U-C-IT Music Video

Spinflight said:
If the drive fails, you're done. You just simply cannot tell a client you lost all the footage. They simply will not accept that as an answer. So the cost of two p2 stor drives went into the cost of more cards instead.

It sure makes me wish we would all just go back to film. There were never any problems with losing footage there...... wink wink wink...

Clients need to update their expectations.. Accidents happen. You can copy all your P2 data to 50 hard drives and still lose all your data.
 
One of the better strictly hip hop videos I've seen on here.

There seems to be too many wide shots of the rappers, rarely a close up in the mix and that kind of kills it for me. Could use some CC on some of hte outside stuff, maybe up the contrast and darken it a bit, I don't know..it just has a video look in some spots.
 
It looked good. But in most of the interiors it looks like you could have had more light on the people, especially in the club. When the video goes to B&W it does look better as far as light goes. Might look a little better with a little more contrast.

All in all I liked the look of it and that shot with the smoke from the tires behind that guy in slow-mo with him walking forward...that looked sick.

Good job man.
 
The remarkable thing about this video is not the video -- which is pure rubbish in all departments as far as I'm concerned -- no, the remarkable thing is the amount of money it cost: $20,000.00. That is awesome. You are an excellent businessman, sir!
 
Phalynx said:
It sure makes me wish we would all just go back to film. There were never any problems with losing footage there...... wink wink wink...


Not loosing footage...you're right but not knowing if you had to reshoot, whole different story. With film you have to wait for the dailies to see. With P2, you know on the spot if you have the shot you want. wink wink.
 
B_Dub said:
no, the remarkable thing is the amount of money it cost: $20,000.00. That is awesome. You are an excellent businessman, sir!

I'd only be a great business man if I pocketed the whole budget. Lots of people to pay, talent, hotels, food, the list goes on and on. $20,000 goes about an inch these days.
 
Drew599 said:
It looked good. But in most of the interiors it looks like you could have had more light on the people, especially in the club. When the video goes to B&W it does look better as far as light goes. Might look a little better with a little more contrast.

All in all I liked the look of it and that shot with the smoke from the tires behind that guy in slow-mo with him walking forward...that looked sick.

Good job man.


I actually darkened the shot in post. I thought it was too lit actually. The smoke was thick thanks to the rain. Yes it's raining in all those shots. The end shot with the kids, it's raining pretty hard. The camera faired quite well in the rain. Scary exposing the only one camera you have to shoot with to that much water when you have two more days to shoot.
 
B_Dub said:
The remarkable thing about this video is not the video -- which is pure rubbish in all departments as far as I'm concerned -- no, the remarkable thing is the amount of money it cost: $20,000.00. That is awesome. You are an excellent businessman, sir!

B_Dub, you're not bringing anything constructive to the table, you trashed Spin's video without any explanation to back it up. I think spin did that group serious justice, you can put that clip side by side with any rap video on mtv. Yeah formula hasn't changed in 15 years, but guess what? It's still here and that's what they want to see.
 
VT Rich said:
Very cool video. Black and white looks great. Also the sound quality of that Schoeps seems very nice, did you have to do anything to the sound in Post or was it left alone?

www.vtrecordingstudio.com

I may have to do a complete project in Black and White. I like the look of it myself.

The sound was as is. One thing that's great about this mic is that at 4 feet, it sounds like it's at 2 feet. Other mics, as you get further away, sounds like they're further away.

Another thing. When you're following dialogue. If the boom operator misses his mark, the actor doesn't sound like he's off axis as much as other mics. There's room for error.

The only other shotgun that I tested that came close in this price range was a neuman.

The articulation of words that you hear with this mic is what sold me on it as well as the low level of noise pollution you get from the room. What ever they did to this tube, they did it right. It's very peaceful sounding in the headphones if that means anything. Now I hear why it took them so long to make it. I'd get another one right now if I had the money.
 
hey bro,
that there is some good use of the hvx, looks like degrained 16mm. THis might be a quick time version of the video hence the darkness. if the footage is that dark here is some advice, you probably already know.

1. the is still a lot of information in the shadows. to get this, chop the edit into scenes export the files individually as an uncompressed QT file into shake or combustion (poor mans davinci, you can do this in avid, final cut or premiere just takes more time). once the footage is in, create adjustment layers for each color effect you want to add. (do not touch the brightness or tint effects no matter what you do)
2. for the club footage choose levels, use the eye dropper to find the a point in the footage that is grey. this should indicate the ire level o-255 where the luminance holds strongest you should see the levels indicator for the his, mids and shadows. gently adjust the shadows till you see a little more detail. now this will add noise. (note your adjustment layer should only cover the part of the footage you want to adjust). to hide the noise select your cc wheel add the most prominent color of light in the video to the shadows, this gives a natural lighting effect.

