Tim Milgram, a director known for his work in dance and movement-based filmmaking, brings his latest project with Canon to life with “Too Close”, a piece that blends choreography, lighting, and camera movement in a way that feels both intimate and powerful. The film follows dancers Luke Barrett and Ava Wagner in a piece choreographed by Tessandra Chavez, which Tim describes as, “exploring the tension between two souls on the edge of light and darkness.” In our exclusive interview, Tim shares his creative approach behind Too Close, from working with choreography and lighting to capturing movement through the lens.
Q: How did the idea for “Too Close” first come together?
Tim: “Too Close” by Alex Clare was one of those songs that I couldn’t stop playing back in 2012 when it went viral. At that point I was still pursuing my own career as a dancer and also starting out as a videographer for dancers in the community. I was kind of just shooting whatever dance videos choreographers hired me for. Strangely enough, despite it being such a big hit, and in my opinion, very “danceable”, nobody was really choreographing to the song back then. As soon as the popularity of the song died down, so did the chances of me ever creating a visual to it… until this year.
A few months back, Canon reached out to me about doing an official video with their EOS C50 cinema camera, and I started looking for music to use. I saw “Too Close” in a music catalogue I found online, and it was the first time I had heard it in a long time.
In that moment I had an epiphany of how far I’ve come from those days starting out, and it felt like a full circle moment. What could have maybe been a $200 video I put together for a choreographer in 2012, had the opportunity to be a budgeted production for a major brand today. Something told me that I had to make a video to this song to show myself what I’m now capable of. So I came up with the rough concept for the video, found a location, got a quote for the music license for the track, and hired my long time friend and collaborator Tessandra Chavez to do the choreography.
Q: How did the song “Too Close” by Alex Clare influence the direction of this piece?
Tim: As a director, my thought process is similar to how many choreographers work when it comes to creative ideas: it’s almost always about the music first. In this case, the song felt like it required a contemporary duet to it, but in more of a dark/moody setting with slightly futuristic energy. I also wanted big, impressive movement but not to the extent of ignoring the emotional energy of the song, which is a really unique fusion of emotion and power. That singer/songwriter vibe mixed with 2010’s dubstep had to be met with a visual that also feels like a hybrid of sorts; in this case, a hybrid between contemporary movement and choreographed modern lighting. It was really important to me that the choreographer I worked with for this piece could embody all those elements of the song. Tessandra has worked in the industry for a long time and I’ve always found it inspiring that she can mold her style to so many different pieces of music, so I felt like she would be right for this project.
The night before rehearsals started, Tessandra came over to my house and I made us a pizza in my new pizza oven. While I was preparing it in my kitchen, we played the song over and over and mapped out some rough ideas of what would happen in the piece. Not movement, but more so just approximately where the dancers would be, and the types of things they’d be doing, in each part of the song. By the time the pizza was ready to bake, we had a rough outline for Tessandra to take into her choreography session with the dancers the next day. Looking back on that evening I do find it kind of hilarious blocking this out with Tessandra while I had flour all over my hands and shirt.
The pizza turned out great by the way. (Also, pineapple only on my side, as Tess was not about it)
Q: What were you most interested in exploring with this piece?
Tim: I was really excited at the prospect of having a pre-programmed lighting sequence that was repeatable and didn’t require people on set pressing buttons to hopefully make each lighting cue happen at the right time. Given the lighting grid on the ceiling of the location, and how many cues there would be, I knew I had to find a specialist to help me with that.
As a result, this was my first time hiring a lighting programmer. To be honest, I didn’t even know that was its own profession until this project. When I first came up with this idea, I was essentially looking for someone with a skillset to make a repeatable lighting sequence in the location I found. I knew approximately what I wanted, but I needed to find the right person to execute that and also hopefully add their own ideas to improve what we had. I posted about this in my Instagram story, and someone forwarded me Zachary Perez’s info. I envisioned a bunch of moments in the sequence and described them to Zach, and he filled in the blanks. I learned a lot from him about how much goes into programming a lighting sequence, and it was really cool to expand my directing skillset to incorporate that in one of my videos.
