In May 2021, I was asked by Battle Tapes' Josh Boardman to create a video for their new single, If Only. We already liked each other's work and were fascinated by video synthesizers, like the Tachyons+ Dreamweapon I just so happened to have. Nice how things work out. Even across oceans. And a lockdown.
Director & VFX: Eugene Tumusiime
Cinematographer & Additional Direction: Naz Massaro
Editing & Additional Direction: Josh Boardman
In May 2021, I was asked by Battle Tapes' Josh Boardman to create a video for their new single, If Only. We already liked each other's work and were fascinated by video synthesizers, like the Tachyons+ Dreamweapon I just so happened to have. Nice how things work out. Even across oceans. And a lockdown.
Testing the Dreamweapon
I cycled through a couple ideas about doing something practical on my end or entirely animated, but we settled on having the band shoot a performance, then having myself and Josh making edits that I'll glitch afterwards.
But first, we had to figure out how things would look.
The Dreamweapon is a modified JVC JX-C7 Video Corrector, with Tachyons+ adding knobs, switches, buttons and dials that tear up the video signal in different ways. Ultimately, it's all analogue with no presets, so you don't know what look you'll be getting until you get it, unless you write down the actual configuration.
I tested the Dreamweapon on the band's logo, a black background, simple text, stock footage, people, music videos, etc. Josh was even kind enough to send me the raw test footage for the No Good music video.
EPILEPSY WARNING. SERIOUSLY.
If Only V0.5 - The Shoot
After we agreed that the No Good test could have sufficed for a music video on its own and we could drop with nary a complaint, we opted to recreate the same shooting conditions for the new video. Have some heart, you know?
Josh brought on Naz Massaro, a live music photographer and videographer to do cinematography for the video.
In the treatment and floor planning stages, I opted for lights and a more contrast-y intro, but after seeing the No Good tests, we found that the Dreamweapon's edge and luminance detection made it easy for me to create lighting conditions in post-production.
Ultimately, my directions boiled down to shooting in an infinity cove, with some handheld shots and some tripod shots of individual band members.
Josh and I put together sequences, and I got to glitching his.
If Only V1 - The Test Glitch Run
Besides trying to find something cool, I focused on finding looks with colours that looked like the synths sounded (shout out to synesthetes, not people like me that have to think about sound/colour associations) and combinations of texture and exposure that got more dramatic over time.
No compositing, no specific tricks in Premiere beyond a glow, no worrying about dropped signals, just research.
EPILEPSY WARNING. SERIOUSLY.
If Only V2 - The Compositing Effort(s)
After a lot of look-dev, a second shoot and a refined cut from Josh, I had to ensure that the band were actually visible. Silhouettes are cool, but this makes you a professional.
Finding ways to get facial details came on two fronts:
The first was capturing a clean plate of the original footage and compositing a glitch plate on top of it with blending modes like excursion in Premiere. Having beams of colour scanning around a white background made for a nice reintroduction to Battle Tapes' modernist, occasionally utilitarian aesthetic as seen in their merch and art direction.
The second was capturing two plates from the 2nd verse to the 2nd chorus; one with lines that the Dreamweapon would map to the white background and another with lines that would map to the band's faces, arms and instruments. The blue/red split was my way of mapping colours to the synth lead, but because I wasn't performing the Dreamweapon to the music yet, it wasn't the best way of mirroring the actual instrumentation.
The look I found for the 2nd chorus is very similar to the one in the 1st version, but this time with some gaussian blurs to create fake star flares that would map to highlights and white points. The textures weren't rough enough just yet though, so it was a nice stopgap.
A key part of the second shoot was to get static shots of the band playing in place, so I could try out an OBS droste feedback loop trick on the solo. If you've seen Josh's final cut, you've seen it work well, but it's pretty obscured and I can't say what it's from yet. Soz.
AGAIN. EPILEPSY WARNING. SERIOUSLY.
If Only V3 - The Fu...What do you mean he's performing this?"
Here's the thing about VFX. If you have time, you can just keep throwing yourself at a project and forget that perfection is not a thing. We were cool with getting a single look for each section and compositing it with clean plates. We knew it wouldn't take much to make sure the band's faces were visible. We had a few points where it was cool enough to call it a day.
Well, Josh was. He doesn't have the video synth, though.
For the last round of look-dev, I opted to play the looks live to the music. Because the entire video is shot in a white infinity cove, the Dreamweapon's native edge detection could isolate backgrounds, silhouettes, faces, arms, instruments, etc.
I picked a series of looks for each section of the song to visualise the synth leads and drums, then composited them in Premiere.
With another version set, Josh cut together the three versions for the official music video. Below is my director's cut. Every section features a series of looks selected, played live, graded and composited for the song's instrumentation.
Thanks to Josh and the band for bringing me on board, and a special shout out to Naz for building a solid foundation for us to work on.
If Only is available on DSPs everywhere.
