A couple years back we were in production with 3tards: episode five when we ran into a soundtrack dilemma. We needed a beat-mix for a party scene we intended to shoot. Being honest with ourselves, we admitted that dance and hip/hop music wasn’t our strongest point- to say the least. Tony knew, through some of his networks, about a local music talent that specialized in just that. 3Man Weave mixed few a tracks for our use in 3tards in exchange for our video production talents.

In June 2009 we shot the 3ManWeave video “infatuated” as a favor to R.F., D. Bell and the Wiz for the two songs we borrowed for our fifth episode of 3tards. We shot on location at Burhan’s Station, a bar/ restaurant, which has since closed its door. In total it took five days of shooting to gather enough shots and angles to give the music video a specific sense of space and personality of the three men just released from prison.

“Infatuated” tested limitations and pushed our boundaries. We had our largest amount of extras ever to have on set with about 50 people at once. Matt encountered some trouble with keeping everyone currently not in use quite and in the same place for continuity issues. In the end, he says it has made him more comfortable with directing a larger crew and sometimes just telling people to shut up.

If you notice the video presents the audience with a washed-out feel. “Infatuated” was filmed in color- then Adobe Aftereffects removes the color in postproduction. The editing gives it a sepia-like effect with the exception of the pulled color. This allowed the music video to ‘pop’ certain colors; specifically used to accentuate the reds and greens our artists were wearing.

Steady Camera Angles and Improvising:

We knew there were going to be many slowly moving shots. Without a steady camera, Matt had to improvise. He was given/ borrowed/ maybe, kind of stole two boxes of salt and a bag from Burhans. He put the boxes of salt inside the bag and wrapped them with tape around the legs of his tripod. By weighting the bottom end of the tripod, he was able to steady the camera and move through the shot with fluidity without his steps jacking up the motion. This enabled him to roam freely without too much shake in the shots.

If you take notice, in a few frames the camera arcs up to capture the group from an impossible angle if using a tripod and too steady to be held by Matt’s hands. For all scenes with a low angle, Matt used his shoe (specifically his Croc) to cradle the camera up and hold it in position to attain the static shot of the artists looking down at the audience.

The Girl behind the Bed sheet:

We filmed the silhouette dancer from behind a plain old bed sheet. We lit the sheet in such a way so the dancer's silhouette is projected larger on the sheet. Then we duck taped the sheet to the ceiling inside the bar while two people held both ends to assure it would not wobble back in forth.

During the editing process, Matt used Adobe Premier to cut the silhouette part of the scene together. He had found about four seconds of useable footage and let it play forwards, and then at its climax he reversed it. As the clip starts to reverse, he begins fading in the beginning of the clip onto a top layer, and about halfway through (2sec) the original clip underneath that was going in reverse and no longer seen. He repeated this effect a few times to lengthen everything.

Then in after effects he took the finished edit of just the silhouette dancer and layed it over the finished edit, in an overlay, of the AV Hook. As he overlayed the image he adjusted its curves (the light and dark contrast to make the silhouette pop). Next, Matt adjusted its transfer mode to multiply so the contrast could darken and overlay nicely on the AV hook, and finally took the finished edit of the AV hook and softened all edges of the actors and blurred the outlines of their figure to give it more of a dream/magic like feel.

In conclusion, what he was going for was something like AV was singing his hook moving his hands and casting magic to make this silhouette dancer move. That’s what impression he was trying to portray from his mindset without being dramatic with it.

The “Infatuated” music video we produced for 3ManWeave is our best-edited work to date.