***Updated with how it was made - you wont believe it!***
Prepare to be amazed this Friday morning. It took André Chocron three months to produce this stunning piece of work. How he did the animation we don't know, but it looks like it was finished in Final Cut Pro.
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It was a bit hard to find out any more information as there is nobody on the FCP.co team that speaks Norwegian! There is an article with a video interview of André but alas that is in Norwegian too and Google Translate isn't really up to the text job.
We can tell you that it took 2 weeks to shoot and 3 months to edit which are impressive stats for a four minute video.
We will try and send a message to André to ask how he produced it, in the meantime if anybody can translate we would love to know what he says on the interview.
André got right back to us with this information:
"The process was pretty much this: We shot timelapse from early evening to the middle of the night, with most of the apartments illuminated for the first couple of hours and most of the apartments dark for the last couple of hours. I used the darkest part as the foundation for the individual sequences, and masked out all windows that were still lit, so that all windows were dark.
Next I made an individual layer for each window with lights on, by using the footage from the early evening. I organized them by creating a masterclip for each window, giving them sequential names and putting them in a grid.
I then put these individual clips on top of the sequence with dark windows to animate the lights going on and off.
PS I used the 4-point-mask, that took some patience...."
Wow, he's not kidding, anybody who has used an internal mask within FCP will know how long things take! Many thanks for getting in touch André.
"Official music video for Cold Mailman - "Time is of the essence". This is a shortened version of the song. The original song is available on their critically acclaimed second album "Relax; the mountain will come to you" . For more info about Cold Mailman, visit coldmailman.com/​"
Director and animator: André Chocron
Director of photography: Audun Magnæs
Colorist: Camilla Holst Vea at Storyline Studios
Conform: Raymond Gangstad
Cast:
Haugenstua brl
Vestlitoppen brl
Tveita brl
Solfjellet brl
Ammerudlia brl
Supported by Groruddalssatsningen: prosjekt-groruddalen.oslo.kommune.no/​
I am the Editor-in-Chief of FCP.co and have run the website since its inception ten years ago.
I have also worked as a broadcast and corporate editor for over 30 years, starting on one inch tape, working through many formats, right up to today's NLEs.
Under the name Idustrial Revolution, I have written and sold plugins for Final Cut Pro for 13 years.
I was made a Freeman of Lichfield through The Worshipful Company of Smiths (established 1601). Though I haven't yet tried to herd a flock of sheep through the city centre!
Current Editing
2020 has been busy, the beginning of the year was finishing off a new property series (cut on FCP) for Channel 4 called The Great House Giveaway. I also designed and built the majority of the graphics as Motion templates. It has been a great success and the shows grabbed more viewers in the 4pm weekday slot than any previous strand. It has been recommissioned by C4 for 60 episodes, including prime-time versions and five themed programmes. The shows have also been nominated for a 2021 BAFTA.
Although both were postponed to later in the year, I worked again on ITV's coverage of the Tour de France and La Vuelta. 2020 was my 25th year of editing the TdF and my 20th year as lead editor. The Tour was the first broadcast show to adopt FCPX working for multiple editors on shared storage.
BBC's Snooker has played a big part in my life, I've been editing tournament coverage since 1997. I'm proud to be part of a very creative team that has pioneered many new ideas and workflows that are now industry standard in sports' production. This is currently an Adobe Premiere edit.
Covid cancelled some of the regular corporate events that I edit such as trade shows & events. I was lucky however to edit, from home, on projects for Amazon Kindle, Amazon Black Friday, Mastercard and very proud to have helped local charitable trust Kendall & Wall secure lottery funding.
As for software, my weapon of choice is Final Cut Pro and Motion, but I also have a good knowledge and broadcast credits with Adobe Premiere Pro, MOGRT design and Photoshop.
Plugin Design & Development
I'm the creative force behind Idustrial Revolution, one of the oldest Final Cut Pro plugin developers. It hosts a range of commercial and free plugins on the site. One free plugin was downloaded over a thousand times within 24 hours of release.
I also take on custom work, whether it is adapting an existing plugin for a special use or designing new plugins for clients from scratch. Having a good knowledge of editing allows me to build-in flexibility and more importantly, usability.
FCP.co
Now in its 10th year and 4th redesign, running FCP.co has given me knowledge on how to run a large CMS- you are currently reading my bio from the database! Although it sounds corny, I am pretty well up on social media trends & techniques, especially in the video sector. The recent Covid restrictions has enabled live FCP.co shows online. This involves managing a Zoom Webinar through Restream.io to YouTube and Facebook.
The Future
I'm always open to new ideas and opportunities, so please get in touch at editor (at) fcp.co. I've judged film competitions, presented workflow techniques to international audiences and come up with ideas for TV shows and software programs!
