Living at Walmart (MY first directing/producing/editing music video)

Michele Seidman

Michele Seidman

Well-known member
OK, This is my very first time posting about a project that I shot. It is also the first time I have worn this many hats. Top it off...I don't have nearly the equipment or resources most of you have so I am going to ask you to be gentle with critique. I'll take it...but go easy on me.

This is how it all started.

Last week I got a phone call from my friend Pat Pepin the blues singer. She had hit the road in her little RV and was trying to sell CD's and line up gigs. Like many of us, times have been a bit tough on her but instead of wallowing in her own self pity she hit the road to find a way to make things work.

She called while in route to my place and told me about this song she wrote called Living at Walmart. I went to listen to it and giggled like a school girl. She asked if we could get her in front of my green screen and make a video for the song.

I knew we had to do more and offered to see what I could scrounge up. Once she got here I put out a call to actors who might volunteer to help us and several did. Then a producer buddy helped me find a location at Howards RV center so we could get shots of her parked near other RV's. It is so cold right now, there were few RV's and campers at Walmart so we had to improvise.

Shooting in Walmart was a bit intriguing because I was pretty sure they would not give us the go ahead but if we could get the footage without it being taken from us, we would own it. We managed to get 90% by shooting hit and run inside the store before a manager came and asked us to cease and desist. Of course it was more fun to tell people we got thrown out even if we did not. But we did stop when asked.


I cannot imagine Walmart being mad once they see this. The song is fun and positive and so is the video. This should be great press for them.

The funny part for both Pat and I is how many people think everyone in it was a real customer. We got a bunch of actors to help us and did get just a few real customers. The actors kept it real and they looked as 'real' as the actual customers did. We even got one actor to dress like management and made a tag and told him to check his watch like he was off duty too. But people thought he was real too!

So far the video has had over 6600 views in 3-4 days since we posted it. People from around the world are sharing it. It started out innocent enough. We posted it on both of our Facebook accounts and before we knew it the hits started climbing fast. Then we found out the folks who boondock had been posting it on RV forums and all heck broke out. Next thing you know, blues folks were passing it round and twittering as well as posting it everywhere they could.

So, even if it is not the best of the best in shooting and editing...it has gone a bit viral. I would love some feedback because I think I want to do some more of this.

And before I am asked....it was shot on a pawn shop purchased RCA Mini DV cam and edited on Ulead. Yes...I know, I know...some of you are giggling at me now but it is a start. I normally act...and I am trying to learn more on my own.

Constructive critique will help me get better....I only got brave enough to post it here when the hits climbed like they did.

The video is on youtube and I don't think it will embed here, so this is the link

Living at Walmart

Thanks in advance for feedback...remember...be kind...lol

Michele

 
Sighh no comments yet. I really am hoping for ideas and suggestions on how to improve myself. I also hope someone can explain how to work around the compression issues when uploading because the version i made the lips match but on YT they don't. I thought I had that part figured out but I never posted anything like this before.

If anyone knows about that...please fill me in. Any thoughts on what to do when you have no extra lights and you need to do an outside scene at night? The 'dog walking' is so dark and the editor filters would not fix it very well. Is there a trick to getting a better night shot without having major lighting rigs? I know you can use bounce boards during the day but what about night?
 
I guess I'll be the first. I watched the video before I read most of your post. While watching it I thought that it would be the type of thing that could be big on the internet for a little while. I'm an audio guy so I can't give as detailed notes as most people. The "actors" were really good and also couldn't really tell who was an actor and who was a real customer. I guess my only criticism would be to get more variety of shots for the performance clips. Most of it was a long shot of her playing guitar in her trailer, but maybe some more closeups of her or her hands strumming the guitar.

Good job!
 
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Brad thank you. I could kick myself now. I have no clue why I did not think of some close ups. D'oh on me. I could not have done them inside the store because we were trying not to be noticed, so sometimes I just stayed where I was and aimed at her from a distance.

