Directing duo nautico return to the pages of DN with One Wing, an alluring video for handsome New York twosome Beaû in which beautifully composed domestic shots of band members Heather Boo and Emma Rose are intersected with matter of fact, subtlety delivered moments of high strangeness. nautico join us to discuss pulling off VFX shots on a limited budget and why the sea calls their name.
How did the commission from Beaû come to you? Did they already have a clear idea for the concept?
We were initially approached by Kitsune who saw the music video we did for BRNS and liked our style. They said they were developing a new artist for their label and sent us some of Beaû’s tracks. They left the idea to us and it was entirely open-ended, but of course after seeing a few photos of the girls we knew we wanted to feature them in the video since they are so stunning. The girls have a really rich and unique style that’s a blend of folk, bohemian chic, and 70s singer-songwriter. There is an effortless glamour about them that we wanted to tap into for the piece.
You shot RED again for One Wing, this time the Dragon with Anamorphic zooms. What is it about RED that makes it your go to system?
We knew we wanted to do a lot of zooms for this music video and we wanted to have the extra resolution. A lot of the zooms were shot practically. We used a vintage Cooke 16 – 100 lens with an anamorphic adapter that also worked as a doubler. However, a lot of the zooms were also done digitally. It would have been difficult to edit the whole piece with the practical zooms, although they do look way better than the digital ones!
The video features a levitation VFX shot, could you walk us through how you pulled that off on such a small budget?
The levitation is a good story. We wanted to hire a professional stunt crew for that but it would have been almost $2K. The budget for the video was only $10K and that also included the girls and the label reps flights. So we didn’t end up having enough money to pay for it. We were super bummed and our gaffer Lucas heard what was happening and said he could help us rig something up with his mountain climbing gear. We shot that outside in our producer’s backyard against a green screen 2x frame, then just comped it into the plate of the balcony. Worked like a dream and cost next to nothing!
Do you guys have another short in the works? What will we get to see from you next?
We don’t have another short in the works but we have something else that’s very big and exciting. We can’t say what it is yet because we don’t want to jinx it… and it might not be ready for another year or two – but stay tuned! 🙂 Hopefully there are more music videos in store though! Don’t have any coming up yet… so musicians get at us haha.
It’s about time we asked – what’s the genesis of the name ‘nautico’?
It’s related to the sea! When we first moved out to LA from the midwest we were broke and all we did was smoke weed and surf and we became obsessed with the ocean and the element of water. We’ve since moved to the east side of the city and no longer get out to the beach as frequently, but the name still feels very fitting.
