Playing with Colors & Rhythm, Be Not Afraid

At the risk of this turning into a moriza and Sami Takieddin fanboy blog, here is the latest piece on Vimeo offered by moriza (who’s piece Life on Mars I featured a few days back.)

Set to the music of a group of buskers in the NYC subway, Baby Soda Creole Ride moriza takes the hand-held close-up thing from Life on Mars in a whole new direction by super-saturating the colors on his footage, giving a whole new feel to the video.

The yellows and reds he uses give the piece that sun-damaged 1960’s photo quality to his decidedly modern film making. It’s also an interesting way to enliven what would otherwise be pretty sterile footage; a trick I’ve used in a couple of industrial videos with footage that just wouldn’t white balance under sodium lighting.

Another quick point relating to rhythm, you’ll notice that his editing style actually plays counter point to the rhythm of the music, like an Ornette Coleman solo… holding notes (or focus in this case) longer than expected, or quickly cutting from one shot to the next in a flurry of improvisation. Very few (if any) edits on the downbeat add a richness to the overall experience of the piece… at least I think so.

Oh, and the band is pretty damn good too. :-)