Expansive Sci Fi Music Video Cozey Created with Blackmagic Design
Brie Clayton June 13, 2023
0 Comments
Filmmaker and musical artist Mitchell Abraham, the creative force behind the Aerosol Jezus music project, knew he wanted to create a unique and compelling music video for his single Cozey. Usually, with limited budgets, concepts end up being simplified and diminished to a simple artist performance, but Abraham was determined to avoid that trap. Instead, he joined up with cinematographer Zach Ostapchenko, using a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K digital film camera with DaVinci Resolve Studio editing, color grading, visual effects (VFX) and audio post production software to create something truly out of this world.
The shoot spanned locations as diverse as the jungle, snow covered mountain tops and vast deserts, none of which were created with VFX techniques. We sat down with Abraham to discuss the concept of the music video, how he achieved such amazing visuals, and the value of finishing in DaVinci Resolve Studio.
Some contents or functionalities here are not available due to your cookie preferences!
This happens because the functionality/content marked as Vimeo framework uses cookies that you choosed to keep disabled. In order to view this content or use this functionality, please enable cookies: click here to open your cookie preferences.
Where did you get the idea for this video? The credit for the story's origin goes to my younger brother, Robert Abraham, an incredibly skilled writer/filmmaker in his own right. He pitched me the rough idea for the video: a spaceman lured through a jungle by a floating red diamond, hypnotized into removing his suit, and ending with him singing catatonically as he's spun up in a spiderweb. The concept paired beautifully with the song Cozey, which is about seduction and one's willingness to be seduced.
How did you manage to travel to so many diverse locations for the shoot? Honestly, with my car, staying in budget motels, and keeping the production to a two person crew: myself and cinematographer Zach Ostapchenko. Zach initially came aboard as the DP but quickly took on multiple roles since we'd set up each shot and then I'd have to get in front of the camera.
Adding more crew members would've destroyed the budget because there was a lot of waiting around for the weather to cooperate. It was tough, but it allowed us time to experiment, which was necessary since much of the shoot took place during magic hour.
Planet hopping wasn't part of the original outline, though. During the first week of the shoot, Zach and I realized we were missing essential character/story beats. Our character needed a flaw, one we could visually convey, that would lead to his seduction and eventual downfall. So, we introduced the idea of obsession. We outlined the story in our grungy motel room, and the result is pretty close to the final video.
Of course, in hindsight, our solution (having the protagonist scour the galaxy compulsively searching for elusive gems on desolate yet distinguishable planets before finding the motherlode in the jungle) was completely insane. Whatever the reason, be it ambition, naivety, or just plain lack of sleep, we decided to tackle virtually every environment that has plagued filmmakers throughout history, all for one music video. Because, you know, how bad could it really be?
What made you choose the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K for the production? For this project, I needed a motorcycle, not an 18 wheeler. We found ourselves climbing mountains and trekking miles into the jungle, which required something lightweight and nimble to reach locations that would've been out of reach if we were using bulky gear. The Pocket 4K has a great sensor, fantastic color science, and outperforms most when it comes to low light performance. It's such a great price for all that value, and that means you're not lighting cash on fire renting an expensive system daily. I didn't just buy a great camera; I bought more days on the schedule.
What matters is what's in front of the camera. If the camera is big, that means a heavier tripod, heavier gimbal, and so on. With Zach operating mostly solo, the Pocket 4K was the perfect choice. Plus, I can't stand menu diving, and Blackmagic Design's operating systems are the best. We needed to move fast, set up as many shots as possible each day, and the ability to switch settings quickly and confidently was crucial.
Did you shoot Blackmagic RAW, and if so can you talk about what value it brought to the project? Blackmagic RAW is outstanding. We shot everything Constant Bitrate 3:1, which might have been overkill, but I wanted as much information as possible to assist with VFX, since most of our shooting was lowlight. We also rarely had time to shoot color cards, so being able to adjust ISO, temperature, and tint settings in post production was crucial, particularly for matching plates and tweaking shots to stitch things together.
Moreover, the highlight recovery feature is incredible. I'm not sure how it works, but it's amazing. We used cheap headlamps within the red diamond to light it up, which caused intense hotspots at higher ISO levels, but highlight recovery effortlessly removed them.
Can you talk about any particular scene that was a unique challenge to shoot? The spiderweb sequence was difficult. It was the only thing we shot in a studio. It was too complicated to do on location, and we needed safety measures to ensure I wouldn't fall and break my neck. Also, the wrong gimbal was delivered that day, so we had to manually achieve the 180 degree camera rotation by spinning a Steadicam rig while I was lowered.
I did extensive research to make sure Zach and I were safe and prepared for each location. We had gotten through b
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Expansive Sci Fi Music Video Cozey Created with Blackmagic Design 
