As an experiment with abstract visuals, this piece explores the combination of abstract and known imagery to explore soapy concepts that reflect the fun quirky mood of Melanie Martinez’s Song “Soap”. This project had a timeline of 2 weeks with one week for filming and one for editing. This project was a collaboration between me and my partner Hannah Ford to explore the elements of cinematography through a colorful experiment playing with macro cinematography in combination with other shot perspectives.
TIMELINE: 2 Weeks
Programs: Adobe Premiere Pro and ProTools.
Process
Lyrics of Focus
For this project, the first part was to determine what lyrics to visualize within this piece. We determined that we wanted to use this first part of Melanie Martinez’s “Soap” due to its strong soapy imagery and good pacing for the numerous shots in mind.
In figuring out the visual route of cinematography for this project, the second part was to compile imagery that fit the mood and aesthetic that came to mind when connecting to the visual imagery generated by the lyrics of focus.
Mood Board
In order to get the shots for this project, there was quite a few factors that came into play. We used a Sony FS5 camera with multiple lenses (a super macro lens to capture our bubble mixture in its utmost glory) and occasionally a handy iphone 12 camera. For the bath bomb scenes we used a fish tank to film the bombs in slow motion. The bath tub scenes we used an apartment bath tub and a cheap lighting kit from Amazon to make it feel nicely lit. Now, you may be wondering where did we shoot all these washing machines? The reality is we filmed it at a local laundry-mat and I did some serious color correcting and lighting in post to fulfill the vibe desired to match the piece. See down below the before and after for the coloration of the machines.
Filming Process
Before
After
Behind the Scene Image of the Bath Bomb Set Up!!
In the filming process, we collected a lot of macro bubble footage, but we were unfortunately unable to use all of it. The bubbles were made of a homemade mixture of glycerin, dawn dish soap, and water! Down below are some still shots of some of the bubbles we captured in motion, where we discovered each bubble has its own personality!
