Hey guys, i haven't posted anything new here in a while, thought i would share some new footage. I have been directing my first music video for a band called buckfast. They are an indie band from SF.

Anyway, we still have to shoot parts of it, its definitely taking a while to do because of people having day jobs and the availability of locations.but its all good, the band is in no rush, yet.

This clip is the middle portion of the video. its still a little bit rough, and is missing a bunch of vfx, and some of the vfx in it are rough/sloppy.

All shot with a dvx100a 24pa. i was the dir/dp, which was also my first real lighting gig with pro equipment.

http://www.rich-lee.com/temp/BF_V5d_UC_CD.mov

I also posted this on dvxuser.com so anyone who frequents both sites, my apologies for being redundent. just looking for some feedback.

This is excellent, especially considering that it's work in progress and can only get better. I really like the look you have created here, and the cuts fit together really well.

I had originally assumed that you make a living from this, but re-reading your post it seems not. You certainly could do though, based on what I've seen. Good luck if that is your aspiration.

Thanks for sharing.

Good stuff looks better then a lot of music videos that have whole crews working on them with a large budget.

Awesome work Rich...as always. Did you have to do a lot of coloring in post? And if so, would you mind sharing how you came across that look?

Thanks alot,
Nick

Thanks!

Pat-no i dont make a living as a director, some day i hope. Im doin stuff for free/spec right now just to experiment with the tools and build a reel that will hopfully be good enough to get a gig someday. thanks for the support!

Nick- Well, alot of the look came from lighting on the set, i rented some kinos and arri lights and did my best to get an interesting look on the day. im happy with how it looks even before color corrections. but i wanted it to be pushed a little more, so i did alot of messing around in after effects, added the vignetting and the blur on the edges. also used magic bullet to get that "bleach bypass" look. I think when i get around to the finishing it i will come up with my own look rather then using MB, but for now its an easy way to get it close to what i want.

actualy, with the blured edges, i used a plugin for AE called Frischluft. Its the best depth of field/lens blur plugin as far as im concerned. You can build mattes that it will use to grad the bluring, and the way it blurs is MUCH better then if you did it with a gaus or liner blur. Its simulates real lens blurs very well. definilty worth a try. its kinda slow though.

Rich

Hey Rich, this looks great for being far from finished. Your effects seemed subtle and and tight (not the hip hop term "tight", the professional "tight"). I can't say much for the front man in the video, but the music sounds cool.

The lighting makes everything look very clean and sterile, it looks great. What kind of Arri lights were you using?

When you said Frischluft takes a while, you mean rendering? What kind of a system you working on? Video card, ram, processor(s)

You are a badass Rich, keep on keeping on.

Awesome work, Rich! I also liked the song. I will have to checkout this band. Do they have a website?

Thanks for sharing!

-gb-

Very nice clip indeed! This really looks like a "real" clip! I like it all.. just one small detail..(I might be the only one thinking this so feel free to disregard..=)
The nurses should all have their hair properly tied back.. You don't see nurses with a bang that long in her face.. (At least not around here) and it kind of destroys the hospital feeling for me.. which is a real shame since the other things are spot on!

Anyway... keep up the good work.

I think it's already been shot so the nurse thing couldn;t be fixed unless more money was forked out for another shoot. Good observation though...I missed that.

thanks guys

Christopher Reynolds- I used an arri 1k. Yeah, frischluft take awhile to render, im on a 3.4gzp4, 1g ram, nvidia 5900. but the render times are totaly worth the wait, its so good.

Greg- the bands site is www.buckfastmusic.com. all the songs on this latest album are really good, and the guys are really cool as well.

Alfred-Yeah, the hair, on the day i was like, cool, lets just havea little piece hanging down. well, i totaly spaced on it, cause with such a small crew and me doing alot of other things besides directing, it just kinda sliped through. By the end of the day it got larger. i totaly noticed it when i was cutting, like, yeah, that hair is long. Eh, wutrugonna do, i think it will be alright, no one else has noticed it. On another board someone notice finger prints on some of the tools...oops...ehehe...but i can fix those...

Very professional. I enjoyed the short clips on your homepage too.
How many years of experience do you have under your belt? Thanks.

Very good work Rich. Where did you get those anatomic schematic animations? Was that applied in post or were they projected on set? The intercutting of those animations, the instruments and the surgeons was well done too. Keep it up!

