The ongoing feature tracking the progress on the production of the new Images in Vogue video for "Look Me in the Eye" is reaching it's climax! Gary has shared his final experiences of finishing the editing and although the story is complete I think the journey has just begun.

A special thank you to Gary Smith for keeping us in the loop and sharing his experiences with the epic task. We hope to bring you the electronic press kit for this video very soon!

Giving us this exclusive image was pretty darn nice too! >>>

Look Me in the Eye
Video Journal

Video Preview | Video Credits

As told by Gary Smith
Bass Synth/Bass Guitar Player and Co-Founder of Images in Vogue

Oct 31, 2004

It's official!

The date of the music video shoot for "Look Me in the Eye" will be December 18th in Vancouver. The location is to be determined but we have a hold on The Vogue Theatre for that day.

Mmmmm, Images in Vogue at the Vogue! Not bad huh?

The confirmed line-up is ... Dale Martindale, Gary Smith, Joe Vizvary, Glen Nelson & Ed Shaw. Still no confirmation on who the drummer will be. Kevin Crompton's commitment to Skinny Puppy's North American tour most likely prevent him from participating. Derrick Gyles has expressed his desire to be part of this but still has issues around travel. Sean Stubbs has agreed to be part of the line up, once again, if called upon to do so.

We are still in the process of raising money to help make this video a reality. Without big label support or management we must do this ourselves.

Dec 19, 2004

The "Look Me in the Eye" music video shoot happened yesterday at The Bridge Studios in Vancouver, B.C. The line up that recorded the original tracks for the song were all present. Dale Martindale, Gary Smith, Joe Vizvary, Glen Nelson, Ed Shaw & Derrick Gyles performed the song in a massive sound stage within a stunning set. Thanks to our director, Gary Harvey & our Director of Photography, Adam Sliwinski, for getting absolutely amazing footage.

The band members of Images in Vogue would like to thank everyone who helped us make this video. It could not of happened without the time and the efforts of these people. This includes everyone who supported us by purchasing an item from the online auction, equipment suppliers, the F4/IIV camera dept., our incredible shooting crew, our production office team, Darlene Choo & a special thanks to Cheryl Inkster, who's belief in this project helped turn an idea into reality.

Yesterday, Director (Gary Harvey), Director of Photography (Adam Sliwinski) & Producer (Gary Smith) oversaw the film to tape transfer of the new IIV music video for "Look Me in the Eye". The footage is excellent, all 7,000 feet of it. We shot the video at 2:35:1 aspect ratio (wide screen) on Kodak 35mm film. Adam & Gary H. directed the colourist through several reels of footage, manipulating colour & framing throughout. The sad thing is we can't use it all. There are so many amazing shots & moments but of course Gary Harvey now begins the next phase which is, of course, editing the footage to create the video. This will happen during the month of January. We hope to have a finished version available to deliver in early February. I think this video will surprise a lot of people ... IIV are back!

Feb 20, 2005

The editing stage (aka the off-line edit) of Images in Vogue's new music video for "Look Me in the Eye" is done! We hope to add some visual effects & graphics next. The online assembly (which includes dissolves & titles) will most likely occur in late March. We hope to deliver the final version to Much Music & Divine Industries by the first week of April.

A big THANK YOU goes out to our film editor, James Lawson. He's done an amazing job cutting the over 7,000 feet footage together.

There will be a "behind the scenes" EPK released at the same time as the music video. It's amazing to see all of the incredible technicians & equipment that went into creating this video. Another big THANK YOU goes out to Rob Perisian @ Video Split for shooting & cutting together the EPK on his own time. Although we will try to make the EPK available through the IIV web site, we also plan to put together a release/screening event geared toward all of the amazing people who have worked on this video as well as our fans who have supported this thing from the ground up.

March 1, 2005

Meeting went well on Saturday with Super Suite. I made a good deal to finish the video & go down the visual fx road as well. Our online assembly will happen this upcoming Saturday with a visual fx creative spotting meeting the next day.

I also received my contract with VideoFACT yesterday. It's basically an agreement outlining conditions around accepting the award & delivery specs.

March 5, 2005

The VideoFACT contract is signed & mailed back. The online session & visual fx spotting will likely occur now next weekend versus this weekend. Our sessions at Super Suite will be confirmed early next week. It's hard to move forward while I'm working on another project. I'm finished the "Behind The Camera : Diff'rent Strokes" movie on the 23rd of March. I'll finish up shortly after that.

