School of Film

Since this weekend I am back in Belgium. I could have stayed longer in the Middle East, yes (and soon I'll write more about what happened to me in the last days,) but I had to be on the set in a school for the intro (which we filmed as last) for Hexa Mera's newest music video. The song is called "The Society has Failed", and is about the fact the Society has bad points, and people complain, but don't do anything, and rather pretend they don't know anything than really doing something, so the song calls for action.

4 of the band members, our assistant director (face turned away) and the boy who plays the lead

I was Director of Photography, and worked together with Miwako, a half Japanese, half Belgian student from one of the national film schools, who specialises in Direction Fiction. While she was in charge of producing and the choreography of the more than 50 extra's in this clip, it was my job to visualize her ideas. We decided to go for dolly tracks, to which add a lot of power, in my opinion. While the first shots are more static, when the emphasis is on the imprisonment of the mind, the shots become more fluid, and the power of the dollyshots get another dimension, when the main character, a small boy, the extra's... got more free during the song of the band. We also choose many shots from other height level than the eye, to make clear there is something wrong. 

The music video will be released in the same period as the release of Hexa Mera's first cd: February 2014. It is later than we wished, but the cd has to be re-recorded by more professionals. Hexa Mera is a metal band who played on Graspop (Belgium's biggest Metal Festival), won the Red Bull Music Competition and has more than 2800 fans.

UPDATE (Spring 2014): Here is the music video! Enjoy!