Botero
City Scale Event Video for Botero in Hong Kong
Fernando Botero is a Colombian artist, considered by many as one of the most preeminent living artists in the world.
He is famous for depicting people, animals, and objects with voluptuous volumes, in oil paintings together with watercolors and sculptures.
Exhibited in many places around the world, 9 of his massive sculptures are presented to the public on Central waterfront and it is with great pleasure and honor that we produced videos and photographs for ‘Botero in Hong Kong’.
Short Films about Master Botero
When you work for an Artist, the responsibly is bigger than professionalism. When we have been commissioned to produce videos about ‘Botero in Hong Kong’ exhibition, Visual Suspect was a young start-up company only, and it was a great honour to document the arrival of five monumental sculptures, in Hong Kong, along the Central Waterfront. Because we knew these short films could contribute a little to the artist’s history, our approach shifted from creating work, to delivering emotion. At the very beginning of the film production, the goal was to create a visual impact to the audience. At this time, we knew that more than producing our videos, we were documenting a major event: the arrival of sculptures on a site, where they haven’t been before.
Installation
The shooting has been based on documentary approach, with a small discrete team, without having power to interrupt the installation. The production team had to try to predict each next step or the process, to have an interesting shot. Nonetheless we were not able to predict that much before shooting a scene, specifically because of weather conditions. Nevertheless the light was sharp and clear, most of the time. At some point, there was a strong storm, which normally should stop our operation, but we decided to keep filming and several images of the sculptures with rain drops, became some of the strongest ones. This part looks and feels like a true documentary, reinforced by the natural sounds.
Cinematic Approach
We used the light as a true character of the film, together with linear editing to structure the story. There are opening and closing shots for each scene, with the camera following the shapes and actions surrounding the sculptures. The video production was shot with multi-camera setup, to ensure full coverage of each moment.
Visibility and Audience
Once released, the main video reached an audience of about 10,000 plays online, as internet was the primary communication tool of Parkview Art Gallery Hong Hong and Botero teams. The films were made not only for the people already familiar with Master Botero, but also for a larger audience, which until today, didn’t have the opportunity to discover his artwork.