Grave Dawn Trailer Released

Check out the new trailer for Grave Dawn, Directed by DJ Turner. Shot on the Red and 5D Mark II.

Grave Dawn-Kindest Cut 2009

Ghostwriters Music Studio Showcase

On the last few days in Berlin,  we were hired to showcase the inside of the Ghostwriters Studios for a video spot on their website.  Owner/producer, Neco Tiglioglu, rented a steady cam and dolly for the shoot.  We also used two 500 watt Arri’s with soft-boxes for illumination.

Ghostwriter final #1 from Damon Cirulli on Vimeo.

Ivy Green “Stomp Yo Feet” Music Video

Our trip to Europe in August of 2009 came about as a result of a job offer to shoot a music video for an iconic singer named Ivy Green, who works for a talented young Berlin music producer by the name of Sebastian Budde.

The idea behind the Ivy Green music video “Stomp Yo Feet” was simple enough.  Ivy would paint a picture of herself in an art studio. As she is painting the picture of herself, it comes to life and begins singing the “Stomp” song.  After the painting is fully converted to a moving landscape of colors and textures, with the pictureland Ivy in the middle, the real Ivy takes the painting down from it’s isle and carries it through the streets of Berlin.

We shot all over the city, mainly using a 5D Mark II, with a 50mm 1.2 lens, mounted on a steady cam. We focused our first two days of shooting on the eastern side of the city in Friedrichshain, by the crumbling wall, that is now covered with graffiti and large art exhibits called the East Side Gallery. The art studio we used was also nearby.

To make it easier for our VFX guy to track and composite Ivy in the painting world, while being carried down the street, we fastened a thick piece of green screen paper to the inside of the picture frame.

The third day of shooting took us to strange partially abandoned building that every inch of was covered with old concert flyers and graffiti.  It was ten stories high; and the very top floors had been converted into shabby artist residences.  We shot on the bottom two floors.

The scene was: Ivy carries the painting into the building and mounts it on one of the graffiti sewn walls.  The camera zooms into the painting and we are suddenly transported to a huge party in the exact same room with tons of people wearing strange animal masks.

We shot with two 5D’s, one on sticks with a 70-200mm lens and the other with the earlier steady cam set up.  The extras and dancers were great, though it took a few beers to loosen them up that my producer handed out.  Oh to be shooting in Germany where beer is subsidized by the Government! It’s everywhere, even in movie theaters and Mc’donneys.

I digress, after pulling off the party scene that left only the last green-screen shots of Ivy to capture before we could rap.  After negotiating with multiple small studios there in Berlin, we found one that would work with our budget.  The place was called Frogfish Studios.  The shooting went smoothly, though they didn’t have a green screen available so we were forced to shoot on a blue one.  Which was not ideal but for the short notice and price was worth it in the end.

The Ivy Green video will be available the beginning of 2010.

Clara Chill Music Video “How Far Will You Go”

The Clara Chill music video “Wie weit wirst du gehen” or “How Far Will You Go” was shot entirely in two and a half days in six locations including the Tempelhof Airport; which is now closed to the public though it is one of the biggest buildings in all of Europe.

For the video we decided on a simple static approach, with no steady cam shots or dolly movements.  Instead we tried to capture the emotion of the song by focusing on the singer, more then the movement in the frame.

We also shot Clara on the same blue-screen at the Frogfish Studio in Berlin so we could add some textured moving backgrounds later in post. During the shoot we opened up the piano and shot the keys moving with Clara playing for an interesting look.

The Clara Chill video “How Far Will You Go” will be available in January 2010.