Tones and I’s new music video, ‘Won’t Sleep’ edited and graded with DaVinci Resolve Studio

Tones and I’s new Won’t Sleep music video was edited and graded with DaVinci Resolve Studio (Conception Blackmagic) by Melbourne’s Visible Studios. Using DaVinci Resolve Studio’s edit, cut and color correction pages in conjunction with the DaVinci Resolve Speed Editor, Visible was able to complete the complicated post process in less than a week.

Won’t Sleep is the first single from Tones and I’s new “Welcome to the Mad House” album, and the music video for the song has been viewed millions of times around the world in only a few weeks. The video, directed by Nick Kozakis and Liam Kelly, follows two children as they stumble upon a house in the woods and find themselves in the middle of a horror filled party.

Visible Studios, who have worked on music videos for Tones and I’s biggest hits, produced and completed post production on “Won’t Sleep.” The video was the largest production for any of the singer’s music videos and included 90 dancers and 36 make up artists.

“The video’s influences are a mix of Tim Burton, The Rocky Horror Picture show and Moulin Rouge, with a lot of visual clues from the movie Matilda. There is a huge amount going on in the video and we relied on DaVinci Resolve to pull it all together,” said Timothy Whiting, producer, Visible Studios.

The look and feel of the video changes constantly, jumping from a cinematic, natural forest look for the children at the beginning to claustrophobic dark shadows, the deep reds of a fun house, a dark and forbidding void that contrasted with the crowded party scenes, herky jerky camera movements and dramatic lighting effects.

“We worked closely with Tones, our amazing head of makeup Danielle Ruth and art director Bianca Milani to develop all the different looks. It was a real collaborative effort but also gave us the task of bringing together all of these amazing ideas in post,” Whiting continued.

“For the main party scene we were looking to go for a scary fun house vibe that had creepy elements, but was still relatively accessible. It needed to have deep reds that were interspaced with lightning effects that would reveal the full extent of the makeup. And it was important for us that the house was full of people, with lots of activity and lots of unique makeup looks and dynamic camera moves,” he said.

Agility with Speed Editor

For the closeups of the various monsters and freaks at the party, as well as for the POV shots from the children, Visible Studios used DaVinci Resolve Studio’s zoom blur effect along with the Speed Editor extensively.

“We made heavy use of the zoom blur effect on the closeups of the party freaks to heighten the POV perspective of the children. It was filmed in roughly two days and we captured a lot of footage, and with a tight turn around the Speed Editor was extremely useful in quickly reviewing footage,” Whiting said.

He continued: “We also used Resolve’s patch tool to remove exit signs and smoke detectors, the output blanking feature to transition between aspect ratios inside and outside the house and the color warper to achieve the silvery look in the forest. And even more important since it is a horror story, we were able to use the patch tool to duplicate the smoke in places to make it feel more full in places where it had dissipated.”

One of the more difficult aspects of the post production process for the video was in managing and grading a video that included a large crowd in a small space, many with unique looks. DaVinci Resolve Studio’s editing, grading and Fusion VFX tools being available all in a single app, along with the collaboration tools, made the entire process efficient

“Resolve streamlines the whole process of editing, color and VFX by having it all in one place. With a lot of different setups, we could start grading while waiting for feedback, so we were able to establish looks early and not have to rush it at the end. There’s always some things that sneak into shots that we fix in post, be it through removals, cropping in footage or adding effects. With Resolve we can make these changes all through the process as they are noticed, without worrying about it affecting other departments or being lost in a conform,” he continued.