Thoughts on JT's music video?

P.S. I'm assuming sequences are stitched in post, but just interested in some of the production work.
 
The steadicam work is insane if that's a single shot.

Noticed some minor post stabilization/tweaks but can't imagine pulling off something like this perfectly.
 
Take 6 of 6, the only dusk/twilight shot.
Shot on Alexa Mini with a Panavision lens.
A Ninja Steadicam Op and Samurai AC...


Justin Timberlake's Stunning New Video Took 200 People, Weeks of Planning, and One Single Shot:

"It could have been a gigantic disaster," says Arturo Perez Jr., the La Blogothèque director who pulled off the video after weeks of obsessive planning. "A lot of the times, when you’re working with such a big artist, there’s so much to lose. And to his credit, he wanted to be vulnerable."

When Timberlake approached the filmmaker, he knew he wanted a La Blogothèque-style video—meaning a truly live, single-shot experience. "When I hear this song, it's the inner voice-over inside of our heads," Perez says. So Perez devoured the new song, and came up with a plan to recreate its complex internal dialogue. He and his team picked a location: the famous Bradbury Building in Los Angeles (which most famously served as a setting in Blade Runner) with elevators, balconies, and stairs that personified the labyrinth of "Say Something."

It took two weeks of pre-production before shooting started. "I walked the Bradbury Building for two and a half days—just walking through it like a crazy person. We walked and walked and talked about it," Perez says. "What we didn’t want to happen was for this to just be a Justin Timberlake one-take video gag. We’ve been doing this for a while, and we don’t get high off of doing a one-take video. We get high off of creating poetry."

The team discussed trying to do it in multiple cuts, but they ultimately decided against it.

"We wanted to let this be an experience—live in it," Perez says. So, when it came to the day of shooting, they had gathered a 200-person crew—including 17 musicians and a 60-person choir—to record the video and audio live in one single take. They started at about 11 a.m., rehearsed a few times—including moments when the elevators wouldn't work—but only had a 10-minute window to record at night when they could capture a deep blue light in the sky through a window.

And they pulled it off in a single take.
Click to expand...

https://www.esquire.com/entertainme...rlake-say-something-video-director-interview/
 
Thanks for bringing this up. I enjoyed the video. Now there will all kinds of requests by small entities if they can have this style video for $600... :) Maybe one could charge a fixed amount per take...
 
Ari is a very accomplished operator, has done many wonderful music videos and really came into his own last year as the operator of "LaLa Land"--not just great Steadicam work but his operating overall was topnotch (I'm sure some have seen the BTS where the director is tapping him on the shoulder to whip pan from the stage to Emma Stone dancing). He killed it as always on this clip.

One interest note I got from the DIT who is a friend is that it was intended to be a day shoot, and they went long. They had worklights from rehearsal the night before and pressed those into service. They had to push the camera significantly to be able to get exposure on the bottom level. Having shot in the Bradbury building myself, it is a challenging (and exceptionally beautiful) space!

I am told that there wasn't any post-stab used but of course, it's hard to know for sure. It wasn't shot with that in mind. Incredible long lens work especially coming down the stairs shooting laterally.
 
NorBro said:
Not sure if another thread exists on this (don't think so), but what do the pros here think about this music video?

How did they film this? (Hopefully you'll make it to the very end.)

Thank you for your time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MPbR6Cbwi4
Click to expand...


As far as continuous steadi-cam shot and the timing involved in the shot, I'm more impressed by this:


Admittedly, I am biased because I was there to witness the execution of that scene. The part where the camera goes over the fence is awesome. I bet Charles can guess correctly as to how it was done.
 
I commented in that thread/on that shot the other week...also amazing.

My personal guess about the fence shot is the operator hopped on some sort of platform that lifted him or her over the fence and stepped on another one to go back down.
 
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