Madama Butterfly Cosplay, Homage by Pierre Lahoud

PRE-PRODUCTION

First-time filmmaker Pierre Lahoud and I had worked closely with Jordanian fashion designer Reema Dahbour in preproduction as we went to go see the material the cloth was made out of and how light reflected out of it. I had gone to a local rental house to secure a specialized lens needed for the shoot, the Laowa 24mm f/14 Probe lens. This was essential for a shot, as Pierre had wanted to start off the video with a detailed exploration of the custom-made cloth.

POST-PRODUCTION

The post production process had started out in Adobe Premier Pro. Unfortunately, in the November 2020 update that was “recommended” by Adobe, the application became a dreadful nightmare. Using a custom 5,500$ PC with the most up to date drivers and gear, Adobe Premier Pro was slow, buggy, unresponsive, and took hours upon hours to render out a 5-minute clip. After conforming the clips and rebuilding the timeline entirely in Blackmagic Davinci Resolve Studio 16, there was no reason to go back to Premier. I could finish the whole project in Blackmagic Davinci Resolve Studio 16.

Being able to jump between the edit and color tabs in Blackmagic Davinci Resolve 16 was extremely time saving. Being able to quickly apply open effects from the internal library in Davinci Resolve 16 allowed for an increase in tactical creative problem solving.

The render speeds in Blackmagic Davinci Resolve were unbelievably fast due to the fine graphics card optimization. Considering that a 5-minute video with OFX, VFX, color, and sound design renders out in about one minuet and 30 seconds is astounding and definitely an undefeated bonus for when switching from Adobe Premier to Blackmagic Davinci Resolve (though this does need the studio version of Blackmagic Davinci Resolve and a strong graphics card in order to make the most of the combination.)

COLOR CORRECTION

The color was to emulate a cinematic look, which is often distinguished by its contrast. The contrast of a film is great, yet it is not as bright as commercials. Commercials, in this age, need to be bright and saturated to grab the attention of the viewer while the film look of the 21st century is more subtle, discrete, and often times “darker”.

THE VISUAL EFFECTS

A lesson learned in the value of allowing for an increase in budget and handing off the work to other people. I had attempted to the best of my ability to work on the visual effects of this project.