Michael Carter
Veteran
FINALLY shot a music video!
Whatcha all think???
Whatcha all think???
T2i Music Video - Nikon glass... my first.
- Thread starter Michael Carter
- Start date
PerroneFord
Deals in Lead
Wonderful! Love the look, good song too. Can't wait to get the details on this one!
maranfilms
Veteran
I enjoyed the vid, nice work. It did seem like a good amount of the shots were soft. Just not focused sharp. maybe it's the older lens. other than that. it's awesome.
Jordan Scott Price
Veteran
Fantastic music videos coming out of these threads...
The trip-ass rap/hiphop. The headbanger punk rock. And now a nice slowdown acoustic.
I think this video was really, really well shot. You used a very trendy archetype for this kind of music video, but I think the overall effect worked exceptionally well. I loved the floating timepiece, key, etc. near the end there, too
The definite strength is the lighting. It's soft and attractive without getting watery, which you could say the same about the lensing.
I disagree with an above post saying the video was edited poorly. The grip on fluid transition and screen direction kept me engaged and never took me away from the music, which is, of course, the heart and soul of a music video.
If I had a complaint, it would be just around 1:49 where you slow the video down (or where he slowed his playing), I can tell, as a casual guitarist, that he's not actually playing what we're hearing. This is exceedingly common, however, in music videos with a guitarist because it's a clever editing method that most viewers will not pick up on.
Don't want to sound persnickety, so I'll reiterate: Well done!
The trip-ass rap/hiphop. The headbanger punk rock. And now a nice slowdown acoustic.
I think this video was really, really well shot. You used a very trendy archetype for this kind of music video, but I think the overall effect worked exceptionally well. I loved the floating timepiece, key, etc. near the end there, too
The definite strength is the lighting. It's soft and attractive without getting watery, which you could say the same about the lensing.
I disagree with an above post saying the video was edited poorly. The grip on fluid transition and screen direction kept me engaged and never took me away from the music, which is, of course, the heart and soul of a music video.
If I had a complaint, it would be just around 1:49 where you slow the video down (or where he slowed his playing), I can tell, as a casual guitarist, that he's not actually playing what we're hearing. This is exceedingly common, however, in music videos with a guitarist because it's a clever editing method that most viewers will not pick up on.
Don't want to sound persnickety, so I'll reiterate: Well done!
Michael Carter
Veteran
Thanks guys... (well, there's life4eva, but send me some links to your work so I can see how it's done properly?)
We had very limited time to get this done, maybe 2 hours with the singer and couple more with the model. No assistants (my son ran playback for the performance shots, that was a lifesaver).
I even tore up a bedroom and distressed everything - but we're gonna gut that room eventually - my wife is NICE.
Profile was pretty much what everyone uses - everything all the way down, I think saturation down a tick or two. It looks sharp as hell at 720p - really extreme on closeups. Of course I pulled a lot of blurred focus on the girl, wanted to not focus in specifically on her. Most of the blurring was done in-camera.
Grading - for the non-artsy shots, very little, got most in camera. A couple shots I might tweak up a highlight, but for the most part I left it as shot. I used tungsten lights, and I did fight a lot of "murkiness" - would have reshot the beginning closeups if there was more time. (I shot fashion in the film days, that's some good training!)
For the more funky stuff, levels & hue/saturation in AE - I have Color but haven't figured it out.
For the more "effecty" stuff, I wanted a sort of super-8, light-leaked look, so I shot a lot of flare plates using a lens from a toy camera - I made a rig to hold it on my rails with a spring so I could tilt & shift it. I shot all the lens flares in my studio, through various magnifying glasses & crap bits of lens. Layered them in AE with "screen" transfer mode.
Only digitally created stuff are particles in two shots - everything else is "organic", even the plane and the buildings.
There's a few greenscreen shots - the T2i (at least with the tungsten profile) is pretty tough to pull a good key with - lots of hand masking and the girl in the field took about three holdout mattes & instances of keylight - luckily it called for a dreamy-blurry look.
Anyway, it was a fun project, the singer is a great guy, great friend. I wasn't aware how "connected" he is, phone is already ringing from this one.
Basically been wanting to do something "pretty"... costs were well under $200, mainly prop rental. Stylist owed me a favor, and the model is a singer-songwriter (my next video in fact) so she was psyched.
Going it alone like this? Use my "ghetto focus stops" - they work ridiculously well:
We had very limited time to get this done, maybe 2 hours with the singer and couple more with the model. No assistants (my son ran playback for the performance shots, that was a lifesaver).
I even tore up a bedroom and distressed everything - but we're gonna gut that room eventually - my wife is NICE.
Profile was pretty much what everyone uses - everything all the way down, I think saturation down a tick or two. It looks sharp as hell at 720p - really extreme on closeups. Of course I pulled a lot of blurred focus on the girl, wanted to not focus in specifically on her. Most of the blurring was done in-camera.
