At Dygma, every video starts with one crazy idea that turns into a spiderweb of magic and innovation, and this one was no exception. Koji, one of Dygma's dashing young, ehem, talented video editors, brought the idea of a mysterious AI neuron with the power to erase not only a singular person but an entire company.
This storyline was ideal for a spine-tingling Halloween special, so we decided to try something new to express our appreciation to the Dygma Team and our supportive community.
Pre-production
Koji found his niche within the realm of videography in the horror genre; during his time in the Valencia office, he listened to a horror podcast while editing. The trope of being caught up in a matrix was playing through his headphones, and ideas began to swirl.
Thinking about how powerful of a keyboard the Raise is and the concept of switching through the Bazecor layers, similar to how someone could move through the layers of the matrix.
What would happen if this powerful keyboard fell into the wrong hands? Is a macro so powerful that it could deceive reality? It could even make people disappear. That would be, well, life-threatening.
Introducing the All-Stars
One thing about Koji is that he knows how to sell an idea, so convincing the team to participate in a Halloween production took little to no convincing. Soon enough, we had an all-star team ready to take on this spooky challenge.
- Dominique: Starring as Dominique, Disco Dom, The Big D, an old-time fan favorite: works practically and knows how to get the job done. A one-take wonder, some might say.
- David: More commonly known as David Brown, a reserved camera-man but knows how to work his angles: a very interesting contrast when in front of the camera.
- Fernando: The office clown, known for his witty mind and filled with charm, but can be too hard on himself at times.
- George: Refers to herself as the personality hire: a new face, easy to work with, and adds a breath of fresh air into the mix.
- Manel: The hardest to work with due to his insane work schedule and making everyone laugh too much, not a one-take wonder.
- Amparo: The new sassy video intern ready to take on any challenge thrown at her.
The Filming Process
This is the first time at Dygma that this many of us were involved in the filming process, so understanding how we would fit together was an exciting experience.
When speaking to Koji about the experience, he had an interesting take on how we all worked together:
"Dygma has an extraordinary philosophy when working within a team: we are small, and we are compact, but we want to create something special, and to do this, we must have the same goal and mindset."
It has opened a wormhole of new ideas for many unique edition videos for the future, so stay tuned for more exciting content.
The Editing Process
When discussing the editing process, Koji stated, "Producing a movie is like playing poker; pre-production is shuffling the cards, shooting is dealing the cards, and finally, editing is playing the game."
Editing a project as intricate as this can be time-consuming. However, thanks to the Raise keyboard, Koji found the process significantly more efficient. "I could have spent 24 hours on this, but I divided my time over two weeks, leveraging shortcuts, macros, and superkeys," he explained, making the process far less time-consuming.
The Hardships and The Wins
While shoot day might seem like the most daunting challenge, who knows what could go wrong in the moment? Someone could be sick, camera-shy, or we could have all kinds of technical issues.
But, Koji revealed that the pre-production was the biggest challenge. Planning each take, the camera angles, and how many of each take that was needed turned out to be much more time-consuming than the shoot day itself.
The biggest win for us as a team was embracing the challenge of exploring new, unconventional content and seamlessly working together to bring it to life. So we very much hope you enjoy the video and let us know if you would like more similar content in the future.
Final Words of Wisdom
To end, here are some wise words from Koji: The relationship at Dygma is having the right people to the right viewers, the mindset of having fun but knowing when to work hard. Once that relationship happens, something beautiful always comes out of it.
In Buddhism, different bodies are "Itai doshinto": To be of the same mind, even though we are many in body. We all have different faces, characters, and talents.
We hope you enjoyed this behind-the-scenes and look into the process of how we like to roll here at Dygma.
Make sure to head on over to our Dygma Merch and subscribe to get notified when we release them.
Thank you for all your support, as always!
- The Dygma Team
