One at Optimus Director Michael Chaves recently directed the music video, “Make Note of Every Sound,” for the band Seven Saturdays. Chaves and his team took the project from development through production and into post.
“I was approached by Jonathan Haskell, of Seven Saturdays, right after the birth of my daughter,” said Chaves. “He played me his song ‘Make Note of Every Sound,’ and it really hit me. The song is incredibly heartfelt and, being a first time parent, I was wrestling with tons of emotions – especially how small and fragile my daughter was. I wanted to make something that had a big, cinematic scope – while also capturing those feelings of fragility.”
At the video’s core is a mother’s love for her daughter, whose death she is avenging in a showdown with the gang responsible. In lieu of blood and gore are crimson streamers that unfurl as the mother methodically takes all of them down with a samurai sword. Chaves came across the idea for the streamers after a lot of back and forth with other concepts. He wanted something that would combine the mood and violence of an Asian revenge film with the imagination of an art installation. Originally, the streamers were supposed to be all in camera, but that became very difficult to execute. He and his team landed on a combination of real streamers, streamers on green screen and CG streamers with a fabric simulation.
“I knew I wanted a video for ‘Make Note of Every Sound’ as soon as I started working on this song,” said Haskell. “My friend and Director of Photography Tristan Nyby recommended Chaves to direct the video. After meeting with Chaves and hearing his concept, I was intrigued by his vision and wanted to give him the creative freedom to carry it through to completion. He didn’t waste any time, and took it from storyboard to finishing in six weeks. I couldn’t be happier with the result.”
“From the start of filming, Chaves had an incredible vision and knew how to execute it perfectly,” commented Optimus Editor Nathan Cali, who cut the video. “I love collaborating with Chaves because he does a lot of his own work when it comes to visuals, giving him the confidence that the shoot is going to work before it even begins. And, the video complemented the song so well, capturing the right emotion.”
Dan Swierenga, finish artist at Optimus, did the color and finishing on the spot. Added Chaves, “With Dan I wanted to keep the look as rich and cinematic as possible. There was already a nice contrast between the scene and the red streamers – I wanted that to play naturally and not feel too manipulated. We had this incredible location and captured so much depth in the frame, we really worked hard to maintain those details all the way through color."
Seven Saturdays will be live screening the video on July 31 at The Satellite in Los Angeles. Details are at http://bit.ly/1kQeFGf.
About Optimus
Optimus is a leading production and post-production house with offices in Chicago and Santa Monica. A true one-stop shop, Optimus offers a full suite of creative services, including production, editing, color correction, visual effects and design, audio mixing and finishing. With ONE, the company’s live-action production arm, Optimus offers all production services, from shoot through post, under one roof – a singular, streamlined creative-driven machine. For more information, please visit www.optimus.com and http://optimus.com/one. Connect with us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/Optimus161 and www.facebook.com/OneAtOptimus.