Grading - for the non-artsy shots, very little, got most in camera. A couple shots I might tweak up a highlight, but for the most part I left it as shot. I used tungsten lights, and I did fight a lot of "murkiness" - would have reshot the beginning closeups if there was more time. (I shot fashion in the film days, that's some good training!)
For the more funky stuff, levels & hue/saturation in AE - I have Color but haven't figured it out.
For the more "effecty" stuff, I wanted a sort of super-8, light-leaked look, so I shot a lot of flare plates using a lens from a toy camera - I made a rig to hold it on my rails with a spring so I could tilt & shift it. I shot all the lens flares in my studio, through various magnifying glasses & crap bits of lens. Layered them in AE with "screen" transfer mode.
Only digitally created stuff are particles in two shots - everything else is "organic", even the plane and the buildings.
There's a few greenscreen shots - the T2i (at least with the tungsten profile) is pretty tough to pull a good key with - lots of hand masking and the girl in the field took about three holdout mattes & instances of keylight - luckily it called for a dreamy-blurry look.
Anyway, it was a fun project, the singer is a great guy, great friend. I wasn't aware how "connected" he is, phone is already ringing from this one.
Basically been wanting to do something "pretty"... costs were well under $200, mainly prop rental. Stylist owed me a favor, and the model is a singer-songwriter (my next video in fact) so she was psyched.
Going it alone like this? Use my "ghetto focus stops" - they work ridiculously well:
Michael Carter
Veteran
Dude, that post killed me - Trey came over this morning - he filmed the performance a week ago and had no idea what I was up to, so I was nervous as hell (he loved it, whew).
And that was the first time I noticed that a pan-down went on too long, where it was like "where's his chrome-skull codpiece"??? Never picked up on that (knocked this out pretty quickly between work). But we were both like, "hmm, that's kind of a crotch shot, ain't it??"
I had nothing to fill in there, he was chomping at the bit (in a nice way, his CD came out yesterday) so I time-warped it out to slow the pan down. And yeah, his fingers suddenly slow down.
I do want to do an "out take" reel and comp a chrome-skull-codpiece into that shot... spinal tap lives!!! Thanks for your generous comments, BTW.
Jordan Scott Price
Veteran
Regardless of that slow tilt, the video still works.
Love your extraspecialsupertechnical focus marks! You gotta do whatcha gotta do...
Love your extraspecialsupertechnical focus marks! You gotta do whatcha gotta do...
Michael Carter
Veteran
Seriously - those little clips just rock. Squeeze it open while holding it against the marker rod - release it (so it clamps on the marking disc) when you find your in point. Do the same for your out point. Hard to describe, but you can set start & end points for a pull really fast. And a jar of those things is like two bucks. It's freakin' awesome.
Michael Carter
Veteran
I will say on a rewatch that some pans arent that smoothe....looks like u need a better fluid head. Apart from that...
Thanks - there's definitely a few wobbles here & there - used an IndiSlider, but my manfrotto bits hadn't arrived to mount it properly, had a release plate on a plywood spacer and really had to fight with some shots.
My next DIY will be a way to undersling the camera on the slider for down-facing shots.
That, and I want to get a short-tip for my kessler crane so I can use it indoors. Really love that crane for subtle moves, it's remarkably fluid.
Done properly, link to my work ? What does that have to do with anything? So unless you have work you cannot judge someone work?
I am looking at it as a fan, as a student, as a real person. You overdid the slider shots point blank, it's like you had a new toy and abused it. Or maybe I just don't really like slider shots?
At the end of the day this is my opinion, go handheld and lose the mechanical motion it just looks artificial.
Michael Carter
Veteran
No, I posted it here because everyone I know is just "it's awesome,great job" and there's usually a tougher audience here.
My overall idea for this vid was that there would be constant motion - only a couple shots are locked down - mainly experimenting with the idea of only holding on key vocal moments, etc. Essentially a sense of "drifting through" the song, where the song itself was more important than the performers or imagery. (Handheld shots were very far from that idea, in my mind, other than the seated in a train shot). That was the first thing the performer picked up on, that he felt the motion was "right" for the song.
Did it work? Nothing works for everyone. "Poorly shot & edited", however, covers a lot more bases than just camera motion (to me, "shot" covers lighting, color, framing, technical issues, etc) - I suppose I made an assumption you had work you considered more advanced, etc, as we do bounce a lot of examples around here. On a forum populated by filmmakers, I did assume a smackdown that dismissive would come from someone who had their own examples of properly shot work, or some first-hand experiences with the difficulty of producing something under these sorts of time & money restrictions.