Thanks for the input Rich, I am comforted in the fact our computers differ slightly (although my cpu is only 2.8 ghz). I'll definately look into getting Frischluft for AE now. Take care.

Whoa! Great job, Rich! I loved the color and the lighting of the shots. Like Christopher said, it gives a clean and sterile feeling to all of the shots.

Did you mask out the people and overlay them on top of each other as a cloning effect? That's really, really cool! I didn't even notice that the people were the same until I watched it the second time! The only complaint I have is the quality of the masks, but like you said, it's a work in progress and the vfx isn't polished yet. I think everything will look perfect once it's done.

Again, great job!!

Kevin- i've been working in the entertainment industry since i was 16 (im 26 now). started as a scupltor/favricator for broadway shows and theme parks. Around 4 years ago i got into doing cg stuff for my self, just making things and posting them on the internet for critique. then about a year after that i got my first job as a cg/previz artist. i have been doing that for a little over 3 years now. now i am a previz supervisor, and get to work with very talented directors and artists, its an amazing place to be, i get to learn from these guys and get payed. anyway, i have been getting into shooting my own stuff the past year and a half. we shall see where it heads.

James- a friend and i made the anatomic animations. none of them were on set, i tracked and composited the animations onto the shots in AE.

Christopher - cool man, frischluft is killer.

Kin- yeah, i am masking out the people and layering. im glad you didnt notice them at first. hopefully, once its done, the end will make people go.."ooohhh" and want to see it again, and see that everyone is the same. yeah, the mask arent much better then garbage mattes right now, just need them for place holders.

thanks everyone for chekcing it out. fri oct 1st we will (hopefully) shoot the rest of the video. cant wait!

Rich - do you think you could go through some of your settings you used for the effect? i'm not having very much luck even experimenting with this plugin.

Dude, that's awesome! So what's with the three guys pushing the gurney, are they triplets or what?

Great work.....

I just wanted to chime in and say that I think the sort of floaty effect of the faces on the triplets as it is now is disturbing and cool. Gives you the feeling that this is an artificial reality, with something even spookier going on under the fragile facade.

hey guys, thanks for checking it out. we are shooting the rest of the video this friday! cant wait! well, i wouldnt mind waiting actualy, so much to do still before fri...anyway.

Chris Ivanovskis- frischluft is a litle wierd at first. You will need 2 things. one thing is footage that you will apply the depth of field to using the plugin, and the other is a matte. the matte can be anything, but for now just use a simple grad from black to white, make it using photoshop or whatever. bring that gard into the same comp as your footage that has the frischluft plugin on it. then in the plugin settings, change the "depth layer" to the grad. now, make sure the grad is not visible (uncheck the eye). what you should see now is a wonderfull, realisitic lens blur that grads off. hope that helps, im writing in a rush, sorry if its kinda sloppy.

Greg Patch- thanks man, clones are more like it. hopfully the end of the video will clear all that up. you will see multiple girls in the begining and a bunch identical girls and guys at the end. im keeping my fingers crossed that people will get it. its a hard one, trying to make it not too obvious, but at the same time, if the gag doesnt work, then the whole videos isnt worth anyof it. i will definitly shoot some super obvious shots just in case, so that if it isnt working well, i can always throw that shots in that will slap people in the face and say "hey look at us! we all look the same! YAY!!"

Dave Mansueto- yeah, i guess it does, i never looked at it like that, but if you were to look at it as a finished piece, it does seem kinda wierd and cool.

I really like your work Rich and i checked out your CV.. What does "Previsualization Supervisor" actually mean? Sorry to bother you about my ignorance..

How's the clip coming? it isn't up anymore is it?

hey alfred. thanks for cheking my work out. previz for a feature film is at its most simple form is 3d animated storyboards.there are many many forms of "previz". it can be as simple as 3d walk throughs of a set or piece of architecture.

here is a brief rundown of how it works.

we get a description and sometimes storyboards of a sequence or shot from the director. we go and collect information from the art department regarding set pieces or locations that are required for that particular sequence. we build those sets/loctions in a 3d animation package (xsi,maya) . we animate whatever is needed for that scene..characters, cars, spaceships, boats...whatever. we then place/animate cameras in that scene and render out movies and create edits and add sound/sound fx. then present that to the director. he will no doubt make changes...or want to explore the same sequence with another concept or whatever. the cool thing is that once we get a scene animated the director can come in a place cameras change action or whatever months and months before they start shooting....its a great thing especialy for fx heavy scenes that dont allow for much "vibing" on set. after the Dir buys off on a sequence we hand out copies to all the departments and it let everyone know exactly what the director wants. idealy it helps everyone do their job better cause it lets the rest of the crew in on what the dir wants to see. you could write a book on this shit, there are many many ways to use this stuff. its fun....oh, so, a previz supervisor is the person in charge of the team that makes the previz. im not just an administrator though, i am on the box as well. eh..hope that clears up a little...i ahve been meaning to put up some examples of work on my site. but i just havnt had time....

