Moneyshots recently completed work on two music videos for OutKast’s HEY YA! and I LIKE THE WAY YOU MOVE. Both videos were conceived, produced and edited to play together or separately and have been released simultaneously.

HEY YA! features OutKast’s Andre 3000 performing all the roles -- lead singer, guitar, bass, keyboard, drums and back-up singers -- for a ‘60s band called Love Below. The video was shot over two days at Universal Studios on a stage styled and equipped to emulate the look and feel of an old ED SULLIVAN SHOW television stage complete with 60s era television cameras and about 60 teenagers screaming in the audience.

Moneyshots consulted on-set with director Bryan Barber and director of photography Crash beginning the first day shooting the audience sequences and various cut-away shots. The second day motion control was shot. Barber wanted to show all the roles Andre was performing in one continuous camera move, with the camera always moving throughout the song.

“This is definitely the most ambitious motion control shoot we have ever done and maybe even anyone has done,” said Elad Offer, Moneyshots’ creative director. “We shot eight takes of three different 4-1/2-minute-long motion control moves. I think the only reason we were able to actually achieve all this in one day was because Simon Wakely and his crew from Camera Control are some of the most experienced motion control crews on the planet.”

Moneyshots used several flame and combustion workstations to rotoscope Andre out of the many individual passes and then place him back into one master pass, blending and choreographing all the roles. A number of greenscreen segments were also shot to allow Moneyshots to take the performers and place their images into television camera monitors.

I LIKE THE WAY YOU MOVE video underwent an ambitious last minute makeover after the HEY YA! video turned out so well. The initial concept was to shoot OutKast’s Big Boi in an old style mechanic’s garage where Big Boi arrive to find some hardworking beauties wearing little more than grease and sweat and then to cut away to a New York back-street dance sequence. The final video retained the garage but abandoned the back-street dance sequence for a grand ballroom, Asian martial arts sequence and an African sequence.

An old ‘60s style mechanic’s garage was filmed on location in Los Angeles and stocked with vintage cars and scantily-clad women. Moneyshots and director Barber used greenscreens allowing the transportation of Big Boi from the garage to the daydream settings. The new environments have a 2D cut-away look like a live-action diorama. A locked-off camera was used for all shots in order that all elements could later be moved within 3D space, without the corresponding perspective change.

Offer said, “We relied heavily on the 3D nature of Discreet’s flame. All these 3 dimensional setups were created within flame with very little help from Maya. This saved us a lot of time because we didn’t have to go back and forth on the approval process. The same artist could take the shot from conception to delivery. The final result had a 2D cut-out feeling, almost like a pop-up up map come to life. We also relied heavily on flame 8’s ability to use high-resolution images, which allowed us to be completely free with our CG camera and get really close to objects.

Commenting on the digital creation of the grand ballroom using 2D and 3D elements, Chris Eckardt, Moneyshots’ exec producer, said, “This was no mere set extension, but an entirely unique and complete CG environment populated with cool artists and hot women strutting their stuff. Stylistically we were doing something more graphical, adding our own little elements to spice up the old rap music video look.”

Credits include:
Director: Bryan Barber
Producer: William Green
DP: Crash
Production company: FM Rocks
Editor for HEY YA!: Daviv Checel, Film Core
Editor for I LOVE THE WAY YOU MOVE: Mario Mares, Sunset Editorial