Marco Pavé - Sacrifice Single Tease

i collaborated with Memphis-based musician Marco Pavé on a couple of projects in 2017, and the 'Sacrifice' single teaser is the first of those projects. 

the teaser was originally a concept for a full lyric video consisting of a single gimbal-stabilised shot that moved through the hallways of an old, abandoned marine hospital right on the Mississippi river in Memphis, TN. - but after further consideration we decided to cut this particular version of the video down to a 30-second TV-ready ad spot teasing the single. to that end, i enhanced the 3D visual effects element beyond the original plan of simply placing glowing words on surfaces throughout, and instead used NUKEX to place interactive 3D geometry in key locations for certain shots, triggering animation and other effects in time with the track.

DEM computing platform agnosticism in full effect on the 'Sacrifice' teaser project.

the footage was shot on an IR-modified Sony A7S with a Rokinon 14mm rectilinear lens. this made some of the tracking efforts in NUKEX a challenge, as the IR nature of the footage in conjunction with a reasonably high ISO led to some noisy, grainy shots. after much trial and error (and refinement of our process for tracking more challenging shots,) we were able to get the eight or so shots necessary for this video to track and work as we needed.

DEM special operative Taylor Smith tracking a 'Sacrifice' teaser trailer shot.

tracking one of the 'Sacrifice' teaser shots in NUKEX

render times were kept under control by minimising the use of effects such as global illumination during the 3D work - the only exceptions being the last two effects shots, which utilise some GI for the glowing effects. most of the shots rendered out of 3D within two to three hours, which allowed us to experiment and be more dynamic with the animations.

the 'Sacrifice' teaser ties in to some other upcoming Marco Pavé content that DEM is producing for 2017 - stay tuned.

CREW:
DIRECTOR: chris morgan
EXEC. PRODUCER: dana gabrion
VFX CONCEPTS: chris morgan and taylor smith
POST: darkenergymedia

TECHNICALS:
CAMERA: Sony A7S (IR-modified)
STABILISER: DJI Ronin-M
VFX: NUKEX
COLOUR: DaVinci