MUMBAI: Blackmagic Design today announced that Areia Creations, an independent record label from South Korea, shoots its music videos using Blackmagic cameras, including the URSA Mini Pro and URSA Mini 4.6K PL, and colour grades using DaVinci Resolve.

Aiming to expand the global k-pop genre by infusing it with fresh talent from varied cultures, Areia Creations produces catchy music videos with crisp colors to showcase their artists’ talents and range of artists and bands, including B.O.S.S, FMT, Roh Siena, Liah and AMAX.

Taking an artist-first approach, Areia Creations styles its K-pop music videos pointedly. With each individual or group emoting a different flavour of K-pop, the Korea based record label understands the importance of a distinctive visual brand.

“Apart from our own signed artists, we work with local independent artists with varying budgets. These are not your everyday indie artists. They are beauty conscious, well-trained groups, with choreographed songs that are after the popular K-pop look and are looking for something visually impressive in their music videos. The challenge for us is to deliver them that vision regardless of what their budget is,” explain Georgios Jun the director for the music videos.

B.O.S.S., a pan asian girl group from the Philippines, blends Fillipina inspiration with K-pop to produce a strong charismatic flavour to the genre. Under Korean management, their title single, Fly High, was shot by Areia Creations in two days using the Blackmagic URSA Mini 4.6K PL, with colour correction done on DaVinci Resolve.

“In most of our projects, we shoot the music video in two different languages. From choreographed routines, to solo performances, it all means two of every shot. The Raw 4:1 option is heaven-sent for music video shoots. It has the flexibility of RAW but it’s much easier on storage space so we can avoid having to offload footage,” said Areia Tryfonas.

He continued, “The most challenging day was the first because it was an outdoor shoot. Though the weather kept changing and we only had that day to shoot, we managed to get good detail on skin tone, scenery and the sky. Mostly thanks to the URSA Mini 4.6K’s amazing dynamic range, some 12”x12” poly boards for light bounce, and of course Blackmagic’s DaVinci Resolve in post?production.”

FMT expands the K-pop genre with an energetic blend of hip-hop and rap. The boy group from Korea combines rap verses and beats with strong K-pop style dancing. The trio’s debut music video Melt In Your Mouth was filmed indoors in a 20-hour non-stop project.

“This shoot was tricky because there were neon light strips in the back and heavy use of smoke. This resulted in heavy casts throughout the image. The shots were balanced in post thanks to Resolve and the flexibility of the RAW format.”

Apart from being a passionate recording artist, Roh Siena possesses great talent in song-writing, music arrangement and production, as well as sculpturing and fashion design. To showcase the Korea based songstress’s diverse range of talents, high dynamic range and superior capture quality was essential in showing the layered textures of her video set for her single Stay.

“Stay was one of the first projects where I was a one-man team. From planning, to lighting and filming up to colour grading. I drove to the location with the artist and worked together on every little detail. Just a few years ago, all our efforts would be restricted into a highly compressed, low dynamic range output. With a Blackmagic camera, I was able to capture crisp footage that allowed me to deliver something beyond expectations,” said the director regarding the Stay production.

“Liah is an independent Korean R and B artist. From the song creation and recording up to designing and filming the music video, we worked together. The location we were shooting at had severe restrictions on the number of people allowed on set, so I could only bring one more person for assistance. Due to the small team we only had enough time to properly light one of the two sets and instead use only standard and practical lighting on the second room. At the same time, we needed slow motion shots at 60 fps with a 90 shutter since that was the motion feel we were after. Even in those settings and without any pro filming lighting, the footage was clean and crisp. With some careful relighting in DaVinci Resolve, the shots matched nicely the rest of the music video,” explained Areia Tryfonas.

For a recent shoot with the Korean duo AMAX, Areia Creations used the new URSA Mini PRO. “AMAX is a male Korean duo. Their music video includes choreography, storyline, modelling and performance shots all in a one set location. This was the first time I was filming with the URSA Mini Pro. The internal ND filters allowed me to keep the camera light and be able to keep the aperture wide open for achieving a cinematic look in close ups. At the same time this was the first time I had the option to choose between the EF and PL mounts allowing for a much broader choice of lenses. With a small crew that were working with the camera for the first time, it took them just a few minutes to get familiar with the controls of the camera,” said Areia Tryfonas.