Music video: slow mo, reference track speeded up

T

tomperson

Active member
Hi,
I've been offered to do a music video in a couple of weeks. I've done a couple of videoart and a short doc so far (and working in another one), so I've got a lot to learn in a short time.

The song is a slow mellow track in portuguese. The band just a vocalist and a guitarrist. Possible locations a beach, a closed theme park. We want to look a bit like old videos, simple shots, nice compositions, stuff like that. 16:9, PAL 25P mostly.

The video clip will be hyper low budget (an HV20, tripod, some filters and lots and lots of imagination), and we agree to the fact that the video will be totally non pretentious. Since the song is a slow kind of ballad that is about love I thought about using lots of closeups and such to give intimacy.

Another technique i'm interested in is playing a speeded up reference track and then slowing down in editing so as to get this ultra smooth kind of look.

For the more experienced ones:

- Should I go into TV mode here, so the video is 50i (hence better temporal resolution)?
- How much to speed up? I tried doubling music speed, but I feel is too fast to be able to get a decent vocal performance, and after slowing down i get 25/2 = 14.5 frames, not an integer number of fps. What would you recommend?
- What other tips could you give me regarding this kind of low budget videos? What to avoid? What to think in advance? What to take into account? What techniques?
- How can I get a kind of film trashed / overexposed video look on post? Like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfTphi7aoW0 minute 0:25

I've been watching videos on youtube the whole weekend, watching how directors I like do it...my eyes hurt....


I need a :bath:

Any help will be most appreciated
 
There are men and women, young and old, who can give you advice better than I, but as a music vid shoot dawns on me too, and my eyes hurt too from YouTube-over exposuritus, I'll help as best I can.

Shoot 50i for the slow-mo stuff, without question. You have more frame info to play with, and with a program like AE (pixel motion=good) or Twixtor (even better), you'll get some beautiful, authentic looking slow-mo shots.

For the technique of having your singer sing a speeded up version of the track, so you can slow it down in post, which makes for a surreal, if ridiculously over-used look (don't worry, I'm not judging - I'm planning on doing this too), it's really up to your taste. I'd experiment now (this second, even), since it's important to get it right in the pre-production phase for obvious reasons. More seasoned music video makers might be able to give you a short-cut though. My estimate would be to speed up the track by 25%, and then in post, bring it into a 50i timeline and slow it down by 25%.

Getting the overexposed look is easy enough in-camera. Open up the iris all the way and let the sunlight do the work for you. You can always play about in post though - there's no shame it approaching the art of film aesthetic in that way. Play about with the Brightness and Contrast, Curves and Hue and Saturation settings and you'll be entertained for hours.

My advice is get a great location, light it well, get too much footage and don't, at any stage, rush.
 
Thanks Richie! I know the slo mo effect has been totally overused, I'm kind of thinking out loud by now...Listing ideas, techniques, whatever, and then I'll try to make something vaguely coherent out of this....After i do some tests I'll come back to you...


What puzzles me is that there are so many options open. Being that I have never filmed anything quite like this (I'm more used to documenting reality rather than making up a fiction), I don't really know where to start. We've had a couple of meetings with the band, they are cool and they trust me, as I already filmed the recording of their new album...Their idea is basically "we know that you're gonna make us look good, so lets just go to some nice locations like a beach or a fairground, and we sing and you film us, in an improvised fashion. lets see where it takes us".

I love that they like my work, but I'm kind of a structured person. Need some script!!! :violin:
 
Feel free to post some of your experimental footage in here. I'd be interested to take a peak.

Yeah, you need some structure. An empty theme park sounds like a potentially beautiful location, but perhaps not ideal for a mellow track, especially in comparision to a beach at sunset... In an ideal world though, you'd have footage from more than one location to play around with in your edit.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top