The music video for TikTok’s hit ‘Habit’ by Sekai No Owari was graded with DaVinci Resolve Studio

The combination of DaVinci Resolve Studio software and Blackmagic’s Mini Panel controller has shaped the colour of Habit, a song by Sekai No Owari with over 1.5 billion plays on TikTok.

The music video for Habit, which appeals to young people and tries to tell them not to classify themselves into a category and live only according to it, shows the members of the music group dressed as teachers and professional dancers dressed as students.

Filming was directed by Koretaka Kamiike, while Hajime Kato (Tokyo’s is’ eye inc.) was in charge of colour grading with DaVinci Resolve Mini software e a Mini pannello DaVinci Resolve device. In parallel, Kamiike used a Video Assist 7″ 12G HDR monitor and recorder on set. “I bring the Video Assist with me every time I shoot as it is compact and lightweight. The playback response of the Video Assist is very fast, and it can be used intuitively, so I can ask my assistant or production staff to operate it. It also gives me many codec options for recording, and I like that it supports SD cards,” says the director himself.

The colour treatment was not without its challenges, as Kato recalls: “To express introverted and extroverted feelings in the lyrics, I changed the grading by scenes. For the introvert scenes, I graded the scene darker yet tried to retain the detail in shadow. I also added blue tint in midtone to highlight an area in several scenes but changed the amount of the blue tint in each scene. DaVinci Resolve Studio allowed me to easily adjust the intensity of my grade by node. I also use Resolve’s magic mask often when grading and used the tool to adjust the color of the wall and the band members.”

A new version of the music video

The combination of music and choreography in the music video made the song very popular and led to a music video in collaboration with YouTube star Hikanin. Kato colour-coded this version to look exactly like the original: “As it was shot on a different camera and at a different location, it was actually hard to match to the original look, but with DaVinci Resolve, I managed to get a close look to the original.”

Taking stock of the project, Kamiike is pleased with the Blackmagic Design solution: “ DaVinci Resolve is a life saver tool when you need help, but it is more than that. It constantly adds new features that push us to create better works.” Kato shares his colleague’s opinion: “DaVinci Resolve definitely makes your work more refined. It allows me to control colors the way I envision them.”