Filming - Good Morning - With Director Michael Marantz

"GOOD MORNING" is the latest short film by director Michael Marantz and Already Alive, shot by Tim Sessler and Brooklyn Aerials.

For this piece we combined a few new techniques to elevate the images that go along with the epic spoken words that were written and performed by KAMAU.



To ground this piece in reality, we decided on Wall Street as our primary shooting location. Shooting on a rainy holiday allowed us a lot of control and a variety of really interesting looks.



While the location itself should help to set the mood and tone for the piece, we definitely wanted to keep it very stylized.  Two main techniques and styles helped to achieve that:

1.  Reverse: For all the scenes with our Wall Street extras, we wanted to have our protagonists walk forward while the whole world around them moved in reverse.  From past experiences I knew how difficult it was to make a reverse walk look natural and smooth. Not to talk about running or bumping into somebody in reverse.  Luckily, we found some amazingly talented young dancers through the Harlem School of the Arts and with the help of Aubrey Lynch II, we were able to pull it all off effortlessly.
2. Full Spectrum (no IR cut):  Kipperties Full Spectrum OLPF allowed us to capture the Monochrome portraits with the full color spectrum, including all IR pollution that you would usually want to remove from your image.  This created a really interesting and intense look - making the eyes of our protagonists come out even more intense.

The second part of this piece was a lot more ambitious and elaborate.

For the opening and closing of the film we wanted to have the kids fall, as if in a bad dream, and then float above the world - untouched by of all the things that are happening around them.

I tested the floating setup at the beginning of the summer last year with much success - but I was able to shoot the greenscreen using the natural light from outside that was matching the plate shot. Due to the cold weather and inability to control the light, we had to build two large greenscreen setups inside a studio to match our drone plates.



Thanks to gaffer John Busch and the G&E team from VSNY Films we had some really nice setups that delivered the look that we were trying to achieve.

Big thanks to everybody involved in this piece and we hope you enjoy and connect with it!

Cheers,

Tim

CREDITS:
Director and Composer - Michael Marantz
Director of Photography - Tim Sessler
Producers - Jake Paque and Tay McEvers
Executive Producers - Noah Meisner and Michael Marantz
Edited by - Nicholas Davis
Additional Edit by - Kim Pellnat
Produced by Already Alive

Production Coordinator - Ethan Lee
Assistant Director - Luis Restrepo
2nd Assistant Director - Isabelle McKusick Marantz
Assistant Camera - Filipp Penson
2nd Assistant Camera - Sandy SooHoo
Gaffer - John Hayden Busch
Best Boy - Vincent Davino
Key Grip - Jake A. Kump
Swings - Stefan Matwijec and Jose Bonilla
Aerial Cinematography - Brooklyn Aerials

Harlem School of the Arts Dance Team
Movement Consultant - Aubrey Lynch II
Dancers:
Brittany Alvarez
Eli Klotz
Isabella Soto
Nasrullah Abdur-Rahman
Adam Hemenes
Omarion Burke
Aoi Furutate

Post House - Joint Editorial
VFX Artists - Robert Murdock and Noah Poole

Color by Apache
Colorist - Taylor Black

A Very Special Thanks to:
Kaili Turner
Harlem School of the Arts Dance
Joint Editorial
Apache
Kori Darling
Jennifer Soto
Subha Ahmed
Alasia Harris
Cynthia Burke
Midori Furutate

This article and all the images were originally published on brooklynaerials.com  and shared with his permission