The video features U2 playing to a small crowd in an intimate venue in Somerville, Massachusetts. The Somerville Theater is known for being the first place the band originally played in the US. Kreuger shot the video on eight HD CAM cameras and four HDV camcorders in a freewheeling experiment designed to harken back to the days of punk rock, resulting in a variety of interesting, ever-shifting camera angles.

Shepherd and Kreuger worked closely to choose a grade for each camera to achieve various sorts of bleach bypass looks, giving them a set of dailies similar to the type of graded dailies of a traditional, film-shot music video. By utilizing multiple cameras in such a manner, the crew was able to tweak individual shots as they went along. In order to avoid the flat, unfilmlike finish that so often accompanies HD footage, Duncan edited the whole project on Final Cut Pro in HD format and used the program’s internal color correction to apply a more interesting look and feel to the dailies before commencing shot selection.

89 Edit’s East Coast Managing Director Sharon Lew notes, “Tom (Kreuger) did a great job capturing all the footage, and Duncan got to try out some interesting new editing techniques that are helping to transform us into a more efficient, dynamic studio.”

The process of editing the video was a watershed moment for 89, which was able to output a finished, uncompressed HD edit straight to the Smoke/Flame suite from a laptop using Final Cut Pro, rather than replicating all the work “online” at a later stage, saving time and money and allowing them to spend more time on digital cleanup. The crew found that, while there were still good reasons for editing many projects “offline” in SD, individual projects – like this U2 video – are ideally suited for editing with this new technology.

“Whether dictated by cost, time constraints, or simple creative realities, editors, directors and producers have a range of options open to them that previously were unrealistic or impractical,” noted 89’s Duncan. “The fact that all this power is available on set, or even in a field in the middle of Wyoming just shows that the way we’ve been editing all these years may be about to get a lot more fun. I wouldn’t say that I’ve made a total conversion yet, but, being a bit of a control freak, I like having the power to do the finish work, too, and this could get addicting.”

The Creds:
Artist: U2
Song Title: Magnificent

DP/Director: Tom Krueger

Post/Effects: Headlight
EP: Steve Holiner

Editorial: 89 Edit
Editor: Duncan Shepherd
Managing Director: Sharon Lew

Shoot Location: Somerville, Massachusetts

About 89 Edit:
89 Editorial, a bicoastal creative editorial & design company presents an award-winning editorial roster servicing leading advertisers and content creators worldwide at their state-of-the-art studios. The company, along with sister brand Headlight Design + VFX provides comprehensive servicing from rough-cut editorial through completion for TV commercials, music videos, emerging media, feature and long-format clientele. The two companies have collaborated on many notable efforts, most recently GEICO and Walmart for The Martin Agency, Olay for Saatchi and American Express for Ogilvy, NY amongst others.

www.89edit.com

An ambitious and technical film, created and directed by Marco Puig, Framestore were required to split the VFX work for ‘Untouchable’ into pre and post shoot. Puig wanted to do as much work in camera as possible, so the Framestore team used back projection to create much of the space-scapes before the shoot. This work was then cut into three films – back projection, side projection and reflection projection to put onto the glass spheres.

After the shoot, Framestore set about creating a number of dramatic and exciting wide shots. One involves the glass pods containing the girls entering the earth’s atmosphere, as seen from the earth’s orbit. As the spheres streak through the sky narrowly avoiding an airplane, they burn up like meteors and hurtle towards the planet’s surface.

Grapevine Fires, the must see music video for alternative rockers Death Cab For Cutie, is the ingeniously animated story of a boy in search of his brother amidst a wildfire that decimates his neighborhood. This emotive story reflects the autobiographical lyrics of lead singer Ben Gibbons who was caught in the horrific 2007 California wildfires and witnessed the tragedy firsthand.

Vitalic’s U and I finds an Average Joe on his way to work at his average job in a sprawling metropolis when his briefcase full of comic books flies away, luring him to an abandoned fenced off field. When he peers through a hole in the fence, he witnesses a fantasy world with a 21st century composer churning out fresh beats amidst a grooving sea of geometrically inspired shapes, trees and flowers.

About Crossroads:
A multimedia and content creation firm, Crossroads offers a clear vision, innovative leadership, and unparalleled reach into the entertainment talent pool. With headquarters in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, London, and an affiliate office in Toronto, Crossroads has six divisions: Film, Television, Commercials, Music Videos, New Media, and Creative Services. All offer exclusive talent featuring some of the world’s top directors, show creators, writers, and producers.

