The Making of Vida Tinta's "LA PASTILLA" Music Video

PRODUCER: GEORGE OHAN

DIRECTOR: XAVIER YBARRA

BAND: VIDA TINTA

HAIR STYLIST AND MUA: ELIZABETH CEDILLO

TAKING THE PILL

In the opening scene of La Pastilla, it was important to me to establish what the whole video was about. A woman going out on the prowl knowing if anything goes wrong, she can pop a pill. Our young actress, Fabiola Amezquita, displays an inner struggle before actually taking the pill. We had a long discussion before shooting, on what this inner struggle should be. We came out with something that I feel worked well, because she gave me the reaction I was looking for.

Left: Actress Fabiola Amezquita. Top Right: Grip Alan Manzo. Bottom Left: Director Xavier Ybarra.

Behind-the-scenes photo taken in the middle of filming. From the photo you can see how small the crew was. The restroom area was small and space was tight after lighting the room. With all the mirror area there was only one angle possible. That was just below the mirror looking up.

SLOW MOTION CAT WALK

Center: Actress Fabiola Amezquita.

The slow motion Catwalk was meant to emphasize this woman's confidence while entering the party. The lighting, I was trying to achieve a Rembrandt-like style where the frame is mostly dark with highlighted areas to bring out the object you want the audience to look at. The effect is more visible in the following stills.

BACKYARD PARTY

Left: Eddie Plata, Center: Dario Sanchez, Right: Juan Garcia.

An introduction to the band starts with this 3-shot used to convey unity. In this shot you can see how much they depend on each other as they play.

Drummer Dario Sanchez

Shot of the crowd.

Center: Fabiola Amezquita.

This creeping through the crowd shot portrays Actress Fabiola's intentions to catch one of the band members in her web, setting her sights on the lead singer.

Director Xavier Ybarra and Key Grip John Granato.

Behind-the-scenes shot of Director Xavier Ybarra filming the crowd scene.

SCOUTING FOR PREY 

Actress Fabiola Amezquita.

Actress Fabiola turns the corner looking for lead singer Ettien Plata. This scene is a continuation of her search from the outside performance. We see how she has the attention of every man in the room.

Left: Dario Sanchez, Right: Director Xavier Ybarra, Far right: Dolly Grip Alan Manzo.

When filming this scene we were limited by the space we had for the dolly. That restricted us to a small strip of walking area. I wanted to capture her perspective and have the audience experience the mens reactions in the first person.

SHE GET'S WHAT SHE WANTS

Actress Fabiola Amezquita.

Here Fabiola finds what she's looking for. The lead singer, Eddie Plata, sitting on the couch talking with another woman.

Lead Singer Ettien Plata and Actress Brenda Lepe.

I set this shot up so we can see how Fabiola's beauty captures the lead singers attention away from the woman he's sitting with. By going from camera left to camera right, it not only simulates Fabiola's perspective, but also shifts the lead singers eyes away from the woman he's talking to.

Actress Fabiola Amezquita.

In this next shot, Fabiola takes Eddie by the hand and leads him away from the woman on the couch. I wanted the actress to exercise her power here. We see her influence of the lead singer by the way he just goes with her. Never making eye contact with the other woman again. 

Left: Actress Fabiola Amezquita, Center: Lead Singer Ettien Plata, Right: Actress Brenda Lepe.

Percussion's Miguel Espindola.

Below, we see the actress making her get-away in the morning. This was the first scene we shot that day. The actress arrived on set ready to go into makeup and I thought to myself, "That's a great look for you to leave in the morning." Everyone was kind of surprised considering she didn't have any makeup on and it wasn't apart of the script. I came up with this alternative, because we weren't able to shoot the bed scene we wanted. They were suppose to wake up with the sheet's half covering them with the morning sun breaking through a window.

Actress Fabiola Amezquita.

DIRECTOR XAVIER YBARRA SETS UP THE FIRST SHOT OF THE DAY

Director Xavier Ybarra with Vida Tinta and Actress Fabiola Amezquita

Left: Fabiola Amezquita, Center: Ettien Plata, Right: Brenda Lepe.

Far left: Dolly Grip Alan Manzo, Next: Director Xavier Ybarra, Next: Grip Solomon Horton, Next: MUA: Elizabeth Cedilla, Center: Key Grip John Granato, Right Standing: Fabiola Amezquita, Right sitting: Brenda Lepe, Far right: Lead singer Eddie Plata.

Overall, the shoot went well. The whole video was shot within a 14 hour day. We went over schedule by two hours. Which I don't think is too bad. Some shots took a long time to get and we'd be behind schedule by 2 hours. Then, the next shot we'd breeze right through putting us right back on schedule. That's normal on my sets, because I have to get what I want. If I don't feel I have the shot yet, we won't move one. The editing process was fairly quick, about two weeks. I didn't want to over color this video. Normally, I find a color grade for each video that's different from the next. However, on this music video I achieved the look I wanted in camera. The beige color throughout the video was achieved by using tungsten colored lights with a opal frost gel with my camera balanced to 56k color temperature. I hope there's some useful information filmmakers can use. Thank you for reading.

Please take a look at the finished product.