Newbie Stills from Rap Video

S

Sloan

New member
Here's two stills taken from a local rap video that I'm about done with. I can't say it's something that I'll be showing off down the road, but it was my first video and I learned a ton, chiefly that the artist should be prohibited from inviting every one of their friends to the shoot (it made for some good "crowded" shots but cost us dearly in time trying to get the shot set up and people quiet). I'm just looking for some surface impressions. I'll try and post the video later on, but I fear a debate on the content as its very typical hip hop, so I'll just stick to posting stills for now. ;-) Thanks as always for being a place for me to come to learn!

And yes I need to do some researching on the forums as to how *not* to blow out my whites. :-P

kev1.jpg

kev2.jpg
 
Re: Newbie Stills from Rap Video

Well for starters, if you plan to do a shoot like this in the future, you might want to get a megaphone to use to communicate to the crowd so everyone can hear you. Ultimately before the shoot, you should have had a meeting to tell everyone what is expected of them, the objective of the particular shoot, etc. I have done several Hip Hop videos. You just have to plan in advance.

The 2 grabs you posted do have a washed out look that to me is unfavorable. I would have closed the iris down and since it was sunny the day you shot, I would have had someone holding a reflector to bounce some light onto the rappers face opposite side from where the sun is hitting him.

The white T-shirts are glowing they are so white.

Was this your 1st video you shot/directed?

What are you using to edit? You need adjust the brightness and contrast controls and then color correct.

Hip Hop videos always seem to cause debate on here (I have no idea why, noone never says anything about rock videos) I shoot mostly Hip Hop oriented projects but I will watch rock videos because you can always pick up a new technique and use it in whatever genre of music or project for that matter. So don't sweat it man, just keep doing your thing.
 
Re: Newbie Stills from Rap Video

That dude sort of looks like twister. They cousins or something? My question is, what the heck did you shoot with?DVXPAL model? Those images are really large. My advice is maybe do some color grading. Why dose hiphop videos have to have the "typical" look. I'm sure you are very creative and can come up with something original and clean. Well, it kind of depends on the lyrics. But I'm sure there are other ways.
 
Re: Newbie Stills from Rap Video

Here's a little MB added... The vignette is from Nattress, though.

el firsto -
30024120.jpg


el nexto -
30024139.jpg


Not sure what kinda look you're looking for, but I would say all is not totally lost. Handling exposure lattitude and blow-outs is the biggest challenge to shooting video in my opinion. Next time, know what time you're shooting, then a coupla days before, go do some tests with your shots (I'm assuming you have some kinda storyboard layout?).

Good luck,
Jared
 
Re: Newbie Stills from Rap Video

Hey Jared,

What exactly did you do to touch up that first picture? It looks almost graphical.

Did you use an MB preset or a custom look?

Thanks.
 
Re: Newbie Stills from Rap Video

I did cheat and use an MB preset here (green pearl), then just messed with the colors. I had gotten an effect similar to this before MB using Graeme Nattress's 'Beauty' filter, then setting the blend type to darken and pumping up the gaussian blur. I think basically what gives it that look is a black diffusion.

The shot I had used it on was of my wife holding my 3 month old daughter sitting in front of a georgeous orange, red and green tree in the fall. The effect looked like an animated, hand-drawn video when it was done. It really was incredible. Unfortunately it's archived at home so I can't show you.

Luck,
Jared
 
Re: Newbie Stills from Rap Video

DVX100Shooter:
Yes a megaphone is a fine idea. The video was the first one i've ever shot and directed, but like I said, I feel I've learned a lot from it and am eager to give a second video a fresh start. The whites got blown out when I upped the constrast b/c I wanted a very thick use of color (very bold and saturated). In the original take, the tee-shirts were white but had a blueish tone to them (I did check color temp). So I did a little color correcting, to get them pure white, but perhaps that coupled with the higher contrast made them look "glowing" and thus they lost all the detail.

Bluespider:
No, I'm using the NTSC, this is just how they exported from vegas (I found the images are larger or smaller depending on the preview setting used.) You're totally right in that even though they want a "typical" rap video as far as content, the editing can be used to still put a personal spin on it.

Jared:
Thanks for posting the MagicBullet usage. I'll download the demo and give that a go. It very well might be the thing i'm looking for.

Thanks everyone for your comments!
 
Re: Newbie Stills from Rap Video

The second magic bullet grab looks good, like Mystic River but a bit warmer.

I assume you meant to overexpose for the shoot, but the unfortunate thing about video is that it has a linear gamma curve and a very sharp cut off at 100IRE whereas film has a kind of curve around highlights which allows for blown out highlights to be every bit as white, but considerably less harsh looking. Magic bullet white diffusion helps, but there's a tendency to over-use it and that looks even worse than no white diffusion at all. Use a medium amount of white diffusion, keep the diffusion only in the highlights by adjusting he highlight bias, and use a pretty small radius. Then I'd cool the image off a little and I think it could look quite good.

The compositions are nice, too, and while the crowds may have been a pain to work with, they work great as depth cues, although they could potentially be distracting as well.
 
Re: Newbie Stills from Rap Video

Don't let black people wear white to a video shoot.  First thing I learned in school.  :)

I definitely think you should go with really funky color correction and diffusion.  Kind of give the impression that the over exposed parts were "intentional".


Edit: Definitely post it when your done, I don't understand why people around here are anti-genre when it comes to rap or hip-hop.
 
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