Horus Blak, America The Beautiful Case Study

Overview

Horus Blak wanted a video that showed a humble start and where he came from, without overproducing the story.

The shoot was intentionally simple: a single take performance in the woods and a walking shot through the street, both on an iPhone. My job was to turn that into a finished video that held attention for the whole song without losing the honesty the artist was after.

The goal wasn't perfection. It was authenticity.

The Challenge

Two shots had to carry a full song.

Not Enough Variety

With only the woods and the street, the video would repeat itself within the first minute.

A Static Frame That Fought the Song

The woods shot was a locked down camera on a performance full of movement. In the rough cut, it felt flat.

Phone Footage That Had to Feel Cinematic

Everything was shot on an iPhone, so the finish had to come from the edit, the grade, and the effects, while still looking raw.

My Role

I owned the creative direction and every stage of post, and I ran the client relationship from first cut to final export.

Creative direction. Pitched a third setup to give the video variety while keeping the raw concept intact.
Client collaboration. Presented options at each stage, gathered feedback, and steered revisions over eight weeks.
Editing. Built the cut, pacing, and transitions in DaVinci Resolve.
Color. Graded every shot to match, including the black and white first half.
Visual effects and captions. Designed hand drawn animations and custom lyric captions in Fusion.

Process

Five decisions that turned two raw shots into a finished video.

1. Adding a Third Shot

After reviewing the footage, I suggested filming one more setup: Horus recording the song at the mic, in the same messy room where it was originally made. It gave the edit somewhere to cut to, and it backed up the story of where he came from. The final shot came out a little differently than I described it, which ended up suiting the raw look.

Horus performing in the woods, raw frame — Woods

Horus walking down a leafy street, raw frame — Street

Horus rapping into a purple mic cover in a cluttered room — Studio, the added setup

2. Bringing a Static Shot to Life

The first rough cut showed the locked down woods shot wasn't working. The song had energy and the frame had none. Instead of asking for a reshoot, I stabilized the footage and keyframed slow pushes and drifts, so the camera feels like it's moving with the performance.

Original, locked downFinal, with motion and grade

3. A Cohesive Grade

I tried replacing the studio background with masking, but it wasn't working the way I wanted, and the client preferred the rawness of the original room. So I put the effort into making every shot feel like one video.

The footage was 4K iPhone video in Rec 709. I graded in the HSV color space, isolating the saturation channel for a subtle boost that kept skin and scenery natural. At the artist's request, the first half goes black and white, with deeper contrast and heavy vignettes to match the mood of the track.

Raw iPhone footageFinal grade

Street shot straight from the iPhone — Raw

The same street shot after the grade, warmer with a vignette — Graded

Horus pointing at the camera in black and white with a heavy vignette — The black and white first half

4. Effects in Fusion

To give the simple footage more personality, I built custom effects in Fusion: hand drawn graphics that animate onto the screen, smoke transitions, and still frame slides. The final video was exported at 24fps for a film look.

Four frames from the video with hand drawn white graphics: tombstones, pistols, an Uncle Sam skull, and a burst — Hand drawn graphics animated in Fusion

Still frame slide into smoke

Still frame slide, color half

DaVinci Resolve Fusion page with the node tree for a caption effect — Building an effect in the Fusion page

5. Custom Captions

The artist wanted lyrics on screen, highlighted word by word to stress key phrases. My first version used a different font with a wiggle animation, and early versions ran too large. I also tried a background behind the text, but it didn't look right. After rounds of feedback, we landed on a thicker, handwritten style that fits the raw feel.

Version 1 · Wiggle animation

Version 2 · Oversized

Final · Thicker handwritten style

What Didn't Make the Cut

Not every idea made it, and that was part of the process.

I pitched options, the artist chose, and we kept what served the song.

Replacing the studio background: Client preferred the original room
Animated machine gun graphic: Declined for this release
Original tombstone drawing: Redrawn for the final version
Wiggle caption animation: Swapped for a steadier handwritten style
Captions with a background box: Removed, it didn't fit the look

Hand drawn machine gun animation in the Fusion viewer — Machine gun graphic · Declined

First version of the hand drawn RIP tombstones in the Fusion viewer — Original tombstones · Redrawn

Results

Two iPhone shots became a full length video that holds attention and still feels honest.

Three setups cut into one cohesive story
A static performance shot brought to life without a reshoot
A consistent grade across all footage, with a black and white first half
Custom Fusion effects and lyric captions built around the artist's voice

Takeaway

This project was about restraint.

With limited footage, the instinct is to add more. The strongest choices kept the video raw and put the effort into making it feel intentional. Presenting options, listening to the artist, and letting some ideas go is what made the final cut his.