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

The campaign celebrates that every day, people everywhere are on the go – whether satisfying basic needs or fulfilling lifelong dreams. When people are ready to go, Visa wants to them to go with a better way to pay – a way for them to go in control – confidently, securely and conveniently with Visa.

In the United States, two national television spots – “Let’s go” and “Aquarium” – premiered on March 4 during “American Idol” on FOX. “Let’s go,” which will introduce the campaign, portrays an optimistic view of life that focuses on the possibilities of a new day – from stepping outside your comfort zone to challenging yourself to do things differently – and positions Visa as the brand to help consumers achieve their dreams and ambitions.

Visa’s international markets will launch with a television commercial named “Gofesto.” The spot, which will be customized by each Visa region, takes viewers on a journey across the globe showing different people from different places enjoying what the world has to offer – from experiencing the great outdoors to taking simple trips to the supermarket. The spot reminds cardholders that life is not about collecting possessions, but more importantly, about collecting experiences.

Agency Grey Worldwide (NY) and Director Randy Krallman for Smuggler have done this triumphantly in two new spots that they unveiled during the 2009 Super Bowl. 401K and Wings both feature our youthful hero (voiced, as previously, in a superbly laid-back performance by the director) but in each case there is a second character – a golfing rival and a keen amateur vocalist.

To add more would be to spoil the fun, but suffice to say that the droll tone is once more note perfect. Senior Flame Artists Alex Thomas and Raul Ortego led Framestore’s efforts, supported by Tom Leckie and Mindy Dubin.

“As with Trading and Banking, we had a large task to complete in a very short time. The new elements of a longer monologue and interaction with a second character added to the challenge but, as always, our amazing team of Flame Artists delivered brilliant work.”
Laney Gradus Head of Production, Framestore

The spots showcase the agility, beauty, and functionality of the new model, as it navigates the winding streets of old Italy with ease, squeezing between two semis unscathed, and passing through the trunk of a redwood without a splinter. The beautiful footage, shot by Mackenzie, was enhanced through a Flame color correction system that was specifically tailored for Mercedes by Vico and Rhino lead artist Mickey Gorenstein. Gorenstein developed an eye for Flame color correction working at Gravity Visual Effects in Tel Aviv before moving to Rhino.

Vico noted, “Incorporating these color correction techniques enabled some creative exploration of different palettes and textures, giving us more precision and allowing contextual replacements that just wouldn’t have been possible in Telecine. Our system enables our Flame artist to color correct isolated images while compositing. It’s a more specific process, and a more efficient process, highlighting individual elements and color correcting them independently.”

Additionally, because the vignettes were shot at different times of the day in different locations, the Rhino team had to replace the backgrounds, reconstruct the landscapes, adjust the lighting and luminance and color per scene for seamless continuity. “This kind of work comes up frequently in car spots,” notes Managing Director, Rick Wagonheim. “The money isn’t available anymore for directors to wait for the perfectly sunlit moment to shoot. Ian is a brilliant director and gave us brilliant looking film, but he too is at the mercy of reality, and our job is to create a better reality, another reason for color correcting in Flame.”

Comments from Headlight:
The agency had developed the concept of the underwater woman with a ribbon and had featured it in other body wash campaigns. In previous spots, however, the ribbons had a more passive role; for Zeros In, the goal was to bring in a new level of `artificial intelligence’ (a term coined by director Sue Worthy) to the ribbons.

They were on a mission – seek out and target dry skin areas – so our challenge was to really bring the ribbons to life while maintaining the soft, beautiful quality of chiffon underwater. The process required complex fabric simulation and adapting traditional location techniques to an underwater environment.

Depth and caustic lighting passes were necessary to really sell the idea that everything existed in this underwater world. We worked very closely with both Saatchi art director Lisa Bet and director Sue Worthy in creating just the right look and feel of our ribbons.