The multi-faceted Uzair Merchant is one of the first Indian production designer and filmmaker to work in Hollywood on a large scale, and recently he set a new benchmark by shooting a full music video, titled Stardust, on an iPhone. The achievement didn’t get unrecognized globally and Uzair has been awarded with some international laurels, including winning Best Music Video and Best Original Song awards at the New York Movie Awards 2021 and Milan Gold Awards 2021. It also won an honourable mention at the Los Angeles Film Awards 2021. Due to all the success, the music video is being minted as world’s first security NFT.
Uzair has been growing and evolving in his work for the last 13 years. With every project, he tries to push the envelope and create something new by approaching it with a fresh perspective. “I’ve always been amazed with how much the technology in our hands has to offer but how little do people push its boundaries. I have always tried to attempt something unique and thus I tried a new approach with my short film Chasing Lines as well that won 14 awards globally. We got to over 20 international film screenings and that entire film, including the audio voice over, was shot on an iPhone SE,” he shares.
With Stardust, he decided to just level up his own work. “When I made Chasing Lines, I was trying to prove a point, which I think I did. So, when I started work on Stardust, I thought why not take it up a level. We got a cinematic lens for the iPhone and just a handheld rig, and I shot this between Vancouver and Dubai with my friend and DOP in Dubai, Zubair. We shot totally wireless with a handheld camera, and were using the cloud for data storage. It honestly felt like living in Blade Runner,” he chuckles.
Stardust is actually a part of the official soundtrack of the show Black Rose and the video has been shot across Vancuover and Dubai. When prodded about the locations and the process he went through for the shoot, Uzair elaborates, “The track was set between Dubai and Vancouver, so I knew we needed both places to shoot. For exact settings, we did a few location runs, to pick iconic places that matched my vision. I had an entire art department pack for the team with breakdowns, mainly highlighting the vision of what we were creating. We had great help too as a good friend at the Paramount Hotels in Dubai offered us a room in one of their lounges. Besides that, I drew up timelines of concepts. The story dictated the locations and I wanted to bring ‘RED CITY’ to life which is the location of Black Rose.”