te video is comin along. editing as i write this...

peace

Thanks for the description. That sounds really cool! Yes please, if you have time I'd love to see a sample of your work! Do you work with lightning too? Do you get that described aswell?

Thanks.

alfred, we do lighting too yes. nothing technical as far as where lights should be and all that cause cg lightng is diferent the real world lighting. but we do try to give it the right mood for the sequence.


i probly wont have any previz on my site for a while.

but you can check this out...

http://www.previs.org/movie_reloaded.html

this was a sequence that some friends of mine did for the matrix reloaded...doesnt have the nice texture and lighting that we do now. but it has cool animation.

whats cool is that we work in real world dimensions...all of the people/camera/sets/locations are all acurate to real world measurments. so we can actualy give them real camera information that works, as well as motion control camer/rig information.

Rich,

I'm assuming you did the visual effects and everything yourself? This is very well done. I especially liked the creative use of the AE plugins.

You said that you aspire to work as a director or in upper level production roles? I might have someone that you should be introduced to. He's developing himself but he's starting to see very nice opportunities come his way. A lot of music video work that gets aired. I know he's been looking for someone with drive, who wants to get into music video production and has a good knowledge of visual effects. He's a young director, finished high school when he was 16. First music video involvement was with Director, Nigel Dick on a music video for the rock group, "Staind". He's in Cleveland, OH right now (His hometown) in prepping for his first time directing a feature. It's actually quite the undertaking for a 19 year old. I've worked as an AD on a lot of his gigs. Very impressive kid, especially his character.

I'd love to put you in touch with him, I'm sure your obviously creative head and his could come together and cause some pretty crazy results. He's definately a person that goes out and gets his hands dirty instead of talking about it.
His email is kevin@kmdstudios.com
Mine is holly@kmdstudios.com

Does the band have distribution? This video should be airing on fuse and Mtv2! Especially with the level of quality. It'd be a shame if it were not going to.

EDIT: I also forgot to mention that Kevin is slowly but surely starting to build a nice production company. The goal is to gather a good group of people that work together, get gigs, and work on them like a single production family with full pre, prod, and post abilities. A nice group of people with an extreme love for creation is what we've been hunting down. I know fairly soon he'll be looking to take reels, and bring on some directors. The plan is to work them into the indie scene, developing record labels, and then the majors. Since the music industry is reaching an age of independence, production companies that can pull of professional work for low prices are seeing most work.. not even from the major labels; but from the many more independent labels that are coming out of the woodwork.

hello all. here is an update to the video. its a cut of the whole video. there are still a few editing changes to be made and some fx/roto/compositing things to fix/make. buts its getting close now.

peace!

http://www.rich-lee.com/bf.htm

Rich,

what kind of filters did you use on this project? can you discuss your setup?

Thanks!

Rich, in the end mirror shot, that camera is killing me, and how you cut it as you walk back in to stop recording

:(

Will this be fixed ?

Sebastian Jacome- i didnt use any filters for the video. i had the dvx and a .7 wide angle. for lighting i had an arri 1k with a softbox and 4 kino 4 banks. i also had a bunch of fluorescent lights that i could scatter around. i rented a porta jib and dolly.


Monte Casey- yup, been fixed. that was one of the things that was on my to do list. wasnt going to let the video out with me and my camera in the shot. the only thing left is to clean some roto lines. then give a final version to the band.

Hi Rich,

Just a quick note to let you know the music video really looks terrific (despite that the music is not my cup of tea). It also shows how you use the tools (hardware and software) to squeeze the best out of them, delivering a creative product. A good example for all of us! Just as your other productions (i.e. Precursor, the anti-drug clip).

Interesting to read about your daytime job. On some commercial dvd's the bonus documentary's show some of the kind of work you do, but it's nice to read about it from your perspective.

