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Jay-Z

On To The Next One

Summary

Working with Flynn Productions, DNA and our good friend, director Sam Brown, we recently finished Jay-Z’s new and highly ambitious music promo ‘On to the Next One’.

We think 'On to the Next One' will really surprise people as it feels like you are watching high concept visual art and not a run of the mill rap promo.
The film is intercut with stunning black and white imagery including a Dark Knight Joker-esque figure, burning basketballs, black and white paints eerily and beautifully spilling out and mixing in to each other, birds flickering across the screen and vibrating bricks in a wall - all to the electric rhythm of the track.

Our Lead Flame on the job, Paul Wilmot said, "This was an incredible music promo to work on and help realise  Sam Brown's unique vision.  My main challenge in Flame was to create multi layer comps of the live action elements and the retimed shots of the moving cables and burning basketballs, which were added together to create the overall effect of the images reacting and moving to the rhythm of the song.

"We were always very aware of the artistic feel and graphic nature of the shots and enhanced the natural impact of particular sequences within the edit. We are all really excited by the finished film which is both dark yet vibrant."

Our Colourist, Aubrey Woodiwiss tells us, "Obviously as this was black and white I paid even greater attention than normal to the contrast.  I set the black up by giving it a silky and luxurious feel while being careful not to lose any information in the highlights.   I  also applied various masks to shift the light and attention but at the same time I didn't want it to feel over corrected so I kept it very natural with a photographic feel."

Credits

Production

  • Production Company: DNA, Flynn Productions
  • Director: Sam Brown
  • Producer: Jeremy Sullivan, Emma Comley

Editorial

  • Editing Company: The Whitehouse
  • Editor: Amanda James

Post-Production / VFX

  • Post-Production / VFX Company: The Mill
  • Mill Office: London
  • VFX Producer: Chris Batten
  • 2D Lead Artists: Paul Wilmot
  • Colourist: Aubrey Woodiwiss
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