HOLLYWOOD — Director Brandon Dermer recently created a new music video for artist Diplo that breaks from his EDM roots, venturing into the country genre. So Long features vocals by country artist Cam, and was shot at the 2019 Stagecoach Festival in Indio, CA.
Dermer has collaborated with Diplo on several projects, including the Hulu series What Would Diplo Do? With high-level access at Stagecoach, the production team’s goal was to capture the experience as completely as possible, including performance video of Cam, as well as documentary footage of the event. Not knowing how Diplo would be received at the event, the team wanted to capture it all on camera.
Wojciech Kielar served as cinematographer, shooting with multiple cameras. This video was shot, in part, using Blackmagic Design’s Ursa Mini Pro 4.6K camera and utilized Blackmagic RAW format.
Kielar followed Diplo and Cam backstage, while Justin Cameron grabbed beauty shots and various footage of the attendees using the Ursa Mini Pro. For the concert footage, two cameras captured Diplo and Cam’s performances on stage.
“We recorded in Arri ProRes 444 and Blackmagic RAW,” Kielar explains. “Both cameras have a pretty big dynamic range and produced wonderful images.”
He continues, “We married the best parts of those looks together, and had a plan to give the video a gritty feel, while also saturating colors as a nod to the EDM style.”
Colorist Ryan McNeal created the final look using DaVinci Resolve Studio.
“We used heavy grain and warm highlights to enhance that film look,” explains McNeal, “and I kept the overall exposure of mid tones and shadows low for a thicker negative feel.”