Art Direction for Opera Trailer

Project Description

In September of 2018, I was approached to edit the trailer for a new production of Michael Hersch's opera, On The Threshold of Winter. This new staging was directed by the opera's star, Ah Young Hong, and featured video design by Maxwell Bowman.

I started with Bowman’s high frame rate footage of Ah Young Hong and used typography to do the conceptual heavy lifting. The ascetic angularity of the DIN typeface activated the space around Ah Young without pulling attention away from her performance, the text laid out visually like trees with no leaves.

I introduced music cues conventionally at first: cuts in the video emphasized with instrumental swells and sharp attacks. Then I worked with Hersch to modify the textural density with layers of additional music. I would arrange and stack the audio he sent me, we would discuss, I would interpret, and this would repeat. The final score of the trailer is built from 31 individual selections from a variety of works.

Sponsor: Michael Hersch