Back from an intense period

Here I am! Back again!
November has been quite a tough month, but worth it.
I had to shoot (and have been working quite hard on)a music video for the Italian band La Bottega di Musica e Parole, but we finally had to postpone the dates. Now the shooting will take place on the 19th and 20th of December, right before Christmas holidays.
The famous Turin Film Festival just took place and I had the chance to watch some great movies: first of all a restored copy of the fabulous "Red Shoes" by Powell and Pressburger, then I managed to get a ticket for the FANTASTIC "Fantastic Mr. Fox". It's a great film and Wes Anderson loves playing with old-style stop motion graphics and animations. It's pure delight for your eyes and brains, and I higly recommend it!

Now it's time to get back to work. I'm currently scouting new locations for the video as well as for a short film I'll be shooting at the beginning of January.
Fingers crossed!

Some news

Ok, I've been away for a while. But I've been quite busy and I still am. I'm in the middle of the preparation of a music video I have to shoot by the end of the week. The band is Italian and is called La Bottega di Musica e Parole. The song I'm working on is called L'anno del temporale (The year of the storm), and you can listen to it right here.
The whole idea I am working on is quite surreal: my costume designer and my art director are already very excited about the project (I fear they will have A LOT of work to do on this one)and I'm sure it's going to be great fun.
The crew will be pretty much the same I had on The Devil's Hand: that was the first time I was working with most of those guys, but it came out as a really good group. Plus the atmosphere on set was great. I can't wait!
Besides, post-production (mostly colour correction) on The Devil's Hand almost came to an end. Which means the official launch of the video is probably going to happen soon. Stay tuned!

Devil's Hand: photos from the set

Apart from making the DoP's desires come true, the crew's electrician proved also to be a very good photographer. His name is Stefano Druetta and these are some of the photos he made on set.

Actor Federico Bava and his "Devil's Hands"

Great Art director Ascanio Viarigi working like hell. In Hell

Ballerinas practicing with coreographer Valeria Curzio

DoP Federico Torres flirting with the Devil's concubines

Frontman Larry from the band "The Scrabble" surrounded by masked ladies

Masked lady in detail

Me at the monitor

The Devil is taking a break from all the cruelty and villainy of this world

More photos of the amazing band, cast and crew to come on my website. It should be ready in a very little while...

Photos courtesy of Stefano Druetta

Devil's Hand: a few anticipations...

I'm posting a few plates from the storyboards I used for my last music video - Devil's Hand - by Italian band The Scrabble (if you haven't listen to them yet, click on their name here and you'll be redirected to their Myspace. You'll be able to listen to the track used for the video, too).
This time I scanned the images before the shooting, so you won't have to see those annoying crosses all over the drawings...

CUs of the two players confronting each other

A couple of shots of one of the two players, revealing his own nature...

The same character as before, surrounded by his "ladies"

All images are copyright of © Matteo Bernardini.

New music video coming soon...

I recently wrote about a music video I shot just a few weeks ago and I defined it "halloweenesque". I called it that way because I got inspired by gothic tales and imagery while preparing the mood board and the storyboard.
The video is made to the song "Devil's Hand" by Italian (but English-singing) band The Scrabble. It is their first music video and I think they are a really good band. Listen to their tracks following the link above, then let me know what you think.

The text of the song tells about a poker game from one player's perspective: I based my concept on the idea of having the singer play opposite a very ...ehm...special player. I can add I had fun taking the song's title quite literally...

Great news!!!

Today the magazine Next Exit officially presented their last effort: "Young Blood - 2008", a yearbook containing the profiles of 190 young Italian artists who received honors and prizes in the Arts all over the world. And I'm one of them!
The launch of the volume took place in Rome at the Ministry of Youth.
An article about the event came out today on the first page (!) of one of Italy's prominent newspapers, "Il Corriere della Sera". If you can read Italian, here's the link... and I have the honor and the privilege to be the first to be named in the article (out of 7 young artists chosen by the journalist to represent the whole group contained in the volume)!
Today is a very nice day indeed...

Happy Halloween!!

Here's my greetings to everyone. Hope you enjoy the doodle I made for the occasion...

Halloween is my very favourite holiday together with Christmas. I should shoot something that takes place during this special time. We'll see...
I can anticipate that I recently shot a new music video and that the overall atmosphere could be defined as slightly "halloweenesque". Keep watching for new posts, then!
Bye for now. I just made the drawing and I already have to leave. A masked party is waiting for me and some friends.
See you soon with new posts.

