LIL BUCK - SLO-MO OUTTAKE from HOTFOOT, From our upcoming T21 short film with LilBuck If youre a quick-view person... simply enjoy this slowed-down outtake set to decidedly non-1920s music. If you wanna dig deeper and know why we find this clip so fascinating, read on family, read on! -------------------- So Im in the LojoLab working on Lil Bucks scenes in our film HotFoot right? Right. Since this is a very light-hearted look at characters set in the world of Tulsas Black Wall Street in the 20s, the narrative structure and the performances are firmly rooted in the genre of Silent Screen Comedies of that era. This means Bucks dance performance is fast-paced and comedic and will sometimes even be slightly cranked (Old Hollywood term for the way hand-cranked cameras often resulted in subtly sped up action.) Youll get to see these amazing results when HotFoot drops next summer. Its a mad fun experience working on this joint!!! But as Im working on the footage, Im often watching it slowed down, the opposite of how the audience will see it in the end. In slo-mo, Im continually amazing at my bros amazing intuitive sense of line, shape and physical composition, as well as the way he is constantly creating innovative movement Ive rarely seen before. As a visual artist, this has ALWAYS excited me about Buck, from the first time I saw him dance. But slowed down its even more impressive. Case in point: check out the smooth grace with which he nails beautifully composed positions one after another, fluidly transitioning so fast that the eye can hardly catch it all unless its slowed down. And check out that little nonchalant pivot en pointe he does a couple seconds into this clip. As someone who thinks deeply about imagery and how it registers with an audience, this little split-second move is a brilliant piece of character choreography... it doesnt have the tightly balanced firmness of classical ballet, and its a little too goofy to fall into his regular choreographic vocabulary of swag-infused Jookin/Street Dance moves. The way he falls out of it, using it almost as an accidentally graceful trip or insecure stutter-step, is a result of instinctively understanding his character in this piece. It puts this move firmly in the company of Chaplins great physical comedy flourishes based on character. And this, LoJoFam, is just an outtake; Buck messin around between takes. I wanted to post it, otherwise it wouldnt be seen. My only regret in working with Buck on this project is that it had to happen so fast, under less-than-ideal conditions & the fact that I was so stooidly sleep-deprived & we were spread so thin. hahaha. We knew our first outing in the film world would have to be this way because as filmmakers we are an unproven commodity and would need to be entirely self-funded. Low budgets result in multiple hat-wearing and in this case, the multiple was a kinda astronomically high number. hahaha. (HUGE S/O to Buck for believing in our abilities implicitly, without question and jumping on board a crazy low-budget project in between his mega projects!!!) I long for the day we can work together again in this style (or other styles) and have time to sit down and fully discuss ways we can find new, brilliant ways to push Street Dance even further into areas of theatricality and character-based storytelling. We only scratched the surface & the wells are deep, friends, mad deep!!! Enjoy these few seconds, just a small taste of the hours of footage Im working with on the daily! Visual feasting!
Posted on: Wed, 02 Jul 2014 23:04:57 +0000