What is this music video missing?
- Thread starter vinark
- Start date
David W. Jones
Veteran
The vignetting bothered me on some of the tighter shots as it cut into the talent.
That's the NoDa & 28th building in Charlotte. My wife designed it. 
Diffusion. Harsh shadow control. A butterfly above the guy. Even out the light.
Fill. Some reflectors.
Color temperature matching -- you're using tungsten or indoor lighting on the people and you're balanced for that, while the rest of the natural lighting is coming through as very blue. Not just blue, a dingy blue which looks like a mistake rather than a choice.
You need to choose better angles in that building. Like I said, my wife designed it, and I know what's in there -- there are much better ways to frame your shots to take advantage of what's actually a pretty cool interior.
In what you have here, the background is very underexposed (though the windows are blown out), and it's mostly blank walls. The floors have interesting artwork in them, but you can't see it.
Speaking of backgrounds:
That's just a blank background. You need art direction. You need interesting and artistically appropriate things in the background.
As for the lighting itself, the guy is underexposed by quite a bit.
Also, there's a harsh and unmotivated shadow on the wall from (again) tungsten lighting which clashes with the color temp of the natural lighting.
Same as the above outdoor shot. Diffusion. Shadow control. Fill.
In general . . .
There's no artistry to the lighting. It doesn't look like it's lit to look like anything or convey any sort of mood or tone; it's just lit, and in a lot of cases, it doesn't look like you actually lit anything and instead just took what you got. You need to figure out the mood you want for this video and then light your shots to serve it. It doesn't look like you did that at all.
In the video, you seem to have a motif of the interior of the NoDa building being dark and the talent being silhouettes, with the exterior -- seen out the windows -- being exposed normally. If you're going to do this, you need something quite a bit visually better than a just a random grouping of mundane customer cars in the parking lot.
Also, far too many wide shots. Aside from needing some artistic varierty, the camera appears to do fairly poorly in wide shots and better with closer shots; take advantage of what the camera's strengths are, and avoid the weaknesses. Closer shots also give you more flexibility with the lighting.
Composition, art direction, and better lighting, the bulk of which being proper exposure, but also needing a lot of artistic thought.
Honestly, I don't make a habit of pointing people to Lighting and Film and Television when answering questions, but it's uncanny how much of it is directly on point for this particular post. If you really want to learn not only WHAT to do better, but WHY to do it, it would be of TREMENDOUS help to you, covering almost every issue which is coming up here.
Diffusion. Harsh shadow control. A butterfly above the guy. Even out the light.
Fill. Some reflectors.
Color temperature matching -- you're using tungsten or indoor lighting on the people and you're balanced for that, while the rest of the natural lighting is coming through as very blue. Not just blue, a dingy blue which looks like a mistake rather than a choice.
You need to choose better angles in that building. Like I said, my wife designed it, and I know what's in there -- there are much better ways to frame your shots to take advantage of what's actually a pretty cool interior.
In what you have here, the background is very underexposed (though the windows are blown out), and it's mostly blank walls. The floors have interesting artwork in them, but you can't see it.
Speaking of backgrounds:
That's just a blank background. You need art direction. You need interesting and artistically appropriate things in the background.
As for the lighting itself, the guy is underexposed by quite a bit.
Also, there's a harsh and unmotivated shadow on the wall from (again) tungsten lighting which clashes with the color temp of the natural lighting.
Same as the above outdoor shot. Diffusion. Shadow control. Fill.
In general . . .
There's no artistry to the lighting. It doesn't look like it's lit to look like anything or convey any sort of mood or tone; it's just lit, and in a lot of cases, it doesn't look like you actually lit anything and instead just took what you got. You need to figure out the mood you want for this video and then light your shots to serve it. It doesn't look like you did that at all.
In the video, you seem to have a motif of the interior of the NoDa building being dark and the talent being silhouettes, with the exterior -- seen out the windows -- being exposed normally. If you're going to do this, you need something quite a bit visually better than a just a random grouping of mundane customer cars in the parking lot.
Also, far too many wide shots. Aside from needing some artistic varierty, the camera appears to do fairly poorly in wide shots and better with closer shots; take advantage of what the camera's strengths are, and avoid the weaknesses. Closer shots also give you more flexibility with the lighting.
Composition, art direction, and better lighting, the bulk of which being proper exposure, but also needing a lot of artistic thought.
Honestly, I don't make a habit of pointing people to Lighting and Film and Television when answering questions, but it's uncanny how much of it is directly on point for this particular post. If you really want to learn not only WHAT to do better, but WHY to do it, it would be of TREMENDOUS help to you, covering almost every issue which is coming up here.
Michael Carter
Veteran
I do like how the fountain squirts out the top of her head… special effects!
David W. Jones
Veteran
I do like how the fountain squirts out the top of her head… special effects!
We have a morning show where talent pitching the break from the kitchen segment is always framed up with a wall sconce behind her head. It is the silliest looking devil hat with horns kind of look. Every single time. If the camera just trucked left or right 6 inches it would fix it. I always wonder if the Director does it on purpose.
Moseph
Veteran
I can't remember the last time I saw a day exterior lit with this configuration. It can work, but shooting at the right time of day is going to look so much more natural and is less likely to blind your talent. Of course, relying on being able to shoot something at the right time can be problematic for low budget music videos which shoot everything in one or maybe two days, but then again, you could save yourself a great deal on equipment and labor if you choose this strategy over trying to fight the sun when it's at such a high altitude angle.
What I find much more bothersome about that shot is the low camera angle that doesn't ever become not so damned low, which prevents us from seeing anything other than a few buildings which don't really have much of a place in this video.
I don't disagree; I was just going with what was there.