A friend of one of the fp girls made the May catalog video (see the previous entry) and it turned out so amazing, we wanted to share a little about his process and inspiration. Here is what Ram had to say about his work on the project.
“Carrie (fp creative director) first sent me a 3-4 minute cut done there with music and everything. I used that footage and grabbed stills from it I liked compositionally and took them into Photoshop to create color boards. The whole idea was to create a dreamy feel for the video. This is something I like to incorporate into a lot of what I do.
My background is illustration, specifically in concept art and matte painting, which is basically just creating images which don’t actually exist, but could in a potential fantasy world. The boards showed how far I’d like to push the piece. From there, David Bokser and I requested more footage. I scrubbed through it and found everything I liked and then we started on the final edit. I also knew I wanted it to end with “Free People” written in the clouds. I also spent a good bit of time going through the footage to find frames of the behind the scenes people and even some other interesting shots and treated them with texture and color for the “flicker” shots through the whole piece. I’ll post some of the favorites on my website once the video is released.
The choice of music was difficult at first. When Carrie initially brought up the possibility of doing this I had some music in mind that reminded me of the drive down the Pacific Coast Highway (where Big Sur is). I really wanted to use a certain track, but I didn’t want that to dictate the mood. I wanted the clothing and the models to be first. When Dave played me the piano track, I was hesitant at first to let go of what I originally wanted but after a few listens and some changes I enjoyed it more and more and felt it was fitting.
I really love Free People. Is that weird for a guy to say? :) I think maybe the cute models have something to do with it. Ha, no really, what I love most about FP is the use of textures, patterns, and color. I am one to always incorporate texture and rich color into what I do. I think the clothing just looks great, it has a vintage flare to it but very modern and stylish. Another quality I really love is how the inspirations for the trend come from around the world. I’d love to do a photoshoot for Free People on location and create a catalog and video.
The creative inspiration question… always a tough one. A while back, Kara (from fp) introduced me to a photographer, Tim Walker, whose work I’d seen before but now that I knew the name I fell in love with the work when I saw an entire gallery of it altogether. His work, alongside a slew of fashion photographers, have been really inspirational. I’ve actually come up with some photo shoots of my own that I hope to start working on soon. A huge director inspiration for me these days has been Bruno Aveillan. His video for Louis Vuitton is incredible and his cinematography is practically flawless. In the future I’d love to come on set and shoot the videos for Free People as a more narrative piece that incorporates the clothing as the showcase.”
The music is by an artist named Michael David Crawford. Ram said “We basically wanted something dreamy and devoid of words so we could focus on the visuals. I do love piano and want desperately to learn to play. :) Originally the piece was going to incorporate an E.E. Cummings poem I really liked, but after the edit and visual effects were done, we were really happy with it and didn’t want to detract from what we already had.”
Ram’s web site: www.rambhat.com
David Bokser’s site: www.davidbokser.com