Now, it dawns on me from what you mentioned that I could have gotten them in the camper or when we did the 'fake' crane shot. Thank you for those notes...I WILL keep that in mind for the future!

Since you ARE a sound guy...can you tell me if wav file IS the best to use when editing? That is what I was told to do and it did seem to work much better than an mp file.
 
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When working with audio, you ALWAYS want to work with uncompressed files, so yes WAV would be the right choice. In this case you're not going to cut up the music or really mess with it in any way, but when you export you're most likely going to compress so you don't want to compress an already compressed file.
 
Brad S. said:
When working with audio, you ALWAYS want to work with uncompressed files, so yes WAV would be the right choice. In this case you're not going to cut up the music or really mess with it in any way, but when you export you're most likely going to compress so you don't want to compress an already compressed file.
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That makes sense! Thank you. I had done it with mp files before and it always sounded odd and someone suggested wav but never explained why! Now I get it.

Self taught makes me slow on the draw compared to many other dvxusers!
 
Haha. Well it is what it is but here's my 2 cents on it.

You've got 7 thousand hits after just a few days on a video that had little production value. You should be proud of yourself and I bet your friend the Blues player's happy. I guess I'm torn because i think most people on this site wouldn't ever shoot something like that and call it work but then again most people on this site don't have 700 much less 7,000 people watching their stuff. (myself included)

So in a nutshell (<----- edited) Don't worry about the critique because you know as well as us that technically this video isn't on par. BUT maybe creatively it is.
I don't know what else to say except, "I wish one of my video's would take off like that." and Congratulations, and Good luck on the next one. Bring it back for us to see.

:)
 
Zblock said:
Haha. Well it is what it is but here's my 2 cents on it.

You've got 7 thousand hits after just a few days on a video that had little production value. You should be proud of yourself and I bet your friend the Blues player's happy. I guess I'm torn because i think most people on this site wouldn't ever shoot something like that and call it work but then again most people on this site don't have 700 much less 7,000 people watching their stuff. (myself included)

So in a nutshell (<----- edited) Don't worry about the critique because you know as well as us that technically this video isn't on par. BUT maybe creatively it is.
I don't know what else to say except, "I wish one of my video's would take off like that." and Congratulations, and Good luck on the next one. Bring it back for us to see.

:)
Click to expand...


Lol ZBlock...so true. my production value was seriously lacking. The only reason I am claiming it as a project is because I am trying to grow and learn and what better way when self teaching, to ask others who do it daily.

I am wondering if you are right on the 'creatively good' even when lacking elsewhere. I am also starting to wonder if it was a better production if it would get as many views. It amazes me on sites like Youtube how homemade often gets more hits...and we both know my project does look very...hmmm...shall we say 'homey' at best. One step above shoot and upload.

I do appreciate the comments though. If I do do more, I will keep posting and looking for things to change and work on.

I seriously need to get better at lighting and editing. Sound was the easiest on this because no video footage sound was used...but dang you should have seen me trying to line up her lips and the words...lol.
 
Zblock said:
Oh yeah music videos are tough. Especially with lots of cuts. Bought drive you mad. If your interested check out a couple of mine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOfbOzug89k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co9I28iZkvc
Click to expand...

ZBlock you put me to shame. These are sharp. The camera work is excellent. I am humbled by your work. Tell me how much that HVX runs anyway? Not going to be able to get one anytime soon but it never hurts to dream. But I admit I keep wondering about getting a Red.

Thank you for sharing. Gives me something to aspire too.

Oh...the snow on the cymbal shot in Shake Down Valley....excellent....sooooo nice! Love the close up and slow mo on the Zachariah Ryan tune. You do some sweet work. I bet you had a crew?

Michele
 
I saw your posting over in the Audio forum. As others have already said, congratulations to you and to Ms. Pepin on her song and your video going "viral"! Likely the PR flacks at Walmart know about this by now and are trying to decide how to react (if at all?) :-))

I wasn't sure about your question "how to prevent audio compression when trying to keep a singers lips in sync." Generally, compression and lip-sync are two independent issues. And by "compression" I wasn't sure whether you were talking about using an MP3 compressed music track vs. uncompressed WAV, or whether you were talking about dynamic sound-level compression? It appears that Mr. Semenoff has already addressed the benefits of using uncompressed (WAV) files vs. compressed (MP3).

