Tell me what you think about my... Music Video

D

DDirector

Veteran
I am in 2 year of College taking Film Production. Shot this music video back when I just started my program about 1.5-2years ago.

Camera: Canon T2i HDSLR
Tripod: None (All shoulder mount)
Lighting: Natural (We just went out and shot) - Couldn't use lights most of the times as we were getting kicked out of locations so we were moving
quickly and most had no power outlets.
Shot in 1 day


Tell me about the Pros and Cons about this video. I want to learn my mistakes & improve!


My observations:

Pros:
- The bike shot was very smooth. (I was biking along side one-handed holding a camera in my hand)
- No budget, no lighting, it was not that bad.
- I like the garage walking clip, it was hard to white balance it.
- No storyboarding, no planning before hand and the editing was good
- The night shot around 2:40 was done without a dolly. All handheld and its very smooth

Cons:
- Had to shoot at high ISO's (6400) a few times
Ex. 2nd shot in the video
- Had no lights
- Its compressed weirdly. I didn't know much about editing then.
- Long walking away sequence in garage. (We had nothing to insert)

*Do you see anything that you think that would be good to use for a Demo Reel? Any clips?
 
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Hey DDirector,

I'll start with the positives...I liked the parking garage shot and nearer the end, the more aerial type shot. I think those could be used in your demo reel. If you CC the bike shots differently, then that could be thrown in as well, considering how smooth it is.

The compression/artifacting broke it for me. Very hard to watch as it was so strangely compressed, as you mentioned. I think had you minimized the number of locations and stuck to ones where you had access to power/battery belts and pocket pars and weren't getting kicked out - you would have had a much more complete looking product. As it stands, it seems very chaotic (too many locations without reason) without a real sense of cohesiveness.

Also, please don't take this the wrong way...but a lot of your posts start off with/include you mentioning that you're considered one of the best DPs or cinematographers of your program. Not usually the preface you should have in your posts if you want good, honest feedback from folks.

Kegan
 
BrandonC said:
What settings did you use?
Click to expand...
Size: 1080p-24fps
Shutter: 1/50
Picture Style: Custom Neutral (0,-4,-2,0)
ISO: Lowest Native ISO Possible
+ Magic Lantern

Is that all you wanted to know?

BrandonC said:
What mic did you use?
Click to expand...
Loki said:
what mic did you use?
Click to expand...
I did not record the audio for the artist. The microphone that was in the shot near the end was his own microphone that he used to record himself. I do not know what it is called though.
 
First - that's pretty impressive work doing it all like that.

Next - Some of those dark shots could be improved with a technique I see on a lot of movies where people are walking at night. You need a guy with a China ball on a stick who moves with the camera man. Keep the light on the face at the same angle and keep it illuminated from the top side.

Other shots could be improved with better lighting, directional lighting, reflectors in the daytime.

Next perhaps choosing locations and situations that tell a story in the background, besides just singing at the camera. More metaphor and different elements to the mix.
 
I couldn't help but wonder how a ring light would have looked through all of this. One of the great advantages of DSLR's are the facility for "Diva Lighting" with an LED ring light. You can pick em up pretty cheap on Amazon.
 
mail4joeg said:
Next - Some of those dark shots could be improved with a technique I see on a lot of movies where people are walking at night. You need a guy with a China ball on a stick who moves with the camera man. Keep the light on the face at the same angle and keep it illuminated from the top side.
Click to expand...
Yes, if I had one, if be using it but all my lighting requires power outlets.Can I get a link to where to buy this china ball? I want to get one.
 
Don't know about suppliers. You need a bright light and a power source. Could have larger batteries and an inverter in a backpack, or something like that. There's also the possibility of an inverter going to the car with an extension cord. Guerrilla lighting is its own art form.
 
JoeRawlins said:
I couldn't help but wonder how a ring light would have looked through all of this. One of the great advantages of DSLR's are the facility for "Diva Lighting" with an LED ring light. You can pick em up pretty cheap on Amazon.
Click to expand...

First EVER use of an LED this weekend, we'll see how it goes. Doing a 30' dolly run of a guy walking down the sidewalk at night. I'm going to use one of those on camera LED lights (tungsten gelled and probably with barn doors) for a little key on his face. I don't much care for them, but it's a no budget shoot of a teaser for a kickstarter campaign and the LED was the battery powered option I could get cheap (as in borrow).
 
mail4joeg said:
Don't know about suppliers. You need a bright light and a power source. Could have larger batteries and an inverter in a backpack, or something like that. There's also the possibility of an inverter going to the car with an extension cord. Guerrilla lighting is its own art form.
Click to expand...

Sell them tons of places, but filmtools has a variety of sizes at competitive prices. I just bought several to provide base light for a party scene in a music video.
 
I feel like you should definitely consider the feedback you've already been given. I mean, what do you feel about the feedback given? Truthful, accurate? What do you agree with and what do you disagree with?

As a current film student as well I believe the comments that were made seem to be very helpful.

For example, I think with a little bit of CCing, the dolly biking shots could possibly be used in a demo reel as well as the aerial shots like someone had mentioned earlier.

One thing in particular that stood out as distracting was the text. Typography/text can convey a tone as well, so it is important to pick fonts that have the same tonality as the film or video.

I think overall with more preparation this music video could have been more interesting. I didn't find it to be particularly eye-catching. Someone mentioned locations...and how the number of locations wasn't necessarily the importance, yet the reason of each location. I think that's important to think about...the idea that it's important to think about how locations relate to the story instead of just "pretty" looking places to shoot. Even though, I have to admit who doesn't do that? :happy:

The nice thing about the video is that the shots were pretty consistently smooth throughout. I do also commend you for shooting this all in one day without much prior planning, etc.

I hope that was helpful!
 
All the feedback given WAS indeed very helpful.
I'm listening carefully because I want to learn what I did wrong and what I did right and apply that to my next video(s).

I understand about the locations not matching, that's actually one of the concerns I had when we were planning on shooting this video. I like music videos where the locations relate to the story. But, we just went out and shot it in random nice locations. I do see now that it was kinda claustrophobic with all those locations now.

Thanks
 
The more feedback I get about what was good or poorly done, the better I will learn. I have already learned a lot since I made this. And a lot of the things such as lighting I knew would be a big issue.
And listening to critiques with as much detail helps me a lot. I write everything down.
I have my own personal booklette about what to do, what not to do, all about being a Cinematographer/Camera Operator.
 
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