Camerimage 2022
Director of photography Matthias Helldoppler speaks about the shooting of music video "Other Side”, by Rupert Höller
The Kinetics of Tree TrunksIn this music video, the lighting plays the same role as an actor in the scenography, offering some quiet fantastic nocturnal atmospheres. Austrian cinematographer Matthias Helldoppler tells us about his method for creating these plays of light... (FR)
What makes a good music video in your opinion ?
Matthias Helldoppler : For me, it’s above all a project that strikes a good balance between the song and the film. If the image takes too much precedence over the music, there’s something wrong. You really have to strike that balance, while taking into account what the economic realities of music video production have been for the past several years. As you know, most music videos nowadays are more about passion than anything else... fair compensation no longer exists, and on each project, you have to convince your crew to work without counting their hours too much, rental companies to provide equipment at rock-bottom prices..That said, the music video is always a factory of ideas, an excuse to try things that you might not always do elsewhere, and a good way as a cinematographer to bolster your own demo tape.
I know director Rupert Höller well, and he and I have often shot together in the past. Even though I had decided to take a little break from music videos, the concept he presented to me for “Other Sides” convinced me to go right back into it.
Light is indeed at the center of the story...
MH : Yes, the initial idea was quite attractive as a cinematographer... An unidentified luminous object rises up in the middle of a forest and begins to fly around over it... This was an excellent starting point for me. Of course, the idea of using a lighting drone was not completely new, but I found that in the context of this little story, where light becomes one of the actors, it was rather justified, and I was interested in finding the best way to do it.
Naturally, the first thing we had to find was the forest, with its very tall trees, which allowed us to plan for some spectacular shadows. After some scouting, we found the place that suited us, near Vienna. The main concern of this forest is that it was located near a military training area, and the necessary authorisations for the drone suddenly became much more complicated. Nevertheless, we managed to get the green light on a fairly narrow plot of about ten meters that belonged to an individual. Everything was therefore shot there, in a very limited area. The motorhome came after the fact, as preparation progressed. Originally, our protagonist was supposed to be in a house located in the middle of the forest. But we couldn’t find a house in a forest that suited us... that’s why we suddenly had the idea of the motorhome, and it ended up being much better like that, because the feeling of danger seems to me to be much more palpable when you are in a vehicle than inside a house.
How did you light this forest ?
MH : The idea of lighting this location at night with very limited means really didn’t have me feeling at ease. I’ll admit I had a few sleepless nights before we started filming. As for the drone because of a very tight pre production schedule there was no time to test the custom LEDs array the drone pilot built himself. Luckily It had enough output and despite not having the best color reproduction we had no bigger issues during color grading.
For the rest, I mainly used HMIs and SkyPanels bounced in butterflies, plus a small balloon as a key-light. There’s a switchover between the shots taken inside the motorhome where the light coming in from outside is very directed and comes from naked Fresnels. Afterwards, the light gets more omnidirectional and softens once the young woman exits the vehicle.
How long did shooting take ?
MH : The music video was shot over two days. The first day, we shot the interiors, and the second day we shot everything that takes place outside in the forest, with the drone, of course. As I needed high sensitivity, I chose to shoot with the Sony Venice camera at 2,500 base ISO for most of the shots, and pushed it to 5,000 for the shots we lit with the drone. Another detail, to give even more weight to the light effects, such as in the first shot where the light begins to shine from far away behind the vehicle, I opted for a Blackwing 7 in X tuning series. These are very special lenses, which have low contrast and flare quit uniquely thanks to special coating and optical design (they are even painted white inside the lens). Because of that they have quite strong flares as soon as there is even the tiniest light in frame. For some projects this might be too much but for this one they were just perfect and exactly what Rupert and I were looking for. Petty much all of the flares you see in the clip were generated while shooting. The only edits we had to make on the image in post-production were, for example, erasing the drone’s red and green position lights when it is in the image, or adding more glow and softness to the beam of the LED array.
Was it easy to manage the drone ?
MH : Despite the fairly substantial height of the trees, and the relative difficulty of piloting the machine in this situation, we did quite well. The machine, a robust octocopter, could fly for about fifteen minutes on its battery, which was reduced to 5 minutes when its lights were switched on. So, we had a remote switch that allowed us to turn on the LED array only for the duration of each take, and thus save battery power. The only thing that didn’t go according to plan was a spiral effect that we wanted to perform on the last shot from the drone. Unfortunately, the LED array began to malfunction just as we were shooting it, and we had to settle for the beginning of the take, before the malfunction . Luckily we had already all the necessary shots done before so It wasn’t really a big problem after all.
For the interiors inside the motorhome, I used little Aputure MC sources that are the size of a cellphone and are self powered and can be controlled over wi-fi from an iPad. They where very useful for me because not only could I hide them in the practicals of the motorhome, but also for making effects, such as when the pots and pans begin to emit light. Additionally I had a few Astera Titan and Helios inside, and SkyPanels, HMIs and one Source4 outside the motorhome.
(Interview conducted by François Reumont, and translated from French by A. Baron-Raiffe for the AFC)