And if you are talking about file compression on YouTube, there are many discussions and recommendations about what formats fare better on YouTube than others. It would be redundant to start that discussion here.

As to the matter of lip sync, you didn't describe how you shot your scenes? This is generally done with an audible track playback for the actors so they can lip-sync to the pre-recorded music. But also recording the playback audio with the video so that you have a "scratch track" on the video representing the music that was being synced-to. The professionals use a timecode version of the music trax and then just use the timecode to line everything up. But IME, that may be easier, but isn't absolutely necessary to achieve perfect sync.

As long as you have some discernable recording of the trax playback on the video track, it should be pretty easy to slip the video clips into perfect (+/- 1 frame) alignment with your master/guide music track. I don't shoot many "music videos" but I do many live performances where I edit together video from several different cameras to match the master audio track. As long as you have SOME audio with the video, it is really quite easy to slide the video clip forward or back in the NLE timeline so that the scratch audio from the camera matches the master audio track.

Since you didn't mention HOW you shot the video, I don't know whether you did it this way and ran into some (undisclosed) problems? Or whether you tried some other method?

I thought I also saw somewhere in the postings that you said the the lip-sync is OK on your original, but not on the YouTube distribution? If that was the issue, then it might be helpful to mention exactly what format you uploaded to YouTube, etc.
 
Lighting:

Find street lighting that is NOT low pressure sodium - it's yellow to the eye and shows as red on camera. Metal Halide or Mercury Vapor lighting is close to daylight and a bit brighter than the sodium lighting (it looks a tad bluish). Maybe look for a street or a parking lot that has lower lamp posts also and get closer to them.

I don't know what exactly you need to light or what you're shooting with but you can get acceptable level with this approach.

You can also use a few car headlights moving and crossing over an area.

You can also shoot dusk-for-night as long as you don't show the sky or see any bright reflection from the sky. Or, even day-for-night with the same rules as long as the sun is at an angle that will allow it to look like moonlight when exposure is adjusted to look darker. If shooting day-for-night, do so with sunlight, not clouds.

.
 
Mr. Crowley is right about playing back the music track while shooting the video. The only point that I really noticed horribly out of sync was Ms. Pepin at the very beginning of the video, but then again I probably got used to rubbery sync. I would imagine that even if you were playing the track during the shoot, the beginning would be hard to lip sing to because the rhythm hasn't been established yet.

I don't know what it is about You Tube, but it seems that there is a sync problem on at least half of the stuff that's up there.
 
Thanks Michele. I shot Perfect Pacific by myself using a remote lol. Shake Down's video I had my brother helping me. I got my HVX w a tripod for less than 5k although I think if I had to buy again I might have went with the hpx170. Same camera for $1000 cheaper. And it's lighter. I was thinking about the red a lot too. Too heavy for me and I think this first generation is going to get massively tweaked so no sweat on waiting until the bugs are sorted out.

Thanks for your kind words.
 
OK,

Yes some close shots of her playing would have been a plus. Also I really wanted to see the rest of the band at some point. Maybe not possible but to keep in mind for the future. They could have been all crowded in the RV? Or on top! Or popping up here and there in the Walmart.

As a quick legal note, you DO need permission from the corporation and any non actor that you happened to catch. Again not probably a problem here but for the future FYI so you don't get bit in the but by them legal types. You know a lot of them don't have their shots!
 
Richard Crowley said:
I saw your posting over in the Audio forum. As others have already said, congratulations to you and to Ms. Pepin on her song and your video going "viral"! Likely the PR flacks at Walmart know about this by now and are trying to decide how to react (if at all?) :-))

I wasn't sure about your question "how to prevent audio compression when trying to keep a singers lips in sync." Generally, compression and lip-sync are two independent issues. And by "compression" I wasn't sure whether you were talking about using an MP3 compressed music track vs. uncompressed WAV, or whether you were talking about dynamic sound-level compression? It appears that Mr. Semenoff has already addressed the benefits of using uncompressed (WAV) files vs. compressed (MP3).

