New music video shot with homemade hdv35

T

the black sheep

Member
Hello everybody,

we've just finished our first music video shot using our homemade mini35 adapter for the Sony HDR-FX1 (pal). It was a long but well prepared 2 and a half days shoot with a crew of only 4 with the help of some friends (catering,...). Basically, we did everything from pre-production to post. This music video is for a belgian singer and it's going to be aired on many music TV channels here like MCM,... maybe even on MTV France. Yeah, we know, the content is quite "commercial" but it was a great experience, low budget like always but it was a real fun.

We did buy the FX1 end of December and decided to go for it. Not enough time for advanced testing, we went directly to the shoot: two days indoor, then one half day exterior. We shot in a small bar, by small we mean it, it's an old european house in the center of Brussels. Actually, it was a good thing we were only 4 because there were a lot of people on the set, we had to move quickly so everyone ended up being director, dp, gaffer, grip,...

About lighting, we had a Lowel 1000w Tota, Lowel 650w Omni, Ianbeam 800w, our trusty el'cheapo 500w halogen lamps and few hand-painted colored light bulbs (40w and 150w). We did use some homemade reflectors, 2nd hand gels and diffusers,...

We did use 3 lenses, a Sigma 20mm 1.8, a Nikor AF-D 50mm 1.8 and a Nikor AF-D 85mm 1.8. We shot wide open all the time and did use some close-up diopters (+1 +2) to get some real shallow depth-of-field effects.

The asa rating of our camera setup was around 100-125 at a shutter of 1/50 0db gain so we needed a lot of light. It wasn't easy at all getting the right amount of light and a good control of the final aspect. We had to run cables everywhere because of the weak electric setup of the house,...it was fun..

The focusing was tricky too, all we had was some cheap 5.6'' LCD Car Monitor and a 14'' CRT Sony TV we had to place upside down to get the picture reversed. Please children, don't try this at home, you'll get mad asking if the person you are shooting is in focus or not ;-)

Then, we went for the exterior, wasn't much easier... sky was quite gray and we wanted to use some artificial lighting too. We're lucky to get three 2kw Fresnel Lights for free but it wasn't enough so we did use everything we had. We did warm up all the lights by at least a 1/2 CTO and used filters on the camera (ND gradient Cokin P filter).

We did capture the rushes using ConnectHD from Cineform. Then converted everything to DV (and flipped the picture). We edited in DV in Premiere Pro 1.5. Later on, we did import the premiere project in Adobe After Effects 6.5 and replaced the DV footage by the HDV footage. We did the color correction, effects,...in uncompressed HD and converted the final to uncompressed SD for final output to Digital Betacam.

Yeah, sure it wasn't perfect, we're still working a lot on the mini35, practice more cinematography,... but it was a hell lot of fun and a great human experience. Like we did for "Marla." (Just Facts: another guide to digital filmmaking), we're going to publish a new PDF guide based around the new mini35 and HDV workflow (from capturing to final output). It will be available on our website in the soon-to-be-online blog.

Our old team has split, new members are there, it's all new and fresh, we're called "the black sheep". Our goal is simply to make some movies and to share all we know and learn from it so we're really pleased to share our little experience here.

We hope you'll like it, if you have questions, just ask, we are here to answer ;-)



LINK:

http://www.originalversion.net/temp/larmiers.mov
http://www.theblacksheep.be/portfol...02/larmiers.mov


Camera setup:

http://www.originalversion.net/temp/tbshdv35.jpg


Making of pictures:

http://www.originalversion.net/temp/makingof



olivier vanaschen, olan bowland, quentin aksajef & adil nahjari
creative film video & photography
www.theblacksheep.be
info@theblacksheep.be
 
Wow. I've been following your work since Marla. You guys are pros. I watched this music video five times, and I'm doing it again right now. The music is captivating with a cold play type of feeling. Looks very underground, if that's the look you've been looking for.

Cheers!

George
 
I would like to have some information about this singer. Can you guys help out with this? Perhaps a website ?


g.
 
This is excellent editing. Why? Because there is NOTHING going on in that video, and yet it is still interesting to watch.
 
Yes a very polished production. Top marks.

Did you make the mini35 yourselves? Certainly never used a plastic frosted dvd dummy!:)

Got any info on how you made it? The shallow depth of field is superb.
 
hmm. Thats really awesome, I want the cam now. HMMM. awesome im speechless, .................................be right back with some question.
 
Thanks a lot!

Thanks a lot!

thanks a lot for the nice comments, really it pushes us to continue working hard !

The artist is called Vincent Venet, his website is www.vincentvenet.com

We made the MINI35 ourselves, we'll soon publish a guide that will include a how-to step by step guide. We're working on it, it takes some time but we want it to be as complete as possible.

Thanks again,

the black sheep
creative film video & photography
www.theblacksheep.be
 
Wow!

This is the first time I have posted as a member and I have to say the I am incredibly impressed. I went to your web site and looked at the other stuff that you have done and was equally as impressed. Great job.

If you don't mind I'd like to ask you a question about not this video but another clip I saw in yor site.

For the NIKE promo what did you shoot. I really like the color. It was drained out and rather monochramatic.

P.S. Do you ever travel to the US to shoot?

Thanks,
JGOODY
 
thank you very much JGOODY !

the nike promo was shot in brussels at an event with two cameras, canon xm-2 (PAL version of the GL2) and an old Panasonic MX-300. We shot most of the stuff with a glidecam pro 2000 steadycam. It was pure nightmare, no light at all, the crowd was quite aggressive,... but hey that's the kind of project we do like sometimes.

We had to use a 1/25 shutter to get something on the tape, a lot of color-correction was done in After Effects, old film-look plugin helped getting that kind of 8-16mm bolex look.

We'd love to be able to come shoot things in the states, really. We'll try to send some demoreel dvds to small production companies a bit everywhere, we'll see if the feedback is good. We're really a small crew, no much money left for travel (haven't been on vacation for years now) but we're really open to projects everywhere.

Thanks again,

the black sheep
 
Can you please tell me how did you do the effect with the clouds, at the end of the clip. Was that time lapse?

thanks
g.
 
I can access your web site. Every time Im there the page looks bigger and theres no arrows to move up and down or from left to right. I dont know if you get what im saying. I just cant move around your site.

thanks
g.
 
Keep doin´the great job! Somebody could give these guys some kind of DVX AWARD for doing fantastic things with such small budgets, and, sure, for teaching everything after.
 
ok im back, I really like the song. my favorite part is where the girl is looking at the pictures on the wall. The music fits well with that part. I would very much like to know how u did the clouds

edit* i like the song , do u have the english translation? whats the song about? i also like the part where hes singing beside the girl who is singing also
 
Thanks a lot everybody again !

for the website, I think your screen resolution is maybe too small, you need at least a 1024x768 screen resolution.

Hmm, we're sorry, we don't have an english translation of the lyrics, the song's about those little moments of joy and pain in life, those moments, even if they're just tiny parts of your life, that you remember for a long long time. Basically that's it, it's kinda of a positive nostalgic thing :-)

The shot with the sky at the end was edited in After Effects using masks. We did start by doing the slow-mo on the sequence, then took the sky from another long take, speeded it up to 800%, mirrored it and then replaced the original sky with the timelapsed sky. A lot of layers and color-correction, we did warm up the color-balance in-camera but it was still quite gray that day.

We'll try to post a web gallery with full-res SD grabs today.

Thanks again,

the black sheep
www.theblacksheep.be
 
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