Performing alongside Cole’s virtual croon, the album features a diverse cast of artists including daughter Natalie Cole, will.i.am, Bebel Gilberto, Stephen and Damien Marley, The Roots, and TV on the Radio, among others. Company X and its production arm, Detox, directed, edited and animated the video, which includes 2D stop-motion, 3D and After Effects. The end result is a multimedia scrapbook that serves as a visual embodiment of the album’s mashed-up tracks, as well as a conceptual homage to Cole’s boundless influence on modern music including hip hop, Latin, reggae, and rock.

“Barney [Miller] and Terence [Ziegler] did a fantastic job with the teaser,” says Al Risi, Owner/Founder of music strategy company ARMM and executive producer of the “Lush Life” video. “What they were able to accomplish with the little assets they were provided, and within the fast turnaround time! [Daughter] Carole Cole was so thrilled with their work. She felt they really captured the great things about her dad through their storytelling.”

Set to a remix of Cole’s “Lush Life,” produced by Cee-Lo (member of Gnarls Barkley), the video embarks on an array of contrastive animated portraits of Cole, inspired by classic album cover artwork, and evoking the heart and soul of the venerable jazz singer’s craft and guise. Behind the album’s core mission to bridge cultures and generations of music, we soar through galactic collages juxtaposing classic Cole with the likes of modern graffiti art and hip-hop culture. The video fittingly concludes with a visual outtro, further suggesting the transcendental nature of Cole’s music as a collage of black and white photos of the artist timelessly moves through space.

MPC supervisors from LA and London assisted the two night shoot in LA. To allow a timely workflow and for cleanup to start straight away, 2K scans were graded before the edit was approved. MPC’s main challenge was to remove the camera arm fixed onto the front of the car.

The 2D team had to paint out this arm on moving shots and patch pieces of clean road over the top, which was made harder by the fact that it was raining in the live action plate. The camera’s shadows and car reflections also had to be removed frame by frame as well as the stunt driver who was in the back seat steering the car.

Some of the hero’s action in the car had to re-shot using green screen. These shots needed a background tracked and composited, involving very complicated hair keying. This was achieved using Shake’s extensive keying tools.

The band was also shot green screen on a separate day in New York and the location material was shot later in Los Angeles. This material had to be composited and a light change over them had to be tracked to reflect the headlight interaction. For the final scene when the car crashes the actor had to be shot separately and composited.

Colourist Mark Gethin worked closely with Patrick Daughters to create the dark, moody atmosphere for the spot.

About MPC
MPC creates high-end digital visual effects and computer animation for the feature film, advertising, music and television industries. With studios based in Soho London, Santa Monica LA and Vancouver Canada, this award winning facility has worked on many high profile projects including The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Quantum of Solace and the classic Cadbury ‘Gorilla’s Moment’.
For more information about MPC visit: www.moving-picture.com.

Credits
Track: Wrong
Artist: Depeche Mode
Record Company: Mute Records
Director: Patrick Daughters
Comissioner: John Moule
DoP: Shawn Kim
Production Company: The Directors Bureau
Production Company Producer: Lana Kim
Editor: Akiko Iwakawa @ Final Cut

For the Gnarls Barkley track Mystery Man Walter Robot has created rudimentary 2D doodles and placed them in a 3D world. A superhero flies his way across a pen and ink metropolis battling an out of control ego monster while an animated version of the enigmatic duo known as Gnarls Barkley perform on a cartoon rooftop.

About Crossroads Founded in 1989, Crossroads is a multimedia and content creation firm that offers a clear vision, innovative leadership, and unparalleled reach into the entertainment talent pool. With headquarters in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, London, and an affiliate office in Toronto, Crossroads has six divisions: Film, Television, Commercials, Music Videos, New Media, and Creative Services.

The Creds:
Artist: Gnarls Barkley
Spot Title: “Mystery Man”
Air Date: January 2009

Prod Company: Merge @ Crossroads
Director: Walter Robot
Animation: Walter Robot
Original Artwork: Bill Barminski
EP: Joe Uliano
Producer: Walter Robot

RELATED LINKS:
www.crossroadsfilms.com