Black Veil Brides dropped the music video for “Cut” a day before the release of the band's seventh studio album, Vindicate. The track marks the eight collaboration with Lillith Czar - lead singer Andy Biersack's wife - and showcases an epic side of the band with their use of symphonic orchestration, including violin.
Max Moore (maxmoorefilms.com) directed the music video shoot, which took place in Los Angeles on April 21st. The video was inspired by Tim Burton's The Corpse Bride and features Andy reassembling Lillith, sewing her arms and legs back into place, allowing her to once again come to life for a dance before she is lost forever.
According to Moore, the project had a tight turnaround, with the video due for delivery on May 6th. That said, he had a strong idea of what he needed to cover during the shoot, as he would also serve as the project's editor.
"Since I usually edit all of the music videos I direct, I always go into a shoot knowing exactly which pieces of the puzzle we need for each part of the song," Moore explains. "There are certain styles of videos where you find those answers on-set as you go, to some degree, but this definitely wasn’t one of them.”
Director of photography Tamara Santos used an Arri Alexa Mini LF for the shoot, paired with Cooke Panchro Si lenses. The latter portion of the video, where Andy and Lilith dance, made maximum use of the lenses' flare qualities.
"The entire ending section of the video is basically built around heavy lens flares, with our lights blasting through the windows, so having a set of lenses that gave us that warm flare was a must," Moore explains. “It was a rehoused set, so each lens had a slightly different flare. The 35mm had a particularly unique rainbow-looking flare when shot wide open, which I loved."
Footage was shot in the 16x9 ProRes format with the vision of ultimately cropping to a 4x3 aspect ratio.
"I prefer that method for music videos - 4:3 - because I love having the extra sides of the image there to slightly reframe if needed to."
The 4x3 aspect ratio is also well suited for viewing on a mobile devices, which is often the way music videos are consumed.
"I really love and prefer the 4:3 frame overall," he adds.
To achieve the effect of Lilith's dismembered torso, the production team used a combination of practical and digital visual effects. Lilith has tattoos on all her limbs, so the production closely copied them onto the fake limbs for authenticity.
"We also did some practical macro shots, where we physically sewed pieces of silicone limbs together," Moore reveals. "For the wider shots, where her limbs are gone, that was handled through manual VFX paint-outs."
Moore opted not to use greenscreen sleeves, which sometimes cause keying challenges due to spill.
"While there's a world where this could have been done all with VFX only, I love taking an approach that blends the physical and digital assets worlds together," shares the director. "It almost always looks better!"
Moore edited the video in Adobe Premiere Pro, working in 4K. He turned the first cut over to the client less than a week after the shoot, and it was well received.
"They actually had no notes," he recalls. "That V.1 ended up being the final cut, which was amazing!"
In addition to Andy Biersack, Black Veil Brides consists of guitarists Jake Pitts and Jinxx, bassist Lonny Eagleton and drummer Christian Coma. At press time, the band was headlining a 24-city North American tour.