Nice Shoes colorist Roslyn Di Sisto has worked with Director X on a number of music video projects, including Drake’s Hotline Bling. Her most recent collaboration was on the French Montana video
Famous, in which the artist appears in a dry yet subtely colorful landscape.
“Each time we’ve collaborated, I’ve had a lot of creative freedom to explore different directions, and then we work together to perfect the look,” says Di Sisto. “The video is set in a typical small town in Morocco, similar to where French Montana grew up, and so we wanted the color to be indicative of French’s memories and fondness of his childhood, romanticizing the the locations with a beautiful soft palette, and emphasizing the pastel blues that are prevalent throughout the city.
Di Sisto says the goal was to dramatize the heat of the environment as much as possible.
“The work I did on skin tones were instrumental in creating the overall look of the video. The shot of a man smoking hookah really captures our approach. I used this shot to define the look and feel, and frequently referred back to this image while shaping the rest of the video.
“X and I were feeling more of a peeled back, desaturated look, but we still wanted to stay true to the vibrancy of the people and locations, so we decided to keep the overall palette nice and soft, and instead accentuated the reoccurring blues and cyans throughout.”
The colorist worked on a Baselight system, which she says aided her in isolating individual elements and helping to craft “a lush, beautiful piece.”