The idea behind the Ivy Green music video “Stomp Yo Feet” was simple enough. Ivy would paint a picture of herself in an art studio. As she is painting the picture of herself, it comes to life and begins singing the “Stomp” song. After the painting is fully converted to a moving landscape of colors and textures, with the pictureland Ivy in the middle, the real Ivy takes the painting down from it’s isle and carries it through the streets of Berlin.
We shot all over the city, mainly using a 5D Mark II, with a 50mm 1.2 lens, mounted on a steady cam. We focused our first two days of shooting on the eastern side of the city in Friedrichshain, by the crumbling wall, that is now covered with graffiti and large art exhibits called the East Side Gallery. The art studio we used was also nearby.
To make it easier for our VFX guy to track and composite Ivy in the painting world, while being carried down the street, we fastened a thick piece of green screen paper to the inside of the picture frame.
The third day of shooting took us to strange partially abandoned building that every inch of was covered with old concert flyers and graffiti. It was ten stories high; and the very top floors had been converted into shabby artist residences. We shot on the bottom two floors.
The scene was: Ivy carries the painting into the building and mounts it on one of the graffiti sewn walls. The camera zooms into the painting and we are suddenly transported to a huge party in the exact same room with tons of people wearing strange animal masks.
We shot with two 5D’s, one on sticks with a 70-200mm lens and the other with the earlier steady cam set up. The extras and dancers were great, though it took a few beers to loosen them up that my producer handed out. Oh to be shooting in Germany where beer is subsidized by the Government! It’s everywhere, even in movie theaters and Mc’donneys.
After pulling off the party scene that left only the last green-screen shots of Ivy to capture before we could rap. After negotiating with multiple small studios there in Berlin, we found one that would work with our budget. The place was called Frogfish Studios. The shooting went smoothly, though they didn’t have a green screen available so we were forced to shoot on a blue one. Which was not ideal but for the short notice and price was worth it in the end.
You can view the video here:
Shot in Berlin on the 5D Mark II.
Idea by: Damon Cirulli
Produced by: Sebastian Budde
Directed by: Damon Cirulli
Shot by: Larkin Donley and Damon Cirulli
Edited by: Shay Datcher
