Ural Thomas "Dancing Dimensions" MUSIC VIDEO
ELEVATOR PITCH:
A stunning visual appreciation of the joy of life even in darkness, through movement and music featuring Ural and three other black Portland artists. The use of pure darkness and light as a visual metaphor in on of Portland’s sadly empty music venues.
THEME:
Black Joy. Expression. Movement. Acceptance and appreciation.
STYLE:
Widescreen, cinematic. Lots of black pro-mist filter. Spotty light with bokeh in the distance. Fast moving dolly moves. Energized camera in mediums and wides with clean tracking ECU's.
Camera movement reference: Whip pans Also here is the trailer to a film by Wim Wenders about the legendary Choreographer Pina Bausch called Pina: HERE I saw it in theater a long time ago. the camera moves and the lighting of this film is incredible. I’ve kind always wanted to employ some of these ideas.
NOTES:
About the Artists:
Charles Grant is an actor, dancer, theater artist, as well as a producer for Portland Playhouse. Ashley was commissioned by him and Portland Playhouse to make Private Chat, which was shot and directed by me and is where I got to work with him personally as he was the producer. I found him to be an amazingly warm, kind, and genuine artist. Before that I saw his acting and dance work in 2019’s premiere of the Play Redwood at Portland Center Stage. His solo dancing choreographed by Darrell Moultrie was incredible and moving and devastating in context of the play which is about generational black trauma.
Treasure Lunan: I’ve seen Treasure in several works of theater in film. Treasure’s range, depth and effectiveness in acting is incredible. I’ve personally seen them move an entire playhouse to tears in a single monologue. They move well and generally have a penchant for joy, effervescence, and silliness. I want their dance piece to represent that in the video: joy, acceptance, beauty.
Masyn Wade: Is a young actor / performer at the beginning of their career. I worked with them on the telethon I Directed in august called Black Lives for Fire Relief. They hosted the entire two hour special with a ton of wit and flamboyance which was wonderful. They are the kind of performer that you really can’t take your eyes off of. Outside of that one experience working together, I’ve only seen them in one other thing, which was basically a commercial. That said, I want most of their movements to be more of less based on something you might see in a music performance; exuberance.
SCRIPT:
A visual thesis shot:
Ural enters the venue, backlit through two double doors. The light spills into the darkness. Ural crosses the room. Footsteps squeak on floorboards weakened by years of dancing. Ural Stands looking at the stage. Jump cuts of Ural making his way to the back stage.
The music starts.
Masyn makes their way to the stage. The light splits and dances off their sequins in a thousand directions as they begin to sing the first few intro bars.
WHIP PAN TO FAST DOLLY:
Treasure dances in the center of the floor, bathed in a cyan glow with a a sharp practical accent as they move throughout the area.
WHIP PAN BACK TO MASYN ON STAGE. THEN WHIP PAN UP OVER HEAD. WHIP PAN DOWN TO
He gives an athletic dance in another spot of the floor. Spot light narrowly. He focus of the piece. The camera moves swiftly around in a circle as he moves. In this piece I want the dance to have a little bit of an edge to it. I want moment’s to feel darker but then come through the darkness into joy.
WHIP PAN- PUSH
Ural in his own space singing and moving. Just like the other artists I want to work with Ural on what is the best way to represent what the song means to him. We’ll choose a setting in the venue, and a lighting scheme based on these conversations.
SUMMARY/EXECUTION:
Basically I didn’t want to get too scripted for this project. Rather, I’m thinking the workflow of how the project comes together will dictate how the film fills out. I want to give the artists a lot of ownership over their section, the movement and what it expresses within the framework of what we’re trying to achieve.Workflow: lock the artists and begin to work with them on choreography. Lock the venue, scout, and begin to work out how the choreography fits in with the camera movement, and specifically how the shots and camera movement interlock with each other. Then we’ll write the script out like a shot-list to points in the song.
BUDGET:
Without knowing what the location fees might be, and depending on whether or not we hire a choreographer i’m gonna guess we’ll need $3-$4000 to get it done.
MOOD BOARD:
Though the frame will be largely dominated by darkness of the empty venue, the colors on the light and wardrobe we go with will be in a complimentary color scheme. Like below probably will have a fair amount of teal and orange or teal and yellow or white.
We’ll probably do some single-source feeling silhouette feels but I’s like to have enough either spill or complimentary fill light int he darkness to see what’s in the shadows. Sort of like in the this image below, where you can still make out the objects in the room. I would probably like to go even less spotty than this.
Below: Another example of the types of exposures i’m imagining.
Kind of imagining a little bit of a more lit environment for the stage with Masyn on it. Not quite like this but not quite like a music stage either. Something inbetween.
Wonder ballroom would probably be my first choice if we can get the windows visible again. I’d definitely like to see a little ambient day light through the windows.
