Black and White music video - HVX + M2 + Nikon

Hey Mattscope,

That looked really great. Black and white is difficult because you have to get seperation with tones only, no chroma.

I think I noticed that the M2 battery was low on some of the shots, especially the dinner setting shots of the plates. There is some wicked wobbling of the images, though it kind of works for this.

How did you rig the lights above the girl when she was dancing. Was this a set or a practical location?

How did you rig the camera to get the canted angle? That was very nice.

My favorite shot is when you dolly with the girl's legs as she pushes them down on the bathroom floor.

Finally I think the the grading of the BW was pretty good but some of the shots are pretty low contrast while others are much punchier. I'm not sure if that is intended or not.

Very pretty.

Cheers,

Matt :beer: :beer: :beer:
 
Sexy indeed. Sounds a lot like Portishead... love that stuff. Great images, mood and style. I'll have to watch it again when I have more time... running around to pull of a last minute gig.

Great stuff. The HVX in B and W is KING... Love what you can do with it....
 
yeah we shot with a low M2 battery on purpose and what you see hasn't even been graded... it's just straight to black and white from the original footage shot. reason why we shot with a low battery was because we wanted the unpredictable 'wobbly' effect... it just adds this surreal texture to it.

it was shot on a set... well the only thing existing was the white walls and the window. the ceiling had these iron frames which made it possibile to rig lights to with g-clamps.

to get all the canted angles I basically just hand-held the camera. as for the long tracking shots I just lay on a skate board dolly and hand-held it. we didn't have a hi-hat and it was the only possible way to get the camera that low.

thanks for all the comments. I found it very enjoyable shooting it.
 
Great work!

Never heard of this low battery business but what ever works huh! Nice lighting and mood you set here with these beautiful actresses. What Nikon prime did you use mattscope? My challenge with the M2 is lacking light but it seems you have nailed it here, did you need a bunch of 650s or 1ks? Keep it up and gratz on being sample M2 footage.

Cheers
 
I just had a short look at it and it's look very nice. I will load it and try to see the complete video later.
 
Interesting visuals there. Some of the shallow DOF work is very compelling, other parts would benefit from more DOF in my opinion.

I find that a lot of this DOF stuff seems to be all-or-nothing, with DPs forgetting their manners and that they should vary their field of view and depth of field to compliment their subject or story. It is just another tool to be used in situations appropriate and complimentary.

In this case, it makes sense, though I would have certainly considered a few stark, wide infinite-focus shots to break the whole thing up.

It's very good work and RedRock should be thanking you for giving them some content.

e
 
thanks for the comments guys, really appreciate it.

you know I hear from everyone else that you really need a lot of lights but I really didn't... mostly I just use a couple red heads and a kino flo, thats it. no 1k's or HMIs... mind you I am shooting mostly wide open at f1.4 but that's my desired stop anyway.

The shallow DOF I felt really complimented the mood of the song, this surreal dreamy quality... I even told me focus puller that I don't mind if the focus isn't spot on, for something like this it works. I felt that the wide shots were quite stark enough, theres enough DOF there so see what is important (the surrounding set).

once again thanks for the comments!
 
That's great Matt, I like it, and the girls are easy on the eyes also. The music, I would have thought it was Portishead. Who is/are the artist(s)?
 
Very nice done...!

Allow me some technical stuff: i also did like the high quality compression in the clip you posted, which settings did you use for compression(divx i guess, or rather h264...!?).

I personally would like it a littl bit dirtier (well not what you think guys..), not sure if you already added some grain, but i feel that some of the shots are close to be too clean, so that would be great for the atmosphere..maybe its just gone through the compression...just my 2 cents, but it would be hard to seperate it from 16mm then...beautifull...also the music!
 
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