Actual camera motion is far more a creative decision than technical (though there are some bumps in those slides - I had to deal with some back-ordered adapters). My biggest lessons in editing this were (a) shoot longer heads & tails, and (b) tighten up my entire rig - working with a vendor now to beef up their DSLR support. But as far as the motion goes, I stick by it, but do respect your disdain for it. "Poorly shot" though? Overall I'm very proud of pulling off the lighting and color with a couple fresnels.
My overall idea for this vid was that there would be constant motion - only a couple shots are locked down - mainly experimenting with the idea of only holding on key vocal moments, etc. Essentially a sense of "drifting through" the song, where the song itself was more important than the performers or imagery. (Handheld shots were very far from that idea, in my mind, other than the seated in a train shot). That was the first thing the performer picked up on, that he felt the motion was "right" for the song.
Did it work? Nothing works for everyone. "Poorly shot & edited", however, covers a lot more bases than just camera motion (to me, "shot" covers lighting, color, framing, technical issues, etc) - I suppose I made an assumption you had work you considered more advanced, etc, as we do bounce a lot of examples around here. On a forum populated by filmmakers, I did assume a smackdown that dismissive would come from someone who had their own examples of properly shot work, or some first-hand experiences with the difficulty of producing something under these sorts of time & money restrictions.
Actual camera motion is far more a creative decision than technical (though there are some bumps in those slides - I had to deal with some back-ordered adapters). My biggest lessons in editing this were (a) shoot longer heads & tails, and (b) tighten up my entire rig - working with a vendor now to beef up their DSLR support. But as far as the motion goes, I stick by it, but do respect your disdain for it. "Poorly shot" though? Overall I'm very proud of pulling off the lighting and color with a couple fresnels.
PerroneFord
Deals in Lead
Michael,
Based on your present level of work, and your commentary here, I'd hire you in a HEARTBEAT to shoot a music video for me. I've been shooting cameras for almost 30 years, but I don't know if my first music video will be even CLOSE to that good.
Relax, you're doing just fine.
Based on your present level of work, and your commentary here, I'd hire you in a HEARTBEAT to shoot a music video for me. I've been shooting cameras for almost 30 years, but I don't know if my first music video will be even CLOSE to that good.
Relax, you're doing just fine.
Nathan.Buxton
Well-known member
No offense intended, but I didn't find the lighting appealing at all. I found it quite obtrusive, distracting and unnatural. I feel good lighting lets you forget you are watching a production. Your lighting constantly reminded me that I was watching a production, and a clearly amateur one at that.
Now I only want to say this so that you will continue to pay attention to your methods and adjust your ways based on viewer feedback. Try and make the lighting more subtle, less obviously "set up."
Now I only want to say this so that you will continue to pay attention to your methods and adjust your ways based on viewer feedback. Try and make the lighting more subtle, less obviously "set up."
Jordan Scott Price
Veteran
Watching videos from this forum always cue me in that I'm watching a production. If his music video had come on while my sister was watching MTV, (or my dad watching CMT, ewe) I wouldn't think twice about it because it's on a television...
On this forum, every "mistake" is magnified and every questionable element is hotly debated. It is hard sometimes to keep yourself removed from the html/phpbb environment the video is wrapped in, reminding us that we are watching a fellow filmmaker's blood, sweat, and tears. I often try to watch them full screen just for that reason...
Just saying...not striking down anyone's opinions.
On this forum, every "mistake" is magnified and every questionable element is hotly debated. It is hard sometimes to keep yourself removed from the html/phpbb environment the video is wrapped in, reminding us that we are watching a fellow filmmaker's blood, sweat, and tears. I often try to watch them full screen just for that reason...
Just saying...not striking down anyone's opinions.
Nathan.Buxton
Well-known member
While I can agree with you, let me explain my point of view more.
The lighting in the scenes with the woman were good. It seems like it was all natural lighting, which is a good thing. If it wasn't all natural, then good job. It worked.
The lighting I had trouble with was mostly the close shots on the stop watch, the suit case, and the like. It is just so glaringly obvious that someone was lighting it. Some softer light or multiple light sources would have helped. Also, even though the lighting on the guy playing guitar in the shack isn't bad, it is similar to what I have lovingly called "DVXUser lighting." IE taking the 3 point lighting theory too literally.
This is, of course, only MY opinion. I fully understand there are people who like this style of lighting (most of whom are filmmakers using similar lighting techniques). And while I also fully understand that a Casual viewer might not be keenly aware of subtleties in lighting, I feel they would be "aware" of something that is, how can I put it, "too perfect."(?)
Jordan Scott Price
Veteran
Hmm, I can see your point there. I think I didn't have a problem with it because those shots of the stopwatch and such were so minimalistic in design that I liked the very traditional lighting style.
But I do see where you're coming from.
But I do see where you're coming from.