This video is one that sprang more or less fully formed into my mind, all at
once. It's inspired by the black and white
oh so stylish and chic perfume adverts that, at least in the UK, appear a
month or two before Christmas like the harbinger of
doom. I wanted to shoot something in that languid, oh so sexual style,
dripping with sexual imagery and making the subject look
oh so unbearably desirable but somehow also unapproachable, languid and
sad.
As often happens when ideas spring so completely formed into my head,
Ariel looked at me as though I was mad when I explained it.
Quite, quite mad. Not only did she force me to shoot it, she point-blank
refused to do her usual employee-ly duty and edit the thing
afterwards. When she goes on strike like this I always worry that it is because
the footage is unusable, which isn't sensible of me
because it's very rarely that. (Ariel's idea of what is technically acceptable in
a clip and mine diverge a bit- I'm quite a fan of
leaving in ragged camera moves, fluffed focus pulls, and lush focus drifts for
the right sort of film, which she hates. And she
cannot see colour correction. Like, not at all.)
So as if often the case, I edited this one myself, but as is also often the
case, I didn't do so for years after filming the
thing because our schedule is so packed with urgent stuff to do like grading
the next one-hour mega epic custom video which
someone is actively waiting to pay us for. (Or, worse, has already paid us for).
Then I worry because our technique improves over the years... would the
footage just look amateur? Fortunately, this was shot on
the RED on our first long location trip with it, so technical quality was A-OK,
complete with all those lovely "grunge film" touches
that Ariel can't bear to leave in. My trepidation was totally unnecessary- the
footage, like Scarlot, was stunning. Well, I think so anyway.
See what you think!