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This epic Aussie, one-take music video was shot in 5K

This music video from Melbourne band Clubfeet was shot in one continuous take — but it doesn't look like any normal one-take video you've seen before.

Lexy Savvides Principal Video Producer
Lexy is an on-air presenter and award-winning producer who covers consumer tech, including the latest smartphones, wearables and emerging trends like assistive robotics. She's won two Gold Telly Awards for her video series Beta Test. Prior to her career at CNET, she was a magazine editor, radio announcer and DJ. Lexy is based in San Francisco.
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Lexy Savvides
2 min read

This music video from Melbourne band Clubfeet was shot in one continuous take — but it doesn't look like any normal one-take video you've seen before.

(Screenshot by CBSi)

A steadicam follows the lead singer along a deserted street during twilight hours, as he walks, jumps and interacts with future frames of himself. Watch the video below to see the full effect.

"The effect was achieved by masking out each still pose or element, and then tracking it backwards in 3D until it leaves frame," said director Josh Thomas. "Some of the still elements were manipulated and distorted to reduce the flatness when closer to camera."

Made by creative studio Oh Yeah Wow! — who are also responsible for this Gotye number and an amazing light-painting music video — the Clubfeet video was shot at 50 frames per second on a Red Epic at 5K resolution.

The scenes involving water were particularly difficult to map out, and took Thomas a day or two to get his head around. He ended up having to scale the 2D image in 3D space to achieve the desired effect. Being able to shoot in 5K made scaling up these elements a lot easier though, and gave Thomas much more detail to work with.

Choreographing the band also took a lot of effort. "It was shot at twice the speed, so the band were [actually] moving much faster than they seem to be. Every pose had to be timed precisely to beats in the song, and it took a dozen or so takes to get it right," said Thomas.

"Nine umbrellas were killed in the making of this video."