"Gloss" finish for music video?

LuisReggiardo

LuisReggiardo

Member
Hi! I'm shooting a music video a few weeks from now and wondering how to better archieve that "gloss/glossy" finish that many music videos have as well some car commercials. It could also be described as a "metallic-finish".

Ope someone can understand what I'm referring to :D

Luis
 
Your shot needs to have reflective surfaces in order to get that glossy look. A polarizer would help too.
 
Perhaps you are referring to a 'skip bleach' bypass during developing?

What is skip-bleach processing?

By Benjamin Craig , filmmaking.net


Skip-bleach Processing refers to a technique whereby artistic ends are achieved through a kind of "incorrect" processing of colour film. In all film stocks, it's silver that reacts to light. In colour film stocks, when the silver reacts to light, it causes a colour dye coupler to form colour dye next to it. In developing, the silver itself (which is black after exposure and developing) is washed - or "bleached" - out. If you leave the silver in the print "skipping" or "bypassing" the bleach step - the image will have black silver sort of contaminating all the colours. The contrast increases, the blacks get very dense, and the colours get darker and more de-saturated.

Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan made use of a variation of skip-beach processing called ENR, created by Technicolor Labs. In this case they run the print through a second black & white developer to develop in the silver permanently (with a skip-bleach print, you could, in theory, later still wash out the silver.) By varying the strength of the developer, they can control how much silver gets left in - while the skip-bleach process leaves ALL the silver in. So the ENR process can be as subtle or as strong as you like. For example, the prints for Evita used a 30% ENR, the prints for The Game used a 60% ENR, and I think that Saving Private Ryan used a 90% ENR. Deluxe Labs also has a ENR process now called ACE. Their skip-bleach process is called CCE.
Click to expand...
I found this picture comparison online. It is not a REAL example of skipping bleach (because once it's done, it's done) but is a photoshop filter someone developed to replicate the effects of skipping bleach process. It's not JUST like the film developing end look, but it's a really good ballpark example of what skipping bleach does.
2082998731_9890acb6ae.jpg
 
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For me, the first video that comes to mind is Southside, Moby ft. Gwen Stefani.

I couldnt find an HD version online, but this will do:

Southside


The "glossy" look is entirely achieved with lighting. Good post work will polish it up, but you dont get this look by shooting flat lighting and applying a preset in post.

In most instances, either a ringlight is used or an improvised ringlight is used. In At the 1:17 mark, you see the lighting in Moby's glasses. It's an improvised ringlight made with flo tubes forming an IMMENSE spiderweb. At 1:25 you can see how big it actually is. I point it out at 1:17, though, as at that point the camera is shooting through it's center as if it were a ringlight.


Lighting, lighting, lighting. There is no substitute.
 
Ryan Patrick O'Hara said:
Perhaps you are referring to a 'skip bleach' bypass during developing?

I found this picture comparison online. It is not a REAL example of skipping bleach (because once it's done, it's done) but is a photoshop filter someone developed to replicate the effects of skipping bleach process. It's not JUST like the film developing end look, but it's a really good ballpark example of what skipping bleach does.
2082998731_9890acb6ae.jpg
Click to expand...

Well, these days with CS3 Photoshop, one can do anything to 'digital' film that one can do to digital stills. CS3 Extended has "moving pictures" processing capabilties so one can operate on a sequence of frames from footage...

I've not really tried using this capability much as yet... but then one can do a large number of processing operations with the filters that to me even with AfterEffects, still seemed a bit 'less than' those previously found in Photoshop.
 
Luis, perhaps you could refer us to an example of the "gloss" look rather than us speculating on what exactly that might be.

-J
 
I'm here Ryan! busy these days, I'll try to upload some example this weekend :D

Thank you all for your guesses, it's hard to explain this look, wait for my upload!

Thxx
Luis
 
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