Music Video Help

I

ItsJanosz

Active member
Hey all,

Posting here as usual to get the good advice. Love you guys.

I'm about to shoot my first music video w/ the DVX. I've got a bunch of experience shooting (features, shorts, etc), but have never shot a music video.
My questions are these:

- Playback: What do you guys use for playback? How do you deal w/ playback when in an outdoor/remote location, or when playback must be heard over drums/other noise?

- What's the best way to deal w/ sync? Do I need to run through the entire song in each take (except for inserts, etc, obviously)? I've heard people mention click track intros for songs when shooting music videos - how does one put one of those together? Any other special considerations I should take/be aware of for sync?

- Anything else that I should watch out for?

Thanks!
 
Playback: I use a laptop with Adobe Audition (their sound editing program) having previously ripped the band's track and made it a WAV file on the system. I bring the biggest receiver and speakers I can bring, and if it is outdoors I try to run a small ear plug to the drummer if they want that.

It helps to add a click track to your's band's music, so you can count off 4 beats before actually getting into the music segment you are going to shoot. This will allow the band to 'get in character' at the same time they are getting in sync. Otherwise, you've got to have them sync up at the previous bar, which adds a lot of time to the session.

You've got to play the track very loud so the band will not feel inhibited performing for you.

What else? Umm, ask the band to practice syncing beforehand, especially the lead singer. Helps a lot with believable performances. Let the drummer know that they are going to have to be in more shots than everyone else, even if they aren't the focus of the shot, because drummers tend to be placed in the background, so they often have to be in the shot.

Plan your shots, and break out the music segments into different tracks that you can selectively turn on and off as your shoot progresses. This is a REAL timesaver.

Good luck with your shoot. Here's last year's video that I did for a band in my area:

http://entertain.com/swanks/swanks_24p_demo2.mov

I wanted to shoot something black and white, and I thought these folks had the right look. We took 5 hours with one camera, did about 30 replays. I think it came out OK.
 
Speedbump - Nice vid. The lead has a kinda Pat Benatar thing going. From the "Heartbreaker" days, not her new stuff.

Only thing that bugged me, besides the guy smoking, from a technical standpoint was the CCD blooming or lens flare off the huge backlight on the handheld shots.
And there's one edit that jumped out at me at about 25seconds. It goes from the close-up on the smoker, cig in mouth, to a wide shot that he's visible in, no cig in mouth.
 
Sirius_Doggy said:
And there's one edit that jumped out at me at about 25 seconds. It goes from the close-up on the smoker, cig in mouth, to a wide shot that he's visible in, no cig in mouth.
Click to expand...

I saw that happen to many times in the vid(that guy was the least photogenic also, he looked lost or out of place most of the time), also the funny faces that the guy on the left was doing didn't go well with the video, I would have saved them for the blooper or out-take reel :shocked: . What you did with the brightness and contrast was great, it looked really pro, the lighting was great also. 2x :thumbup: on the vid.


- Playback: What do you guys use for playback? How do you deal w/ playback when in an outdoor/remote location, or when playback must be heard over drums/other noise?

If it's possible I would hook up a loud stereo system because I'm in a band and have shot videos and a good performance won't come out without the band members feeling the music, for a good performance I think louder is better. For drums you can have the drummer buy some drum mutes which are pads that go over the drums and cymbals, cuz' after a while they get really annoying as they are the loudest thing on the set. Also for a remote location you can rent or get a hold of a generator or just a car with some sounds a bump it(just pay em' for a full tank of gas or something).

- What's the best way to deal w/ sync? Do I need to run through the entire song in each take (except for inserts, etc, obviously)? I've heard people mention click track intros for songs when shooting music videos - how does one put one of those together? Any other special considerations I should take/be aware of for sync?

As mentioned before it is a good idea to have a 4 count before the song begins so everyone starts off on time, you can do this with any audio program, even Premiere or Final Cut, I use Sonar 4 though as that is my favorite sound editor. If you have a story board then it will save you time to seperate the verse-chorus-bridge parts with the 4 count in so you can access them right away on different tracks for different scenes or sections that you want to film.

- Anything else that I should watch out for?

Things to watch out for or to avoid are people that don't listen, bull****ters that just waste time, distractions(girlfriends, boyfriends, friends and family on set, cellphones), no scouting of locations beforehand, sunlight and the way it colors a scene, the band playing different than the cd, on and on and on... :happy:

Good luck.
 
Click track

Click track

My camera guy set up the click track in Audition, I couldn't tell you how to do it, but he was able to do so on the fly while we were between setups.

Thanks for the compliments folks.

Yes, i agree that the discontinuity of the guy smoking/not smoking is jarring, once you see it. I didn't notice it at all the whole time I was editing, and didn't notice it until premiere nite at the band's local bar! Doh!

The video was shot with a Panasonic anamorphic adapter, which we rented for the day. It really pulls the detail out, doesn't it?

Contrast was pretty good, but a lot of that was heightened in post. It helped that we had a 16:9 Sony monitor to see what we were getting during the shoot. One regret I had about that shoot was that we didn't push the Master pedestal setting up a little bit, which is why we've still got some milky blacks. Depending on your requirements, you can put Master Ped up to +4 or so, especially if your iris is at f5.6 (midrange I believe).

It also helped a lot that the band was just thrilled that anyone would work for them like we did, so they came ready to work, and did everything I told them. Overall, I thought that video came out well.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top