Autumn - Heather Mac

I had the pleasure recently to shoot the Music Video for the first Single from Heather Mac's new Album. We filmed the video up thin the Mountains above Simon's Town close to Cape Town in South Africa.

Part of the inspiration of the music video for “Autumn” stems from Native American Indian tribal culture. An intrinsic part of many of these tribes is “The Contrary”, usually young men who spend most of their lives doing everything backwards, some of the contraries were considered to be clowns or fools.

The philosophy behind this is not merely to be different but rather a playful reminder to the rest of the tribe that the way things are done is not always necessarily the right way. The Contraries are an absolute mirror of the societies they live in, and their actions are a form of therapy for the people who are being contrary as well as for the people witnessing their action.

We found an amazing location high in the cape mountains for our film and thought that the stark but beautiful surroundings would prove an excellent stage to for our simple story.

The story in a nutshell is about someone trying to get back in touch with her spirit through meditation. This journey inwards reveals a playful persona , “The Contra’. One of the lines of the song: “… here in my heart, a drumbeat calling…” invoked this link to her inner calling and innate connection to tribalism.

Because we wanted to create an intimate atmosphere in a vast and not easily accessible location, we decided to keep the shooting process as simple as possible. With the help of some of the latest camera technology we were able to produce a high quality image with extremely lightweight gear and with some careful scheduling we were also able to shoot with virtually no lighting.

All in all the process of making this video was fun, quick and had zero environmental impact -We did not shoot on film, so no processing chemicals were used and there were only 4 people working on the location. The opportunity to shoot in unspoiled nature inspired us to leave only our footprints and take only the images we we created.

I hope you enjoy the film.

Beyond the Still

Much can be said about the rise of the DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) Camera as a viable film making tool. This project helmed by Vincent Laforet & Canon shows how powerful this tool really is. Vincent Laforet became somewhat of a underground star of the DSLR film making world with his video commissioned by Canon to show what their DSLR's could do.

The idea behind "Beyond the Still" was to start a story with a short film and then get to pass the story on to film makers to tell the next chapter. Once the winner of the chapter was announced the competition was opened again and film makers were invited to continue the story using the last chapter's film as a point of reference.

The result is a short film in 8 chapter which makes surprisingly compelling viewing. Not only is the story a fun ride, but the films really show the versatility and ability of the DSLR as a quality film making tool.

Here are all the eight chapters of "Beyond the Still"




For more information follow this link:
http://vimeo.com/groups/beyondthestill