Bodega director Jimmy Diebold lights up the Seattle night in a new music-driven 1:55 short "Midnight Lights," made as a tribute to the Seattle Seahawks and their home stadium. The star of "Midnight Lights," CenturyLink Field-already widely regarded as one of the most intimidating home fields in the NFL-comes to life through a dazzling array of stadium lights that flash in mind-boggling synchronicity to a propulsive beat provided by PatrickReza's dubstep remix of M83's electronica smash, "Midnight City."
The project was hatched by director Diebold, an enthusiastic sports fan, during last summer's NFL lockout. "I wanted to create a piece that was an architectural appreciation and provided a sense of place, but also captured the raw energy and excitement of what happens there. I knew it would be a departure from anything I'd done before," commented Diebold, who is noted for directorial work on spots for many of the world's top beauty brands.
Over the ensuing weeks, Diebold painstakingly perfected his process for creating the piece's eye-popping light show. "Creating the light effects in-camera-how it bounces and spills off of the stadium's contours-requires special consideration, but it's the only way to achieve such beautiful, natural images," stated Diebold.
As Diebold continued to tinker with his process, Bodega EP Clint Goldman enlisted the help of the Seattle Seahawks owner Paul Allen's Vulcan Ventures organization to secure use of the stadium for a single night. Creating the effects in-camera created considerable production challenges. "Each light in the stadium had to be turned on and off individually, one at a time, and some of those stadium light towers can take up to half an hour to turn on fully," noted Diebold. The shoot also required the stadium to be photographed in total darkness, which entailed temporarily disabling auxiliary and emergency lights.
Through weeks of meticulous editing, the resulting film establishes the inanimate stadium as a character come to life. "Cutting strobe lights to a beat has been done a lot," explained Diebold. "So, I wanted these lights to not just sync to the beat, but actually feel more like the chorus to the song. As if the stadium were having a call and response with itself through light."
The choice of music was key as well. "The great thing about dubstep is that a lot of its heavy bass wobble and beat has a vibration that feels very similar to the electricity surging through these huge banks of light," Diebold explained. "The music sounds like the lights feel."