[Exclusive] Inside HEALTH's New 8K Music Video

One camera, infinite shots.

by Beckett Mufson

October 8, 2015, 7:05pm

Images courtesy the artist

Harsh-but-danceable LA noise rock outfit HEALTH's new album, Death Magic (out now via Loma Vista), lends itself to experimentation. Director Giorgio Testi harnesses that pioneering instinct in his new music video for HEALTH's "STONEFIST," nimbly manipulating live 8K footage for a new kind of visual experience. Rather than using three cameras and cutting between each to maintain coverage, the torrent of pixels offered by an 8K camera let Testi pick and choose the magnification of every frame.

"The shoot was actually the easiest live filming I’ve ever done," Testi tells The Creators Project. "It was all about prep, and putting one camera in the right spot." Then he and his team brought the old adage, "Fix it in post," to its limit, slamming, zooming, cutting, and otherwise editing the pure ocean of data into a dynamic ode to HEALTH's stage presence and the beloved London venue, Il Duomo. "HEALTH are a great live band." Testi continues. "It really felt like a stone fist on my face. So aggressive and powerful, but very melodic at the same time."

Testi's previous work includes acts like The Killers, Damon Albarn, Two Door Cinema Club, and Gaslight Anthem, but the group whom HEALTH most reminds him of is Savages. "It’s very rare these days to work with bands that have a 360˚ vision around whatever they are involved in beyond music (videos, artworks, etc.)."

We spoke to Testi about HEALTH, shooting in 8K, and making the video for "STONEFIST," which you can check out below.

The Creators Project: How did you first link up with HEALTH?

Giorgio Testi: I linked up with HEALTH thanks to Adam Farrell, the creative director at Loma Vista. We’ve had a mutual respect of each other's work for a while and we tried to work together in the past but we never managed to. This time around, when he asked me if I was interested in working with HEALTH it was an instant yes: I love the way the band are really peculiar in everything they put out, not only with their music. Adam put my name forward to the band, and they liked the idea of having me on board.

Was this video your immediate vision?

I love long takes at gigs, but it’s usually pretty hard to deliver an interesting long take during an actual concert in front of an audience, especially if you want to offer different point of views through out. You really only have one take to deliver that, and it’s really challenging. I managed to achieve that with London Grammar last year when I directed their promo for "Sights," and after that I started thinking about other interesting ways. While I was working on Guitar Hero Live (where each set is a continuous long take, experienced through the guitar player’s point of view), I started developing this idea of creating some sort of three-dimensional silkscreen, where I could compose high def frames within a single static camera shot. I’d create all the movements in post (zooms, quick pans, etc.), scanning this huge frame and giving a sense of multicam within a long static take.

When I first heard "STONEFIST," I immediately managed to get my head around that idea and finally put it on paper; the song had the right pace to get the best out of this visually-unusual live filming approach.

What challenges did you overcome in shooting the concert in 8K?

The shoot was actually the easiest live filming I’ve ever done. In order to create that sense of tridimensional slit-scanning, in addition to the 8K shot during the actual live concert, I shot some plates at soundcheck (medium shots one per band member at 8K) so that in post I could connect all the layers and push the resolution over 8K. Making sure band members positions, lights, and everything else on stage would be pretty identical at night for the actual show. Post-production wise, the offline was real fun cause anything I wanted to see in every single moment of the song was available. The online was a little bit more complex (due to the huge size of data we were dealing with), but it was perfectly executed by MPC in London, which came up with a work flow never tested before. A great learning process for me through out.

Were there any surprising benefits of the technology?

It just proved its beauty. As much high-def technology are available these days, we still live in an era where we watch content at 1080HD (YouTube/Vimeo). If you compare the size of a 1080 frame to the 8K that instantly gives you the scale of how much you can push your creativity in certain areas of filmmaking, including interactive projects and computer games.

What was the conversation with HEALTH like before they took the stage?

HEALTH are a great live band. The only direction for them was to stick on the same stage positions and movements between soundcheck and the actual concert, and try not to cover each other on stage.

What's next for you as an artist?

I want to dig more into the tech/interactive world, creating immersive experiences. Whether that means making another live action computer game or an interactive VR film, we’ll see.