Music video production

Overview

2021 we did a shooting for a music video, which is part of the fan film project due to the song is included in the fan film. The music video is a prerelease ahead to the release of the fan film itself.

Shooting & Story

In July 2021 we did the shooting for the music video. It was done at two locations - somewhere in the woods near Kaiserslautern (Germany) and in an old NATO bunker also in this area. We took two days for the whole shooting. The music video has its own story, which is not related to the fan film. But of course it should act within the Starship Troopers Universe. For that reason we cast some performers from the Starship Troopers German Division and of course the singer - Amra Mothes.

actors of the music video

The idea was to place some troopers around Amra to protect her against an invisible and unknown enemy. In principle a similar idea as we have seen in SST3 with the entertainment part of Skymarshal Omar Anoke. In our case, Sky Marshal Amra did some entertainment training in the woods, which would her preparation to enjoy later the citizens of the federation. However, what was unexpected, that she was disturbed during this exercise by "somewhat" and the troopers did their best to do their part. As a preparation there was a detailed script whose parts were oriented either to the rhythm of the music or to the text parts. For the last seconds of the video, there was plant to have a real action scenery.

Somewhere in the woods

In summary, we had 8 troopers plus the singer and four helping hands at the first shooting day available. The plan was also to have some nice camera shots by a drone for we had a drone operator too. Part of the scenario was an abandoned railway bridge in between the woods. Due to its height of 24 meters, it was not possible to convince all actors to act on the bridge itself. That was already the first problem which had to be solved by

actors of the music video

the director to find an alternative solution for it. Therefore, an area directly in the woods was finally chosen as shooting area. On this day we had luck with the weather, because the days before there was strong rain. That lead to the fact that the ground was very wet and muddy yet. But at the shooting day there was pure sun shine. At the beginning we lost a lot of time to organize ourselfs, due to the fact that all people were not familiar to each other. However, step by step we became able to manage the difficulties and started to shot scene by scene.

Police report

A fun fact during this shooting was, that we got a visit of the police. They were called by a concerned forester, who observed activities of armed forces in the woods. We had not registered the shooting to the officials in advance, so it was a kind of guerilla shooting. And yes, of course our trooper, they looked really dangerous armed to the teeth. Glad our assistants were able to convince the police men, that we have all under control in the woods, and we are doing a harmless movie shooting only. Our assistants were even so effective, that the shooting crew was even not noticed by this incident.

actors of the music video

And action

The action scenery, which was planned at the end of the music video, contained some running parts which should get later in postproduction some VFX explosions and so on. All that included also a trooper which has to fall after he was shot. Glad we had an experienced expert for such activities, who was familiar with falling down - it was Stefan Claus - the owner of the Munch Fight Academy. He overtook the stunt part, and he really did his part, so that we got great results as it was imagined in advance or even better.

actors of the music video

The bridge

During the day then we found some brave troopers who was willing to do their part with the bridge scenery. actors of the music videoThe plan here was to rope down the bridge during Amra stand below the bridge. This part was accompanied by our experienced rope instructor Klaus Thedt from the IG Seilsport, so that we could be sure all to handle in a save way too. At the end of the day we were very glad to have catched all planned scenes. We needed longer time for it then it was planned, but it was nevertheless a great fun and exciting event for all participants, which we will not forget soon. At the evening we went then over to the second shooting location of the next day.

The bunker

The second shooting location was an old NATO bunker in Kindsbach, which was not too far from the first location. It was planned to have a come together party for the whole crew at night and to stay overnight. The crew was of course informed about this plan and therefore well-prepared to have warm clothes, sleeping bags and most important accumulator lights. In the bunker itself was a restricted power access only and not available at all places in it. On the next day we started with a strict plan for the shooting and this time there was the feeling that the whole crew acts now as a real crew in a very disciplined way. We must come to the end already about noon due to the most of the participants had a longer way home, which had to take into account too. What should I say, exactly, that we kept.

whole shooting crew

The bunker was of course a great location with all its dark corners and old mysterious equipment or devices, a perfect set for a movie shooting!

Postproduction

The postproduction of the movie and all its reviews went over August. Most effort here was the last 30 seconds of the video, where to add all of these VFX to make it somehow believable that at least one of our troopers has died on the way to save the world. Thank also to our color gradist, who found the proper frame to hold all together and to equalize the movie in one style over the different footage of 3 camera types. We used the following cameras during the shooting, the drone cam, a Nikon D5300 and a GoPro Hero 9 action cam. The Hero 9 convinced us completely during these endless running scenes in the woods, very easy to do with such a cam.

Release

Nominated for the Munich Music Video Award - Kill the beastThe music video had its premiere on 24th of September 2021 on YouTube. Already short after the premiere, the video was nominated even as finalist for two Film Festivals, one in Munich, the other in New York. We are very happy, that they selected us to take part on the festivals, and we are curious what will happen next in closer future...

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TO BE CONTINUED...

Stand: 16.01.2023
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