Image is copyright of © Matteo Bernardini.

The "Stranges" Photoshoot

Back in February Italian magazine Next Exit interviewed me on the "Ooh Yeah!" music video. What came out was a very nice two-page(!) article-interview, which was made even more special by a great photoshoot Turin-based photographer Stefano Stranges made especially for the occasion.
Stefano was asked by the guys at the magazine to make photos that showed me together with the cast of the video. It had to be funny, ironic and catchy. I think he made an excellent job.
Judge it yourselves by looking at these few grabs from the shooting...

Here I am, back on set and surrounded by three of my gorgeous ladies. Ehm...Can you see me?

A family portrait

Unfortunately we were unable to recollect the whole team for the day: the male lead (Big Rob) and one of our ladies (Angelica La Lapin)were missing, as well as cast/crew members Valerio Sacchetto (actual DoP and fake operator in the video) and Daniele Manca (actual production manager and fake director René at the same time).


The camera you can see in this picture is the very same HVX200 (I love you, Panasonic!) we used for the video. It was my graduation present from my beloved grandmother, which makes her the actual financer of the video. Granny as the new Larry Flynt? I don't think so.
She seemed to be a bit disappointed at first, but the positive reviews we received on prominent newspapers and magazines managed to let her "granny pride" prevail.

Photos courtesy of photographer Stefano Stranges. And many many thanks to my brilliant costume designer Micol Agricola, who created and (in some cases)re-created our looks for this photoshoot.

"Ooh Yeah!" - Memories from the backstage

These are a few photographs from the making of the video.
It was a pretty intense shooting, but we all had great fun!
I shall upload more photos (as well as more pics from the storyboard) on my website once it's ready. Meanwhile, enjoy the girls and Pizza Boy aka Big Rob in "action"...
Actress Linda Messerklinger aka Angelica La Lapin shows her surprise in front of Pizza Boy's not-so-hidden talents

Actor Stefano Blisa aka Big Rob aka Pizza Boy discussing the infinite potential of his character with the director (me)

The Dream-Team of the Golden Age of Porn: fake director René St. Claire (Daniele Manca) together with his star Big Rob (Stefano Blisa). Please, notice the exquisite gesture of René pointing at his primadonna's moneymaker...

I almost forgot: photos courtesy of Andrea Norzi!

"Ooh Yeah!" - Storyboards

Many people don't like to use storyboards on their sets, many others think they are fundamental. I belong to the second cathegory. To me it's vital that my collaborators know exactly what I want in terms of visual rendition, so I try to make drawings that help defining what's going in my mind.
I think it's the quickest way to communicate with your crew (especially your DoP), much quicker (and definitely more effective) than many words!
Plus I love drawing, I've been doing it since I was two and to me it's the most natural action together with breathing, eating, sleeping and ...well...whatever.




These are some of the storyboard plates (I should rather call them doodles) I made for "Ooh Yeah!".
Sorry for the annoying signs on the pictures, but I scanned them from my original working copy and I am always used to put a big cross on every shot once I get it...


Preparation and production were very close and we had very little time to get organised before the shooting.
The shooting itself was quite short (one day and a half) but I managed to get all that I wanted.
Some of the sequences were fully storyboarded, like the narrative sequence involving the pizza boy and the girls, as well as the notorious "Splash" sequence...



All images are copyright of © Matteo Bernardini.

Moby - "Ooh Yeah!" music video

I spoke about the video for Moby's single "Ooh Yeah!". In a nutshell: in summer 2008 I decided to take part in an international competition American musician Moby created for young directors from all over the world. Considering that the song was reminescent of 70s disco dance and that the expression "ooh yeah" was repeatedly used in the track, I thought that "PORN" would be the answer.
Together with my great cast and crew, I ended up winning the competition. The video is now the official one for the single and has been broadcasted worldwide. Sweet.
Click [here] to see the video. Enjoy...

A very few words about me...and the blog

Hello everybody!
My name is Matteo Bernardini and I am a filmmaker currently residing in Turin, Italy.
Some of you probably saw the video I shot for Moby's single "Ooh Yeah!". In case you didn't, I highly recommend it! :-)

I decided to create this blog to show some bits of my past and current works. You'll find sketches, storyboards, photos from the shootings and some videos too.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I and my crew do working on set!