LUXOR video

Ok where do I start with this one, first of all it was great to work with the LUXOR people. They are all individually strong in their own field and came together under the LUXOR name as a music/ art/ dance collaboration.

If you haven't watched the video already here is a direct link
http://www.jasonharry.com/luxor.html

Initially I was asked to photograph this event, arriving at The Lowery on the day the girls told me how disappointed they had been with other video productions made for them, they desperately wanted a edit they were happy with for promotional purposes. Something that accurately reflected the show rather than a chippy choppy affair.

Thinking like you do on your feet I suggested we use the opportunity to make them something special, simple front (standard) view of the performance with stills set to a heart beat starting from the bridge to the room, heart beat end into a flat line sound to intro with the girls walking on stage mated to the mix kicking in...Do it they said.

Apologies if you found the above difficult to follow, that’s how the design process was ...fast with both sides nodding. NOW I have to get on with the capture... luckily I had a heap of memory cards on me, video data capture on the 5D mk2 runs about 8mb/sec so were into a heap of cards for an hour production.

The performance was an hour, the cameras record 10 min slots so this meant quick card and camera resets, my camera was being used for stills so we used a pre firmware updated Canon 5D mk2 to video capture, grrr auto ISO.. Yuk, were putting this together in real time you have to compromise!!!

During the performance there will some people using flash which you can see messing up a frame here and there, which I used to my advantage when bringing Williams Orbits mix in, simple time stretch that split second, nice abstract frame and hey presto you got the ideal window to edit in the mix.

Earlier on I told you the performance was an hour, and we wanted an edited version. This caused me a headache, the girls were like you do what you want....cheers. I have a choice do I edit Williams mix or select a section ... well I decided to chop about with Williams mix wasn’t an option so selected a part that would work best, in the end a slightly modified beginning section including intro was THE choice I made, music producers naturally build up so that’s that job done, as I wanted it to work with Pauline’s art work at the back coming to a finished piece.

Now I am left with the really easy part of editing an hour of dance and the artwork production into some thing... that was the task, task wow.

Took a while sifting through the footage while listening to the music for that section and mating the two best as I could.

Would I change anything if I did the edit again, maybe add in some different angles and still... not sure. It’s done now, LUXOR people love it.

What do I remember about this job?
How quickly I came up with the concept,
How do I cut Williams mix?
Endless hours or watching clips to nearly have a useable section then the tempo of music or dance not match towards the end of that section then rethinking
Taking about 8 hours to render the fully edited production, and realising I hadn’t checked the audio box... its rendered with NO sound ...CRAP!!!!

This is probably the biggest in terms of length I have worked on... some people like this part or that, to me watch the whole thing reflect at the end...personally I dig it a lot.... different.