The third in a suite of videos I made with Ann Magnuson for the digital release of her 2006 Album “Pretty Songs & Ugly Stories.” Both this video and the previous “Falling for an Actor” were created using SD footage shot by photographer Rocky Schenck during the shoot for the album art. It was a challenge to cut this super soft-focus footage to jibe with an HD world. The “Actor” footage was pretty brightly lit but the challenge in that piece was the camera was pretty static, so I used kaleidoscope effects to fill out the frame and animate the edges. For “Cynical Girl” the light was lower and scenery darker, so the image often became blurred and the color temperature varied pretty wildly. Ann’s wish was to make it as close to a full performance take as possible, and she does an amazing job of committing emotionally to the onscreen lip sync. It is perhaps the most personal song on the album, about meeting her husband and the psychic change it brought on. The tender, sincere quality to her acting comes through like a Golden Age of Hollywood period piece. I tend to embrace the flaws of what I’m working on - we didn’t have a real post budget anyway - and when I placed both takes alongside each other to assess the merits of each, I had a Eureka! moment of using the split screen. It made the different color palettes seem intentional, and the variations in her dramatic gestures - standing in one take, sitting in another - look like a choreographed piece.
VIDEO: Photography by Rocky Schenck Edited by Adam Dugas SONG: "Cynical Girl" music and lyrics by Ann Magnuson and Kristian Hoffman © 2006 Magnuson/Hoffman Pink Fleece Music/BMI (administered by Pacific Electric) Gothic Novelty Music/ASCAP (administered by Wixen Music) From the Ann Magnuson album "Pretty Songs & Ugly Stories" Produced and arranged by Kristian Hoffman Musicians: Kristian Hoffman - keys, percussion Joe Berardi - drums, percussion Ernesto Garcia - bass guitar David Bongiovanni - guitar Pierre Smith - guitar Heather Lockie - strings Basic tracks recorded at Earle Mankey’s Studio engineered by Earle Mankey. Additional recording at Catasonic Studio, engineer by Mark Wheaton. Mixed by Mark Wheaton at Catasonic Studio. Mastered by Brad Vance at Red Mastering. “Pretty Songs & Ugly Stories” © 2006 Ann Magnuson all rights reserved