Q: How much of the shoot was planned versus discovered in the moment?
Tim: So 100% was planned, and about 20% was discovered in the moment. What I mean by that is, sometimes you need to change things on the spot because what you imagined or planned doesn’t quite work how you envisioned it. With such a complicated lighting sequence, we had to make adjustments throughout the day to ensure there was enough light on the dancers while making the lights you see in the shots still be the “stars” of the lighting show, so to speak.
Q: What do you pay attention to when reviewing footage on set?
Tim: While I do review some of the takes on set, I rarely if ever get to play back every take during a shoot. Most of the time I want to just go with the momentum and stay on time, getting as many takes as I can while giving the dancers breaks that are long enough to catch their breath, but not so long that they get cold and lose their own momentum. I try my best to have a feel for whether or not we have enough for the edit. I’m editing the video in my head as I go, so if I don’t feel confident that we have enough, it’s very hard to move on to the next segment. If really pressed for time, I sometimes lean on whether the choreographer feels like we have enough of a certain segment, since they usually watch the monitor for every take. Ultimately it’s on me to make the call to move on, but being able to trust the choreographer’s judgement in those moments can be really valuable.
Q: One of the most striking moments is the 360 shot under red lighting. How did that idea come about?
Tim: This particular location had a separate area where the crew could be with the production monitors, chairs, etc, and the big room we were shooting in happened to be aesthetically pleasing in all 4 directions, which is uncommon for a location to have. Because of this, I had the rare chance of doing a 360 shot. However, there was one thing to worry about: lighting.
Doing a 360 around a subject requires a certain level of coordination to make sure there is never a light shining behind the camera towards the subject, or my shadow would be cast on them, and also lighting from head-on doesn’t look particularly cinematic (think paparazzi night club photos).
To solve this lighting equation, Zach and I made it so the only lights that were flashing were the ones behind the dancers. We choreographed the lights behind and to the sides of me to always be off, and that group of lights that was off had to be different every few seconds as I moved around the dancers. This meant my timing to go in that circle around the dancers was extremely specific. If I moved around them too fast or too slow, or panned too far left or right, the camera would see some of the “off” lights, which we obviously did not want.
Q: Was there a part of the process that challenged you more than expected?
Tim: I wouldn’t say “more than expected” since I definitely expected it. But essentially, we shot two videos that day just like we did on the C80 shoot; the dance video, and the behind the scenes, which were equally important to Canon.
Our goal was to make the BTS feel as high production and polished as the dance video itself. Where that becomes tricky is that if things on set aren’t moving quickly, or adjustments need to be made, it’s hard for me to also stay “on” for the BTS content, such as talking to camera about what we’re doing next. The first half of the day moved a bit more slowly as we were dialing in the lighting, so there were fewer fun moments for the BTS. After lunch, I really kicked it into gear and made sure that Mason Williams (my trusted BTS director/cinematographer for this shoot) had enough clips of me bringing the viewer along for the journey, giving notes to people, etc. Making two videos at the same time, one of which you’re also the main subject of, is always harder than purely focusing on being behind the camera.
Q: How did the Canon C50 influence the way you approached movement?
Tim: I don’t think it influenced the way I approach movement, more so it’s compact size and feature set gave me the ability to get more takes without killing my back, and also gave me more options in the edit since I could re-frame some shots to look even more perfect than I captured them (shhh… don’t tell anybody). If you watch the Behind the Scenes you’ll understand what I mean.
Q: What did you take away from working on this project?
Tim: To keep embracing the fears and discomfort of trying something new. I remember the first day I came to Tessandra’s rehearsal with Luke and Ava, when they had everything completed up until the chorus. At one specific point Tessandra asked me “ok we are ready to move on… do you want to do the 360?” I had a brief moment of doubt and considered going the “safe” route since none of the lighting had actually been programmed yet, and I wasn’t confident that we’d be able to pull it off. Everything in my body was telling me to play it safe. To do the easy thing. And in that brief moment, I confidently said “yes lets do it!”. I know it’s such a small thing, but it’s important to sometimes go against your gut feeling and lean into the unknown.
I’m glad I did.
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