3, choose the curves effect, gently adjust the luminance till lille more detal is added.

4. i suggest you stylize the footage with your choise of color in the shadows leaving the highlighs and mid more natural to give it more of that mtv look.

5, use the 3d camera provided in those shake or combus to get som close ups and transitions within the shot.

6, use roto masks to add some emotion in the slomo shots.

voila.

the footage it self is great just do a little more artistic post. better yet get magic bullet, (take of the bullet diffusion, thats for DV) AND YOU ARE GOOD TO GO
 
danny damah said:
hey bro,
that there is some good use of the hvx, looks like degrained 16mm. THis might be a quick time version of the video hence the darkness. if the footage is that dark here is some advice, you probably already know.

1. the is still a lot of information in the shadows. to get this, chop the edit into scenes export the files individually as an uncompressed QT file into shake or combustion (poor mans davinci, you can do this in avid, final cut or premiere just takes more time). once the footage is in, create adjustment layers for each color effect you want to add. (do not touch the brightness or tint effects no matter what you do)
2. for the club footage choose levels, use the eye dropper to find the a point in the footage that is grey. this should indicate the ire level o-255 where the luminance holds strongest you should see the levels indicator for the his, mids and shadows. gently adjust the shadows till you see a little more detail. now this will add noise. (note your adjustment layer should only cover the part of the footage you want to adjust). to hide the noise select your cc wheel add the most prominent color of light in the video to the shadows, this gives a natural lighting effect.

3, choose the curves effect, gently adjust the luminance till lille more detal is added.

4. i suggest you stylize the footage with your choise of color in the shadows leaving the highlighs and mid more natural to give it more of that mtv look.

5, use the 3d camera provided in those shake or combus to get som close ups and transitions within the shot.

6, use roto masks to add some emotion in the slomo shots.

voila.

the footage it self is great just do a little more artistic post. better yet get magic bullet, (take of the bullet diffusion, thats for DV) AND YOU ARE GOOD TO GO

Thanks for all the advice. The footage is dark on purpose actually. The original is very clean and has a lot of detail. The Label wanted it dirtier. It was just a little too detailed for what they were looking for, so we darkened and crushed a lot of the shadows to get rid of the "clean stuff". If I had more time to work on it I would have experimented with a lot of the other things you're describing. Magic bullet is on my list of things to try and I'm still making my way through Shake. Can't wait to get a good grasp of this program. Thanks again, I've been meaning to try some of what your talking about since I saw them demo that at NAB. It takes color correction from FCP to whole new level. I think my next video will be completely color corrected in shake.
 
the only thing i gotta say is, because i dont feel like typing 20 paragraphs of critiques, in simple, instead of 60p you should do 48p to keep it steady with the 48p, and I would just suggest paying better attention to white balance and color correction. holla.
 
look man i'm not hating, i'm just trying to give you the benfit of my experience as a 10+yr vet in the music biz (record producer/exec producer) i seriously doubt mtv will pick this up. way too flat and dark. although if you boosted the f--- out of the contrast it might be a 100 times better. i think too many wide shots on the exteriors and the interior setups were too big for the amount of lights you had.
i would do another cut of the video with just a little more focus on the girls and submit it to bet uncut.
but for the stage it is right now it looks like a so-so attempt at a "Tell Me When To Go" style video (which i freaking loved)
as far as the song, i actually liked it a lot. it's very strong for the genre it's in.

and seriously good job on getting $20stacks for this. too many dope fiend directors in my neck of the woods cutting deals like 3 music videos or under $10k. makes me wanna stick thier face in a lit 5000watt halogen.
 
Haha, the one shot where 3 guys and one girl are leaning up against a gritty
house wall wearing bandanas and matching shirts in the middle of the day, one of the guys is holding a champagne bottle in his hand. Hilarious, you never know
when you might need some champagne, so keep it handy! Rappers nowadays, you gotta give them a tiny pet on the head :)
 
Makes me miss Jam Master Jay a WHOLE lot more...

anyway, Im wondering why shoot with HVX if they are going to ask you to 'kill' the detail?

Overall I disliked the video itself but YOU appear to have talent as an editor.
 
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