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Mozart's Last Aria
Book Trailer -Recently filmed for the novel: Mozart’s Last Aria by Matt Rees
This is the fifth book trailer I have had the opportunity to film for writer Matt Rees – This time for his upcoming historical novel about the mysterious death of composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. We decided to do something much more cinematic this time, but unfortunately were unable to travel to Vienna, so, instead shot in his apartment in Katamon, (Jerusalem) and in Jaffa. Because we didn’t have professional actors, I thought that we shouldn’t try to have our “actors” act, but instead use voiceover on top of shadows, hands, and sillouettes to add mystery, tension and drama to the piece. I asked Matt to pick some quotes from the book that tell climactic scenes from the story, without giving too much away — Emphasizing the Masonic elements. I also wanted to evoke strong mood using color and overemphasized the blues for the poison scenes and reds for others.
Day One was shot in his apartment – Very simple lighting of Mozart’s shadows, Matt’s son Kai’s cameo, and the poison scene, using a ring we found at the market in Jaffa. Everything was shot on my Canon MarkII DSLR camera and recorded with Zoom 4hn digital recorder.
When we arrived to film the musical scenes on Day 2, Orit played a little known piece for us that Mozart was actually composing when he died. We were all mesmerized by the composition and her beautiful playing and thought it would work perfectly because of all the changes that would make it great to cut to in the editing. Orit’s playing was intense, graceful and inspiring – A pleasure to film. Shira, our opera singer, had just performed the Mozart’s The Magic Flute in school, which plays a part in Matt’s book. Her voice was powerful and dramatic – And, again went for weird shadows on the wall – Then we added some echo in Post to give it a haunting sound.
Matt’s promised me our next shoot will take place in Rome if we get a million hits, so please circulate the video to everyone you know!
Share on FacebookSalam Fayyad
The Jerusalem Post reports that Harvard law professor, Alan Dershowitz hailed Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad as “the best that Israel has, and probably the best that Israel has ever had” in terms of a partner for peace. Here is my interview with Salam Fayyad from several months ago where he spoke to me about cracking down in the West Bank, improving living conditions, and economic development as ways to achieve peace.