Walk Alone Music Video (first HVX project for us)

J

JonathanLB

Carbonite Member
I co-own a production company in Los Angeles called Shutzi Productions, Inc. and we have three RED One cameras on order, but we wanted a really good camera to use between now and our March deliver (we're fairly late on the list), so after some research and using the Canon XH-A1, we ultimately decided we loved the P2 workflow, the HVX200's great picture quality, and really just admire everything about the camera, especially on a lower budget. We're very pleased with it.

Anyway, we're a new company, starting in the music video realm, with an eye towards the Persian market initially because my business partner is Assyrian, speaks Assyrian, Farsi, English, and a bit of other languages, so he has niche community ties and knows a lot of Persian singers personally. But first, we wanted to start by making a music video for an American group, pro-bono, and showcasing our work to show to clients.

We had a lot of challenges with this project, but ultimately I'm very pleased with how it turned out and the band was stoked, so that made me happy!

The link I'm posting is a fairly large file, to preserve the quality, so give it a few minutes to load, but I hope it's worthwhile: http://www.shutzi.com/videos/walk-alone.html

Oh, also, forgot to mention I have a call in to my editor / tech guy because the video freezes with about 2 seconds to go, no big deal, but it will be fixed as soon as he calls me back.
 
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Good stuff man!

I like the motivation of the video. The fire theme with colors and lighting ratios all work great together.

Definitely worth the wait to download :thumbsup:
 
Yeah sorry the video is pretty big, we're going to put up two versions, one that's about 3 times smaller in file size, easier on people's patience and whatnot. But... the HVX takes such nice footage, lol, I spent so much time on the video, I feel selfish about it, like I want to show it the best way possible, even though that's tough online. Haha!

One of my poor friends has a 56K modem still (didn't know they even made those anymore, lol), so he has to wait for the smaller version.

Thanks for the kind words. This project took a long time from concept to completion, and actually it looks like we might be tweaking a few more things, the lead singer has something he wanted to change so he's driving back to Los Angeles Tuesday I believe. A music video is such a collaborative process in some respects because even though I directed it, it's still really important that the band as a whole feels they are represented properly, shown well, and that the product looks great, because it's like a commercial for their music and their group, basically, so I understand how important it is to them that everything be as close to perfect as possible.

These are really cool guys, too, and I look forward to seeing what happens with their career in the next 6-12 months.
 
For sure man. Its good that you want the clients to be happy with the project. They'll definitely recommend you in the future because you take interest in their work.

Do you know what scene settings you used for those low light interior shots?
All in all it came out very well.
 
I pretty much let the DP and his 1st A.C. / camera tech dude figure out the technical aspects of shooting with the camera, but I know what kind of lighting we used on the interiors. I think we had the kino flo light going with every interior, like in Rich's scene inside of the studio, the kino was above him.

I think the band had a great experience with this video, especially compared to last time, but we were very nervous about the project in some ways because their first music video was very high budget, ridiculously high budget, for an unsigned group. I've never heard of anything like that before. It was about a $65,000 video, shot in 35mm, and we saw it the day of the shoot, before we setup, and the band hated it. I personally thought it was pretty good! It looked nice, anyway, had some cool shots. I see their problems with it, but Victor (my business partner) and myself both thought, "Wow, and they hated this? This is going to be a challenge." I think they hated the experience more than anything, though. They felt they were treated as guinea pigs for someone else's project, like the music video wasn't really for them, they were just there to let these guys experiment and make something that advanced their careers. I couldn't believe what the lead singer told me, that they tried to make him sign a contract that said the band can't use the video for anything, basically, and that it belongs to the production company to use however. He was saying, "Well why the heck would we even bother wasting our time then?" It seems like a very unprofessional approach to me. Despite doing this project for free, I still assumed the video would be their property to use absolutely however they wanted, and we just asked them to sign an agreement giving us permission to post it on our Website, use it for promotional purposes, and show it to potential clients. Besides that, it's theirs to do whatever they please with, sell, show in public, in private, on TV, whatever.

I want to make sure whoever works with our company really feels we care about what they want and that they get what they want. I'm sure some clients will be like, "Look, I don't want to do anything, I just want to hand you the check, make me a great video," and that's fine, we can do that. But there will be others, like this group, that want to be more involved and that's fine, too, especially because their creativity adds to the project and enhances it, I think. I believe the student mentality sometimes says, "Well this is my project, I want to make it however I want, and I'll put it on my reel." My attitude says, "A music video is an advertisement, it's just longer than typical ads you see on TV, and it exists to promote the artist and their music, therefore the number one goal is to make them happy with the finished product." I see it more from a business standpoint, I guess.
 
Absolutely. Thanks for the lighting info.

