Sawyer Brown music video shot with DVX-100

The year was 2002. Nobody imagined you could never get these results from a $3K video camera.
The look of this video belies the apparent low cost of your toolset.

Fine, Fine Job.
 
Do you mean DV, then Beta SP or Digi Beta? Can you figure a way to skip the recompression to DV after the CC by going uncompressed? The video warrants it! If it is Beta SP, I would try and get them to play it from a DVCAM master because Beta SP will drop the quality a bit.

Anyway, the video:

I really liked it. The camerawork and the pace, fitted the song nicely. The various effects also added to the old fashion vibe.

I found some of the colour correction a little inconsistent. Personally I would pick colour themes and stick to them. e.g. colour for the lip sync singing, that (fantastic!) B&W effect on the not band pieces. This may make it feel more connected. Sometimes it is tempting to deviate from themes because a shot looks better if you do, but that will only improve a single shot, not the whole piece.

Overall it looks great, but it may be worth reviewing the few shots that aren't as good. From memory I think there are a few where the sky burns out harshly and I though some of the wide angle stuff was a little MTV for this style.

Bits I love:
The piano player's glasses reflecting the keyboard; the B&W CU of the old guys face; the buggered up projector effect.

Story wise, it conveys a lot of feeling. I would have liked to actually see the scenes that he describes in the song. I know that we see the mother and children, but they are not actually doing what the words say. Then at the end we could have seen the singer observing the scene as he finishes. Just my ideas, which I'm sure are too late anyway.

Overall, very inspiring stuff. Proves what is possible. Can you give us a run down on all your camera and editing kit if possible?
 
Really nice video. Definitely some of the best looking footage posted. Congratulations on having it played on CMT. That's HUGE!
 
MMM

Thanks for all the advice, I agree with a lot of your comments. One thing that I wanted to add is the artist (Mark Miller) wanted to make sure we DID NOT follow the words to the song. He wanted something totally abstract from what the viewer expected. So, in your case, I guess we were successful in that aspect.

The shots that you liked are my favorites as well. It is obvious what are limitations are with the camera (Long/Wide Shots)...the CU stuff is clean!

Good Eye to notice the CC issues. We encountered different color issues in post, not exactly sure the cause. One idea was the fact that we shot with both the DVX-100 and DVX-100A, but we had all the setting matched up/ same WB on each. ???? Post took FOREVER!!! 50+ hours

Edited on FCP HD
 
eppdidit said:
MMM

Thanks for all the advice, I agree with a lot of your comments. One thing that I wanted to add is the artist (Mark Miller) wanted to make sure we DID NOT follow the words to the song. He wanted something totally abstract from what the viewer expected. So, in your case, I guess we were successful in that aspect.
Click to expand...

Don't mention it, it was a pleasure to watch.

If that is what the artist wants that's great, it was only my opinion. They must be very happy with the video. May I ask your budget? Sorry, I am nosy!
 
Geez man, that was great. I LOVE the green look of the bus footage. Amazing.

I'm curious as of the budget as well. And color correction software... Was that just FCP HD as well?
 
I'm curious to know how you synced up all the performance shots in FCP. I made a music video in school and I did a rough cut of it in Final Cut Pro. It was all performance based and I had to line up all the footage on layers and cut like that. At home I'm using the Edu. version of Avid Xpress Pro and I can simply group clip things which made it a lot less cumbersome. So I'm curious what your method was in FCP. As for the actual video, I'm damn surprised in the results you guys are getting with the DVX100. I am also curious of the budget and for the crane shots, how did you fit that into your budget? I guess most people can put those into their budgets. I'm merley a highschool student.
 
The budget was fairly low as far as music videos goes. We were able to price it less obviously because of the format we were shooting in. I have most of all my own equipment...used a cobra crane from promax.com, dolly and tracks from the same site. We used a wide angle lens from centuryoptics.com, and ended up having to rent some Arri Kits from a local company.

I use a lot of guerilla techniques; homemade reflectors, diffusers, duct tape!!, etc.

I did every bit of editing inside FCP HD. CC and all.

The piano in the creek was created by a tractor actually placing it in their for us. It was the bands idea to be playing in the creek...It was COLD!!!
 
I caught the local news coverage on Fox 56 the other night, congrats on the video. It looks really good. I have not seen it on CMT yet, but I will keep an eye out for it. Its great to see some quality work produced locally.
 
Okay, I'm not a big fan of country music, but this song rocks and the video really moved me. I just bought the song off of iTunes 2 seconds ago.

Great Job!
 
Color Correct

Color Correct

I was also impressed by the green look of the ext./int. bus shots. I'm shooting a short right now where we are trying to achieve something similar in certain scenes. What technique did you use in the color correct to achieve this? Just pump up the greens and saturate?
 
damn that was tight

camera settings?????

how did u get that greenish and the soft look?

why was it dumped to beta?

what did the band say when they saw the lil' DVX?


amazing work, is this a christian artist?
 
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