I'm going to try to put together a video release event in early April.

March 18, 2005

IIV's "Look Me in the Eye" will be complete by the end of March. I am going into a digital post production facility here in Vancouver to do our On Line Assembly on March 24th. March 28th will see us complete a few visual FX shots as well as adding closed captioning for the hard of hearing.

March 25,2005

The new IIV video is now been through the online assembly process & is 98% done!!

The day did not go entirely smoothly ... but that said, the end result was good.

The first problem we had was one computer talking to another. The file which contained our "locked" off line edit was not compatible with the system we were doing our online assembly on. Our technician, Jeffery, quickly solved the problem though & we were off to the races.

We then put together the video from our digital beta master tapes & our several several edit points. This took about 1.5 hours to assemble. We then had to sync up the audio to the assembled video.

Joe Vizvary arrived around noon. We were able to watch the completed video on a big screen. The control room had a very nice digital projector & the quality of the image was impressive. First reaction was that the audio seemed slightly out of sync. Jeffery informed us that there was a slight delay with the audio when watching the screen but if we watched it on a data monitor the sync would be more accurate. We did that. I identified a few minor issues that I felt needed tweaking. There was a shot where Dale looks directly into camera. This was a powerful shot that I felt needed to be trimmed ever so slightly because you could see him beginning to look away. By trimming two frames off the end off the shot, we achieved our goal. The other thing was ... there were three wide shots that had some equipment and ladders in them that bothered me. We were able to fix two of the three shots by zooming in on the frames & tracking that zoom until we were clean of the gear.

We ended up replacing the audio because it was discovered that our guide track during shooting was mono. Neither of us had a copy of the Chronology CD with us, so we had to hit nearby stores to find and buy a copy. We found one at Future Shop & headed back to fix that.

Our day ended with tweaking a section that we both felt was okay but could use some improvement. We also decided not to go down the visual fx road at all. The video holds up well on it's own. It's a performance piece that captures the energy of the band performing the song. Adding graphics or a conceptual thread was considered but it's apparent now that we really don't need it. Maybe on the next one. We actually shot footage with the intention of adding a female "memory" in Dale's mind but it just didn't fit.

I head back on Monday to take one last look. I'll be adding a few credits & then sending it out for closed captioning.

March 28th, 2005

The last opportunity to make some final adjustments. I needed to look at the video again with fresh eyes. I watched it again and was able to identify about 5 spots that I felt could be improved. What Jeffrey & I decided to do was review all of the footage that we shot & then capture shots or sections we thought were candidates as replacement footage.

There was a section that we had worked on the previous Thursday and although it was better, it still need something. I needed to find an alternate shot of Dale singing a specific line in the song. We eventually did that after some frustrating issues around the decision not to sync the sound during our film to tape transfer back in late December. I then adjusted the timing of the previous shot which was a stretched out image of the band. That did it, that section now felt right.

There were still shots that had the yellow ladders in them. They were still bothering me, so we searched for alternate shots that were similar & found them. The third shot was the most problematic. The solution ended up being cutting out a section of the wall in the background & pasting it over the eye sore. The end result looked as if the wall was closing in on itself and that a big door was opening. It's very subtle & very cool.

There was a shot of Derrick with a lot of dead space on the left of frame. So the decision was made to jump cut in toward him. It works well. We also added a few flash frames on some drum hits & to break up some off speed (slow motion) shots at the end. We took out a shot within that last sequence in order to get a shot of Joe in there. We had no slow mo shot of Joe, so we created the effect by slowing down a regular 24 fps shot of him.

I added a shot of the Chronology CD cover at the very end as well as VideoFACT text.

We created a slate with all the technical info that is required as well as key credits such as Director, Producers, Director of Photography & Editors. We also added 2 second blip which is essentially a countdown. It's a 2 with a circle around it & an audio blip that tells the technician that the video will start in 2 seconds.

So the video is done! It has been sent out for closed captioning which be complete by late Wednesday. On Thursday, the master digital Beta tapes will be dubbed. On Friday I will deliver to VideoFACT, Much Music & Divine Industries.

We recorded the bed tracks for this song in 1986 in Dee Long's studio in Buttonville, Ontario. In April of 2005, a music video for the song will finally be released. If anyone would have told us then what would happen, I'm sure we would have thought them somewhat loopy! I hope you all enjoy the finish project as much as we enjoyed the process of making this video.

Thank you again to everyone who helped make this video possible,

Gary Smith
"Look Me in the Eye" music video producer

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