And if you are talking about file compression on YouTube, there are many discussions and recommendations about what formats fare better on YouTube than others. It would be redundant to start that discussion here.

As to the matter of lip sync, you didn't describe how you shot your scenes? This is generally done with an audible track playback for the actors so they can lip-sync to the pre-recorded music. But also recording the playback audio with the video so that you have a "scratch track" on the video representing the music that was being synced-to. The professionals use a timecode version of the music trax and then just use the timecode to line everything up. But IME, that may be easier, but isn't absolutely necessary to achieve perfect sync.

As long as you have some discernable recording of the trax playback on the video track, it should be pretty easy to slip the video clips into perfect (+/- 1 frame) alignment with your master/guide music track. I don't shoot many "music videos" but I do many live performances where I edit together video from several different cameras to match the master audio track. As long as you have SOME audio with the video, it is really quite easy to slide the video clip forward or back in the NLE timeline so that the scratch audio from the camera matches the master audio track.

Since you didn't mention HOW you shot the video, I don't know whether you did it this way and ran into some (undisclosed) problems? Or whether you tried some other method?

I thought I also saw somewhere in the postings that you said the the lip-sync is OK on your original, but not on the YouTube distribution? If that was the issue, then it might be helpful to mention exactly what format you uploaded to YouTube, etc.
Click to expand...

Richard

We did play the recorded version of the song in her ears with ear buds and ran the wires down her back so they would not be visible. In the original the sync is nearly perfect, save some human error in matching every single word perfectly. Those things I tried to hide with cut away's.

I did upload it as a WMV file because I have seen mpg files go way off on youtube before. Every other time I went with the wmv it came out clean but before this I was mostly making child like stop motion shorts on my own channel just to learn basics.

I am wondering if the size matters on there or it is just youtube compression in general. No clue as of yet and I might need to read more on what another person has mentioned about the formats.

Thank you so much for the info...

M

Chris Santucci said:
Lighting:

Find street lighting that is NOT low pressure sodium - it's yellow to the eye and shows as red on camera. Metal Halide or Mercury Vapor lighting is close to daylight and a bit brighter than the sodium lighting (it looks a tad bluish). Maybe look for a street or a parking lot that has lower lamp posts also and get closer to them.

I don't know what exactly you need to light or what you're shooting with but you can get acceptable level with this approach.

You can also use a few car headlights moving and crossing over an area.

You can also shoot dusk-for-night as long as you don't show the sky or see any bright reflection from the sky. Or, even day-for-night with the same rules as long as the sun is at an angle that will allow it to look like moonlight when exposure is adjusted to look darker. If shooting day-for-night, do so with sunlight, not clouds.

.
Click to expand...

Chris

Well dag nab it you just schooled me. I did park the RV near the wrong type of lights. I was just so happy to have some decent light it never dawned on me about the hues that light would cast. No wonder I had so little to work with and the filters did not help.

I did not know I could try a dusk shot and may play with that just to see how it looks so I can be better prepared next time. I am assuming at dusk you have a short window of time to work with. Would that be correct?

And thank you so much for the advice!

M

Brad S. said:
Mr. Crowley is right about playing back the music track while shooting the video. The only point that I really noticed horribly out of sync was Ms. Pepin at the very beginning of the video, but then again I probably got used to rubbery sync. I would imagine that even if you were playing the track during the shoot, the beginning would be hard to lip sing to because the rhythm hasn't been established yet.

I don't know what it is about You Tube, but it seems that there is a sync problem on at least half of the stuff that's up there.
Click to expand...

Mr Crowley,

You know what bugs me about that start...I actually DID put a color card at the very open. It is so short it really is not visible at since it was only 1 frame but that lines up the sound perfect on the original. We did have to search the takes to find one where the open was perfect 'lips sync' wise because of how it opens.

