Red Dot Films produced a song for Erada Fitness, supporting the Qatari national team’s participation in the 2022 World Cup, with high cinematic quality, using anamorphic lenses.
Many government and private entities competed to support the Qatari team by producing encouraging advertisements or motivational songs before the start of the group league matches in November 2022.
Erada Fitness took advantage of the opportunity to stand out through promotional work that supports the Qatari national team while at the same time promoting their new CrossFit gym located next to Al Bayt Stadium in the Al Khor area.
Ahlamina Kabera lyrics
Ahmed Amin wrote the song’s lyrics and melodised it, and Abdulrahman Alriyami composed and arranged it at Cochineal Production.
احلامنا كبيرة
Erada’s Ahlamina Kabera Lyrics
وبكبر احلامنا نكبر
و هذا الكاس في الديرة
و كلٍ في قطر يفخر
إرادة مالها آخر
هنا في قلبنا والروح
معاك نكفّي للآخر
ونبني بالإرادة صروح
انت قدها يا عنابي انت قدها
انت ابوها يا عنابي و انت جدها
The first part of the lyrics says that Qataris’ dreams are significant and as big as their dreams, they grow. Nowadays, the World Cup is in their country, and everyone in Qatar is proud.
The second part starts with Erada (a will), which has no limits in their hearts and soul; Qataris are willing to support the team until the end and to be in the highest positions.
In the third part, they call their team by its colour, Annabi (maroon), reminding them that they are excellent, above them all, and able to win the cup.
Alriyami and Amin took care that the Melody and composing aligned with the poem’s meaning, starting with a mood similar to a military marshal. The second part turned out to be emotional, then enthusiastic in the last part, relying on the electric guitar to add this feeling.
Anamorphic Lenses
The musical video was shot with Anamorphic lenses, a favourite choice for many filmmakers. Their ultra-wide rectangular aspect ratios, long horizontal flares and oval bokeh features made these lenses the ultimate go-to in filmmaking.
The most distinguishing feature of the lenses is that it captures an ultra-wide rectangular aspect ratio (2.39:1), a wide field of view that is distortion-free in the centre. Even with close-ups, the distortion will be minimal.
The anamorphic lenses also create stretched horizontal flares that can appear like light stripes, adding quite the look and feel to scenes that spherical lenses cannot.
The lenses’ ultimate characteristic in the filmmaking world is turning the circular out-of-focus lights in the background into oval bokeh because the front of the lens barrel, which is circular, appears as an ellipse when viewed through the back of the lens.
Richard El Haddad directed the video, and the director of photography, Moe Wehbe, supported him. They filmed the song with anamorphic lenses, assuming “the lens is ideal for such a project to include a warm nationalist sense”, Wehbe and Haddad said.
A Vertical World despising the CinemaScope
The world is witnessing a significant shift in how to watch videos after the emergence of digital platforms that provide a way of viewing that considers how to hold phones vertically.
Most clients today ask to consider the vertical format while filming, even though some produced videos are precisely executed for cinema or TV broadcast, ignoring that the requirements of the framing and composition are different.
After all the efforts the Red Dot team made, they were amazed after submitting the song to the client, who asked to crop the video to fit Instagram’s reel format.
Thankfully, they understood that the wide rectangular aspect ratio makes their project more unique. They accepted Red Dot’s solution of asking the audience to rotate their phones to watch the video using an indicator in the first few seconds.
Khalid Nabina, the founder and coach of Erada Fitness, explained, “we display our ads and media messages on Instagram because it is popular among Qataris, and we have a large segment that follows us on this platform.”
Ahlamina Kabera song is the second project produced by Red Dot Films for Erada Fitness. The song has received wide acceptance, thanks to the Erada’s members who constantly seek to make their gym appear distinctively.
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