Drunk Drive by Vashi Nedomansky
Sometimes creativity can be triggered by one seemingly irrelevant thing. Sometimes that one thing can be right in front of you…hidden in plain sight. In my case that one thing was a stretch of winding road by my home that has thousands of reflectors on the median. I’ve driven this road hundreds of times. At night, the reflectors whiz by in a frantic blur and it suddenly reminded me of a video game I played as a youth…Atari’s NIGHT DRIVER.
I decided to film that patch of road at night with a Samsung NX1 4K camera, a Nikon 50mm f1.2 lens and a Cinemorph anamorphic filter. I wanted to capture the sensation of the video game but to shoot with the focus always inside the car so the reflectors and lights outside would appear as abstract blobs of bokeh. Nothing should look distinct or familiar.
During filming, I slowly swayed the camera to mimic the alcohol induced vision of a drunk driver. I found the resulting footage to be both beautiful and terrifying. The combination of speed, lights and no clear definition of location captured the feeling and deadly danger of drunk driving. This re-interpretation of my childhood video game memories looks a lot like the POV of a drunk driver:
My goal was not to glorify but to creatively emphasize the inherent risk to life and limb this act causes. I wanted to cinematically visualize the serene bubble of an impaired person and then show how quickly it could be shattered with disastrous results. A fusion of blurs and sonic tension.
After spending countless months inside a cave editing your work, it is refreshing to step out of the box, flex different muscles and capture the visions that have been percolating inside your head.
Premiere Pro CC 2015 UHD timeline (3840 x 2160)
Back in my edit cave, I cut this natively in Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2015 on a UHD (3840 x 2160) timeline to match the h.265 footage from the NX1. I used the Lumetri panel to color correct and applied a VisionColor Osiris LUT during the color grade. I layered a Grainzilla 4K 35mm Dirt Film Grain over the raw footage and used the OVERLAY blend mode. Lastly I placed a 2:1 UHD widescreen aspect ratio matte over the entire timeline. I wrote and recorded the music on Adobe Audition and mastered it with Izotope Ozone 6 using a Vintage Tube setting.
Here is the 4K version:
Until next time…
There are 2 comments
Just popped by to catch up on your blog and caught this. It’s amazing how short form film making can really capture an idea. The footage also reminded me of ‘2001’ where the lights play on Dave’s face. I was going to ask you what the .png was, but read it’s UHD matte.
Happy Thanksgiving – attack life Vashi!
-Lindbergh
Funny, how similar the images are compared to an music/poetry film I made some time ago. Sorry, the text is in german and the pictures often have a curtain connection to it, but the point is: We all share the same memory of those night getting home in a “blurry” state:)
https://vimeo.com/139844652
have fun