65 grand and no rights to the video, I wouldn't care how it looked, I would be displeased too. Loansharking is not cool whatsoever.

Its good that you see things from that standpoint because thats what will keep you in business. When people tell you that they like working with you and how you go about business it speaks volumes and when the projects comes out as good as yours did, its icing on the cake.

Let me know when the final version is done and other projects that you have in the pipeline.
 
For sure, yeah providing a good experience for the client is most important I think. When I do my first feature, then what I want and my vision is most important, especially because I'm working on that feature now a bit and I'm planning to fund it myself, so I will have complete control over the final product, but as long as I'm making music videos it's my job to make the client happy. If they love something I'm not a huge fan of, I can always make a director's edit for my reel if I want, but if they're adamant about wanting something I'll make sure they have it.

So you're in New York huh, and the Bronx? Nice. I'm a big Yankees fan, well, when they're not exiting in the first round, ahem. Do you get out to Los Angeles much?

It looks like you do a ton of different types of work, how do you get into doing commercial work if you have no experience with that? We have the equipment and we can hire the crew, but I'm not sure what's the best way to go about finding low budget commercial work on the side. For now, our company would be happy to do all kinds of different types of video work to make the money we need monthly to pay our overhead. We're not interested in doing wedding videos, however, we have our standards, haha. It's not that wedding videos are bad but we aren't DPs or camera ops, and we have too much money invested in equipment to do work that is too low budget.
 
lol keep us updated.

Welcome to the real world where everything is great until the clients "needs" come into conflict with your artistic sensibilities. Here's where the rubber really meets the road in this biz, at least in my experience and depending specifically on the type of productions you create. Wedding videographers, for example, must remain humble to the clients whims, whereas hired directors etc have a responsibility to the studio.

Chapter one of the production bible should be:

What to do with clients without taste. It's their money, but your good name.

I think in order to succeed one must become a master of the sometimes delicate but oft brutal art of persuasion -in addition to all the other hats one must wear. Capital venturist, salesman, marketer, financial planner, bean counter, quazi contract lawyer, accountant, negotiator, diplomat, magician, and then finally the one's that brought you to the plate in the first place.. artist, visionary, creative geek, film lover.




Since you did this pro bono and with an open contract, just reservring the right to use it for your own promotions you're now left with..... uhm.. bust out the magician hat?
 
I see you're shooting a feature in Portland in the future. May I ask what brings you to that part area? (I used to live there and always loved the scenery)
 
haha, great advice, great post. That is true, sometimes you have to be a magician, and a diplomat is the first thing I've had to use as a director, I mean that is my most valuable skill so far. The shoot wouldn't have worked without a bit of diplomat and a bit of businessman. We nearly had a revolt on the shoot because the gaffer was complaining about the band being close to the fire, he was overly worried that somehow the fire would explode or something, which was ridiculous and we all knew it, but we found a compromise and moved the band a bit, shot in forced perspective, and it all worked out fine. But for a while there the gaffer was convincing the DP, who he has worked with before, and a few of my crew guys who I recruited myself that they shouldn't shoot with fire at all.

Oh, as far as Portland, well that's where I grew up, that's where I was for the last few decades before I moved to Los Angeles. My interest in shooting a feature there is entirely because I have access to what I believe is an incredible location for a horror film and will save me a lot of money in the budget. My dad's house sits on 40 acres overlooking the city, it's 16,000 square feet plus a 2,000 square foot expansion that sits maybe 50 feet from the house (a three-car garage for his supercars and upstairs a weight room). Plus outside areas (pools, terraces, etc.) adds another 2,000 sq. feet, ends up about a 20,000 sq. foot house. It's built in an old-English tudor type of style, aged brick, ivy growing up the side in parts, granite roof, a beautiful house but with the fog that rolls in during the winter, quite eerie, and I've had this horror film idea for ages now, still working on the script, but with a free location and already owning my own camera equipment and at least a fair amount of production equipment, I can drive up to Portland and bring my tools with me, all I'll need to rent is probably a professional dolly and some extra grip equipment, hire a small crew, and I believe I can shoot a feature in four six-day weeks quite easily, for maybe $3,000 per day total crew costs. For a first feature, it's practical, and if I plan it well enough I can make that money go pretty far. We'll see what happens, because I'd like to make some cash down here before I go up and do that, but I was thinking January 2009. It could be 2010, though, depends how things go here. I won't do it later than January 2010, however. If I haven't made it down here by that point I'll take one last shot with that feature and see what happens. ;)
 
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I was happy with the final edit, the band wasn't trying to go overboard after all, phew, and we came up with a lot better edits to some of the story footage, the transitions especially, plus some of the less exciting shots were really enhanced by various techniques and I think the final product is a true step above the last version:

http://www.shutzi.com/autumn-tragedy/walk-alone/
 
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