Lately I've become a fan of a lot of music videos that display a naturalistic look to them. To me it seems like there isn't a lot of lighting setups and tho the shooting seems very documentary/run n gun like it still has a cinematic beauty to it. Can someone help me understand what is driving the looks of these music videos?
Achieving the current naturalistic music video look?
- Thread starter dtjohns1
- Start date
jghenderson
Well-known member
I think the key to getting good "naturalistic" look is a good camera, good lens, and a good color correction. Also it helps if you shoot on overcast days (gives a very nice diffusion), and obviously being outside or in rooms with very large windows is key.
Bring some big flags for negative fill and some bounce boards to flatten lighting for outdoor, some interior shots look to be kinos from up top to create fill. Isnt the trick to lighting to make things look natural? Well music videos have drifted off, but heck I've seen huge HMIs used to create a natural look :/
And agree with above post, good lenses, top quality camera.
And agree with above post, good lenses, top quality camera.
David G. Smith
Steak Knife Member
I gotta go +1 on that for sure. I think a lot of what you are seeing in the above videos is exactly that, good cameras with good lenses carefully graded under the helm of talented DPs. Modern cameras offer great sensitivity with great dynamic range, and modern filmmakers are exploiting that to a great end.
I also agree about overcast days and using locations with large windows. I do believe that an understanding of geographical orientation and the way that the natural light falls on a specific location, at specific times, is a very important part of cinematography. One should understand how natural light changes through out the day and over the course of the year. Geographical orientation is important also. The most consistent natural lighting is the light from a northern sky. If you have a location that is oriented so that it is mostly illuminated with the light from a northern sky and has relatively large windows, then you will have consistent natural light through out the day (Depending on the weather, of course). Next in most consistent is east or west orientation. In a location, with large windows, with either an east or west orientation than you are going to have to deal with constantly changing direct sunlight for a good part of the day. The worst orientation is a location with a large southern exposure. In locations like this you will have to deal with constantly changing direct sunlight for most of the day. Understanding natural light, and making the decision to exploit it for a project also affects the logistics of that project. Hopefully, the project is organized well enough to exploit advantageous changes in the natural lighting by being able to make quick company moves, if necessary, and make quick adjustments to the shooting schedule to accommodate advantageous natural lighting
Yeah, large productions many times use large lights and set ups to create natural looking lighting. In the videos above, I did note that they appear to be using very simple lighting set ups. The motel room fight scene in the third video, for Spiritualized 'Hey Jane', looks to have been lit with augmented practical lights. The primary lighting seems to come from a twin tube florescent fixture, that I suspect was mounted there by the crew. Some of the other scenes for that video look like they were lit with the practical lights in the scene. They probably re-bulbed many of the practicals to higher output bulbs and probably augmented that with some bounce fill.
One thing I also noted in those videos is that they seem to user flatter picture profile settings and/or color grading choices. This is something that I am working on now in regards to shooting with a large sensor HD camera (An FS-100). I think that when shooting under natural light it is probably a good idea to NOT bake in the contrast in camera, and shoot flatter. It is important to keep highlights from clipping, so I am exposing for the highlights and using picture profile settings to bring the blacks up as necessary (Keep from crushing the blacks). The contrast can be adjusted (Within reason) in post. The videos above appear to me to use a similar approach.
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Thanks for the replies everyone. I think everyone has for the most part been right. What I'm seeing after doing some research of the cameras used on most of these videos is that I'm in love with the look and dynamic range that the Alexa gives you. On the outdoor portions its seeming like they are using harsh sunlight as a key yet everything is exposed perfectly heres another clip that I love the look of and the DP commented that he used an Alexa
jghenderson
Well-known member
Well there you go right there, a great camera (THE hottest camera in the world right now). Don't get discouraged if you aren't able to work with an Alexa for a while, there are other cameras out there that will be able to give you a similar look. It won't unfortunately approach the same quality as the Alexa (which is why the Alexa is $60k), but with proper exposure and good coloring you can at least get it in the same ballpark area.
David G. Smith
Steak Knife Member
Unless of course you are in the southern hemisphere
That is absolutely correct. I guess I do have western centric world view. I apologize for not clarifying.
Pietro Impagliazzo
Well-known member
The color rendition of the Alexa is crazy, subtle, beautiful, I have no words to describe it.
I also try to pay close attention to pin point some characteristic of it, but it's hard to identify a single aspect.
That's a thing that the low-cost world is still waiting for a revolution, color rendition.