The more I hear, the more I think it is the compression after upload and not one of the things I can do much about unless someone knows the secret to perfect upload on youtube. I am thinking of uploading it on another site just to see if it is better. I hear vimeo and funnyordie do not compress nearly as much.

Thanks for the help!

M

Zblock said:
Thanks Michele. I shot Perfect Pacific by myself using a remote lol. Shake Down's video I had my brother helping me. I got my HVX w a tripod for less than 5k although I think if I had to buy again I might have went with the hpx170. Same camera for $1000 cheaper. And it's lighter. I was thinking about the red a lot too. Too heavy for me and I think this first generation is going to get massively tweaked so no sweat on waiting until the bugs are sorted out.

Thanks for your kind words.
Click to expand...

ZBlock...after I watched your projects...I went back later to check the numbers. OMG there IS something off when projects likes yours don't get ten times the views Pat and I are getting on this.

And good point on the Red...I will keep thinking on it. Aside from them making more tweaks to it...I do have to think about the weight of a camera because I had major shoulder surgery and still cannot support the camera well...and mine is tiny and I get shaky without a tri-pod!

M

Noiz2 said:
OK,

Yes some close shots of her playing would have been a plus. Also I really wanted to see the rest of the band at some point. Maybe not possible but to keep in mind for the future. They could have been all crowded in the RV? Or on top! Or popping up here and there in the Walmart.

As a quick legal note, you DO need permission from the corporation and any non actor that you happened to catch. Again not probably a problem here but for the future FYI so you don't get bit in the but by them legal types. You know a lot of them don't have their shots!
Click to expand...

Noiz....

Yeah I am shooting myself over the lack of close ups now. I would have loved to shoot the band too. But, the song is fairly accurate...Pat is on the road in her RV without the band in tow. She lives in Maine and I live in North Carolina. We shot it here.

On the legal, we did get permission on all the talent. Top that off, they are all posting it everywhere so they would be hard pressed to say we did not ask them now...lol. On the store...I was told by one legal person...and if someone knows more about this and is 100% this is wrong....DO let me know...

But I was told that once the Manager asked us to stop, if they did not want us to have the footage they could have asked us to erase it right then and there. However, they only asked us to stop. Then top it off with literally thousands of people posting videos on web sites from the store already...The store would be hard pressed to go after us. There are multiple Youtube partners making money off of videos they shot while shopping in the store. They have to go after all of them too. And since they have never done so...it sets a precedence.

At least that is what I am told...again...if anyone knows better on that one, I will take advice. Youtube came to Pat and offered her the partnership a few days ago and we sent them every details on the legal stuff, and the facts on the shoot and they approved her. Would that also suggest we were within the line? After all..I am sure they have a huge legal team at YT these days with all the legal issues on copyrights.

M
 
PS...one thing I did forget to tell everyone....this was done very fast...maybe too fast but she only had a short time here. Concept on a Sunday, casting actor friends by email on Monday, shots Tuesday and Wednesday and all night and early afternoon editing and uploaded on Thursday....trying to finish before she left to head to the big blues challenge in Memphis next week.

The good part...with the viral hits...she will be a mini-celeb at the challenge!
 
First off, you did a fine job given the time you had to work with. The production value looks fine for YouTube, with the exception of the dog walking shots. You should be proud.

On the legal subject, I don't think your friend was correct. In any event, I can see Walmart having a problem with this video. They probably don't want to be seen as condoning or promoting the idea of Walmart as "America's free campground", for fear of their parking lots being swamped with campers, RVs and people living in most any other kind of vehicle. That could open up liability issues as well. They might also take a dim view of one of their 'employees' being shown going into an RV in the parking lot and having an alcoholic beverage. So I wouldn't just assume that Walmart will be okay with it if the song and video are popular. They could shut you down in a hurry.

As always, legal advice should come from a qualified attorney, not folks on a public forum.

All that said, though -- good job on the video!
 
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