Dan Black feat. Kelis – Hearts
2013 · Directed by Chic & Artistic
2.2K Likes
Best comments
1.“That's dedication, man – I would pass out after like the first two hours.”
More comments
- 2.“From 9:50 to 16:45, he isn't in the scene – only on printed media. That's 7 (!!) hours. Enough for a long, relaxing sleep.”
- 3.“I hope he wore enough sunblock...”
The story
Dan Black spent 24 hours on a Paris rooftop so you could watch a day go by in three and a half minutes. The camera fired one frame every 16 seconds, from 11 in the morning to 11 the next morning, about 5,400 shots in all, while the city moved and the sky turned over behind him.
The hard part was the singing. Before the shoot they filmed Black's face up close singing the song, then played that footage back to him on the roof one frame at a time so he could match the mouth shape for each shot. A looping voice cue told the crew when to fire. He didn't even start lip-syncing until about three hours in. Kelis filmed her part separately, at Marconi Studios in Rome, and it was worked into the time-lapse.
Chic & Artistic is the creative agency of Corinne Black, Dan's wife, and the idea came from that old movie shot of a camera flying through a city, flipped so Dan stays put above it while life rushes past. He wrote Hearts with Kelis during a session in Spain, then asked to keep it for himself. She said yes. It led off his album Do Not Revenge. One man, one roof, one very long day, and a song about fixing broken people.
