It just wasn’t enough for full-service post-production facility STEELE ((www.steelevfx.com)) to have one of the summer’s most-viewed music videos to its credit. After providing the HD online, beauty, compositing and stereo 3D finishing for Shakira’s “Waka Waka” (This Time For Africa, the music video for the official 2010 FIFA World Cup song), STEELE quickly followed with another chart topper: Lady Gaga’s “Alejandro” music video.
The two videos have exceeded 200 million views on You Tube between them and an additional 160 million other online views. Shakira’s huge hit was also seen live by hundreds of millions more around the world as part of this years opening ceremony of the FIFA World Cup, hosted by South Africa. The song has been heard by over 1 billion people and is the #1 selling single in over 15 countries. It is #13 most watched video of all time.
“Our work gets seen,” says executive producer Jo Steele who founded the company with husband Jerry Steele in 1996. “We know how to take an exciting, dynamic project to the extreme. Whether it’s a feature film, music video or commercial, our talented artists work with the latest technology – like Quantel’s new Pablo 4K – to go the distance and take the project to the ultimate level.”
STEELE handled the HD Online, VFX, beauty and additional color correction for Lady Gaga’s latest 8.5-minute music video, “Alejandro.” Directed by world-renowned photographer/director Steven Klein, the Europop and disco-influenced piece is rife with the edgy iconography Lady Gaga fans have come to expect.
Klein, editor Dustin Robertson of Avid Diva, and the production company HSI has worked with STEELE on many other high profile projects for well over a decade.
“These guys are true visionaries and perfectionists, and when you want to create a visual masterpiece, it doesn’t get any better than putting Klein, Robertson and the STEELE team together,” says Jo Steele.
“We were working on Gaga and Shakira at the same time, along with several commercials, so it was a very intense period at STEELE, but we were able to work through it to a very satisfying conclusion.”
Monique Eissing, not only was STEELE’s Lead artist on “Alejandro“, but also supervised over a dozen other artists on the project.” “The sheer length of the music video was a challenge,” she notes. “Working with a quick turnaround, we had to sustain high quality throughout the 8.5-minute piece. Every shot had to be perfect.”
The majority of visual effects were invisible; designed and created to help establish the video’s dynamic look: extensive multiple color passes were composited to enhance the dark and somber atmosphere the piece demanded. There was also beauty and a substantial amount of set clean-up that had to take place throughout the piece resulting in many hours of roto-scoping and additional compositing. The dramatic concluding burn-out effect was crafted and animated in Lightwave 3D.
While Eissing and her fellow artists were focused on “Alejandro,” Jerry Steele was down the hall leading another team dedicated to “Waka Waka.” The party-themed video, directed by DNA’s Marcus Raboy and edited by Rich Newey of Traffic Jam Films, intercut festive performance footage of Shakira and South African band Freshlyground with clips of famous soccer moments and studio vignettes of top players clad in (“This Time For Africa”) T-shirts.
“Waka Waka” had multiple deliverables and applications. 2D English and Spanish-language versions were completed for broadcast and the Internet. A stereo 3D version was finished for the World Cup Opening Ceremonies as well as for display in Sony’s 3D pavilion in Nelson Mandela Square, Sandton and Point of Sale demonstrations of Sony Bravia 3D TV sets worldwide.
Jerry Steele served as 3D Stereo consultant, HD Online Editor/Beauty Artist, Lead Compositor and Stereo Post Supervisor for “Waka Waka” which was shot by “Avatar” veteran Vince Pace. Steele completed the entire project on the Quantel Pablo.
This included the conforms of the multi-format edits, the visual effects – including crowd replication -the beauty and additional color correction and finally the stereo 3D convergence and mastering.
“Not many companies can handle 3D convergence effectively yet, but we already had the new Pablo with stereo 3D software,” notes Jo Steele. “Once again we were up against the clock: ‘Waka Waka‘ was completed in just eight days. That’s where the speed of the machines and the expertise of our artists come into play. When we delivered ‘Waka Waka‘ to Sony Music Entertainment they were ecstatic.”
About STEELE
Steele has a reputation for producing the highest-quality imagery for its clients in the feature film, commercial and music video industries. Its postproduction services include DI, stereo 3D, VFX, editorial, motion graphics, online finishing and 2D/3D animation, to name just a few. For more information about STEELE, go to (www.steelevfx.com).
