Dennis Grishnin Shoots Tate McRae’s Chart-Topping Hit for VMAs

Dennis Grishnin - VMAs

Audiences around the world have come to love Dennis Grishnin’s stunning approach to cinematography. His style is stripped-down, simple, and leaning more to the darker side. He lets the story he is trying to tell speak for itself, with single source lighting and little to no fill light. For this Canadian, image making is as much an art as it is a psychological navigation of an audience’s experience. 

“I do my best to keep the image simple enough to read with attention to depth and separation. This way, even if the shot is shown for a brief second, the viewer will still have a sense of what they just saw,” he said.

Grishnin’s passion for what he does translates into every project he takes on. He has worked on many commercials for instantly recognizable international brands, such as AirBnb and Buick, as well as music videos for viral songwriter, music producer and rapper Night Lovell and dancer turned popstar Tate McRae, to name a few.

Grishnin has worked with McRae on three performances for her hit “You Broke Me First” and despite always performing the same song, each video feels like an entirely new experience for viewers, with stunning visuals thanks to Grishnin’s artistic eye.

“I enjoy the discovery of moments alongside our team. With each new creative challenge, this position allows me to take all of my previous experiences and boil them down into a completely new recipe; one that will serve as the framework for how we approach every new project. It also does a good job in keeping me disciplined and to ensure that – above all else – the world, the characters, and the visual psychology will reflect the director’s story,” said Grishnin.

The first performance of this hit that Grishnin took on was for the 2020 Video Music Awards. The MTV VMAs is an award show presented by the cable channel MTV to honor the best in the music video medium. For Grishnin, a well-seasoned director of photography, it was an honor to create a video for this renowned venue.

The performance video centered around a large overhead lighting installation programmed to trigger changes throughout the show. To figure out how this would all play out on camera, Grishnin worked alongside director Lewis James and lighting designer Dan Norman, leading a team of technicians to achieve these camera moves on steadicam, crane, and handheld. 

Grishnin’s was the glue in understanding how McRae’s performance was to be captured and felt on camera. The performance was designed to be achieved in a full uninterrupted take on Steadicam, with insert shots on a crane, as well some handheld moments. The world around her had to be fully black, which meant blacking out the entire perimeter around her in a large warehouse and ensuring the balance of light levels kept that look throughout the performance.

It was important for Grishnin to make sure that this felt like a designed show of an artist in a center-staged void of color and movement. This shoot had a lot of technical challenges, like long uninterrupted takes, lighting cues, working out McRae’s choreography and blocking to ensure moments on camera weren’t being wasted. Grishnin therefore had to keep up with the moves of every department to constantly be aware of how every detail of the video would play out on camera. With Grishnin’s vast experience and talent, he was able to pull it all off and create a visually stunning video.

“I enjoyed the challenge of what we set out to create. It involved a lot of programming for lighting, extensive rehearsals with camera, and quick decision making on the day to capture everything we needed. I really loved the colors and how dark we made the space look. It felt like it was a little more than just a live performance, we gave people a show. This was also my first time working with Tate, and it was incredible to see what she can do, at such an incredibly young age no less. It was a great feeling to see it all come together before our eyes,” said Grishnin.

This performance aired live on MTV during the VMA pre-show on August 30th, 2020, where 6.4 million Americans tuned in. The video of the performance was then put on McRae’s YouTube channel, where it has over 5.3 million views. Grishnin was absolutely integral to the success of the shoot, and impressed McRae and her team so much that he has gone on to work with them all those times since.

“It’s an incredible thing to not only work on something so large in scale, but to also know that millions have watched it on MTV and on the internet. Responses were incredible, it seemed like people enjoyed what we put together for this young Canadian talent. It’s interesting, how in the beginning I received a bit of protest on how dark we made the performance look, and it made me wonder if I had gone too far with my approach.

However, over time it feels like I’ve received much more praise on that shoot precisely because it was so dark and colorful. A reminder for me that not everyone will agree with your work, but there’s a market for everyone and everything. What’s important is to stay true to you and your process. Attract the kind of individuals who see things the way you do,” he concluded.