tracking the cuts between shots, where I want your eyes to follow through the footage and the overall colour was a tedious process. I managed to get through it, find the key moments i wanted to highlight and eventually built around that. using a blend of the visuals and sound design to motivate cuts.
AUDIO
At the start of the edit I knew I wanted to craft the sound of the world using the ocean as the fundamental base, I then had in my mind to accent this with various SFXs and elements like wind chimes, water spray & low earth like tones (almost rumbles) to develop upon that base. Trying to get the sound of rolling waves from Epidemic and freesound helped massively but made it very challenging to get the audio just right as nothing was ever a perfect match. At a stage I had spent so long with mixing and placing the sound design that the practical sound effects started to take away from the footage and music. I felt like I almost needed to reduce on the sound design in an attempt to accent the visual moments I wanted to highlight. As such I massively pulled back on the rest of the clip only bringing the ocean back in towards the very end. Choosing to just let the music carry the bulk of the clip felt right. I’m fairly happy with the result but I also wonder if, with more time, effective audio capture on the day and developing my sound design skillset that I could’ve just taken this a bit further.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Overall I’m stoked that I was able to put this clip together. It was a much needed challenge and opportunity to get out and shoot something that I’m keen to add to my portfolio! I will admit that I think both my sound design and overall colour-grade ultimately lacked the finess that it deserved.
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