Week 3 - Asian M/V Lonely

I spotted this music video a week or so ago in an asian restaurant while catching up with a friend. It really caught my eye, because of the really interesting use of visuals. I can't say the same of the quality of music, sadly.

What is immediately apparent is the way in which the video has been washed out. Indeed, this video is an incredibly well applied use of colour, because if you take a second look at it you'll notice that it shifts between a number of different colour effects. Rather than sticking to one set of hues, we actually see quite a broad application of effects.

Despite this broad use of effects, both the way it was shot, and the way that it moved between scenes and colour palettes made the effects seamless. Rather than being a jarring mishmash. Furthermore, it's important to note the subtlety. Quite often colour is used in really strong shades, whereas this was far more subtle. Noticeable, but really only because everything else was comparatively desaturated.

Much of the effects are in how the film was shot, with a lot of offscreen lights, expensive lenses, and excessive use of smoke machines. Indeed, the smoke that drifts across all the scenes helps blend the foreground and background together to not only create a more homogenous effect, but to also sell the twilight feeling of loneliness that's the central theme of the clip. Together these allow for a much broader sense of depth to the desaturation of the film and colours than what you'd get from straight grading of footage.

Nonetheless, it's interesting to see how the video transfers from a pale, slightly pale orange/yellow tone  to a subtle green over white/grey. The shift is barely noticeable as the singers transition from the yellow skin tones to ghostly pale. After this they move out of the indoor scene to the outdoors road and without a pillar transition the colours are blended in over the course of a few seconds. You'll see them go from grey and white to mono greens, reds and skin tones. Indeed, there's an excellent separation of colours through much of the footage. Full colour washes are carefully applied and subtly applied.

Possibly to increase the apparent quality of the film, lens flares are applied lights, but selectively to the very bright ones. In all cases, these lens flares throw a particular shade of colour onto the footage, creating contrast and adding to the surreal footage.

Watch the footage and pay attention to when the singers pass a pillar, these are the transition sections of the film. Each singer is identified by a specific colour palette, related to her clothing, and while the blend is seamless, it is noticeable if you look for it.

See how much you can see in the footage, and what the editor allow to say in, and what they comped to work with the rest of the footage.

I'm certainly impressed with how much colour there is, despite the  deliberate washing out. That's largely the difference between the use of on set film effects and pure colour grading. The former gets a much deeper and richer balance of tones and colours, which the other is simply a way to control what you've already got.