American Cinematographer - March 2009 - (Page 12) Short Takes Creating “Clap Your Brains Off” With Canon’s Mark III by Iain Stasukevich finds its inspiration in a number of unique visual works. First, a bit of back story: Beltrán had been working steadily as an assistant director in the Mexican advertising industry while the members of NSM PSM built up a strong fan base with their lively mash-ups. They’d all met previously at parties and through mutual acquaintances, so when the time came for NSM PSM to make a video for the first single off their first album, Beltrán was a natural first choice. “I didn’t have all the ideas on hand,” Beltrán recalls, speaking by phone from Mexico City. “The video started to transform as we shot it, and the band liked each idea I presented.” The concept behind the video is that there are DJ gods who are mixing an album with different records. Every time they pull a record off the shelf, we get pulled into the cover, seamlessly segueing into a musical number featuring the band. Each scene is a different take on a circular, repeating pattern. “I wanted to style several key scenes after Sebastian Perez Duarte’s pictures,” says Beltrán. “He’s a photographer I found on Flickr.com who employs the Droste effect, inspired by M.C. Escher’s Print Gallery, in some of his pictures. I learned how to apply the complex mathematical equation he used to get the effect through Josh Sommers’ tutorials, which I also found on Flickr.” Sommers had released the equation to the public as a plug-in for Gimp, an open-source photo editor. Beltrán explains the steps involved: “First, you had to take the pictures in a certain way, then you had to center them, cut them and crop them. Then you had to write down the math 12 March 2009 Photos by Roger Gómez, Adrian Lejarazu and Frank Beltrán, courtesy of Beltrán. The DJ gods, portrayed by NSM PSM band members Pato (in green) and Kay Watson, scan their vinyl collection to craft an appropriate mash-up for the music video “Clap Your Brains Off,” directed by Frank Beltrán and photographed by Khristian Olivares. In the video, the album covers come to life and break into the Droste effect, as inspired by M.C. Escher’s Print Gallery. nless you’re an animator, it’s easy to forget that a single motion picture is made up of hundreds of thousands of individual pictures. In 1878, Eadweard Muybridge needed 12 still cameras to capture the entire stride of a galloping horse, and today, U there are many directors and cinematographers who are still experimenting with the same creative tactics. Frank Beltrán and Khristian Olivares are two such filmmakers, and their video for Mexican party band NSM PSM’s “Clap Your Brains Off” http://www.Flickr.com
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