Greetings,

Peter

thanks Peter

you can see alot of previz on the matrix dvds that some friends of mine did. i still need to make a previz page for my website...its just so much work to get the footage and the previz together...i havnt had alot of time latly....

a bunch of the people i work with are on some of those dvds, but im too camera shy and forget about speaking in front of the camera...

Hi Rich,

What an inspiring creation! I really enjoyed watching this video and going back and forth pause play pause step step play :D it really is an inspiration for what can be achieved on DV in terms of quality and a really professional look. Kudos to you for sharing your creative vision!

I have a question about the triplets guerney scene. Wonderful stuff I was hoping you could tell me how many camera passes were made down that hall? Did u pass for each new position for the actor or were three takes of the actor comped into the single pass?

Very stimulating production! Will get back to some obsessive pause and step viewing now.

Thanks for the weekend candy!

hi Jara, i shot 3 passes of the guy with the guerny. I just had him push from 3 different positions, then comped them into a single shot in AE. so i would do one take, with him on the right pushing...then cut, reset, then do a take of him in the middle, cut, reset, then a take of him on the left. thats pretty much it.

thanks for checking it out! and im glad you like it!

peace!

Rich, Looked awesome! As good as any other video I've seen in the quality of imagery... I was amazed that this was a "working" draft.

CMV

Rich,

I wasn't able to view the file linked here, but I went to your site and watched all of your short films and all I can say is WOW. As someone who deals with very creative people 24/7 in the music industry I was totally blown away by your work and it takes a lot for me to have that reaction to any creative work these days.

When are you going to do a feature length film?

Brian

Rich,
Just wanted to tag on a congrats for a well shot, lit, and edited piece. I have worked with many talented editors, camera operators, etc., and based on that piece, I believe you'll do just fine if you continue to persue your craft. Given the quality of the production, I was wondering if you would be willing to share a ballpark estimate of the production price tag. Not sure if you used a studio or location..the sets, props, and wardrobe all looked great, and I'm guessing a lot was rented. Some don't like to share price, but if you're willing I'd be curious to know. I imagine others would as well. Either way, great job and good luck!

-Robert

Rich

I'm a little late to the party, but I just got a look at your clip and I think you deserve all the praise that everyone has heaped on you so far. At the same time, I immediately had a reaction to your film that I thought I should share (as a little constructive criticism is usually more valuable than a ton of praise).

I'm think I'm probably from the old school when I state that on a creative level, music videos are, and should be, promotional tools for the band. In all the considerable energy you spent making your clip, you seem to have missed this basic fact. Somewhere in the film this singer needs to start looking, and acting like a rock star...and that never happens. I realize its the point of the film that he almost passively heads into the land of homogenization, but the video never takes off because our hero keeps sitting there with his eyes closed crooning the chorus. Unfortunately, your film starts to come off like a DP's reel (a very nice one albeit) but you haven't served your client well (even if you did this for free). All the bells and whistles are great, but if the star doesn't shine you don't have much of a picture. If it were me, I'd reshoot a few segments where this guy (and maybe some of the band) tear things up a little bit...or (a lesser choice) you shoot some performance stuff in the same setting to let us know who the band is...

Regardless, as I said at the beginning...great work. Some of the best I've seen on this forum and you have a great career ahead of you.

Barry

Brian - thanks man. im not really up to doing a feature anytime soon. id like to stick to videos and shorts for a while before i think about attacking something as large as a feature.

Robert - thanks, we rented a hospital set which ate most of our budget. but in all the video cost around 5,000.

Barry - thanks for the compliments and the criticism. this is a very subjective issue. i think there is definitly a place for performance in videos, i like performance. but i think we were going for something a little different.... its not going to hit the mark for everyone.

thanks!

peace!

Rich, great job!

A friend of mine who follows dvxuser.com showed this to me last month. I'm glad to see you're in dvinfo.net too.

I just want to make two observations:

1. About a minute and 35 seconds in, how about timing each of the four box lights (I'm not sure what the technical term is for those x-ray lights) to turn on in sync with the drumbeats?

Ok I just reviewed that a couple of more times and it seems that the 2nd, 3rd and 4th lights are timed to the drums, but not the first one. I suppose that shot could be slid over to the right on your timeline a split second so there's a strong drumbeat for each light. The preceding shot has the lights timed to the drums but that's subtle, and the lightbox is explicit.

2. There seemed to be a continuity problem in the bandage unwrapping. However, there isn't. I think the severe difference of camera angles can throw people off. It's pretty close to 180' difference there. My brother commented about that but I went back and closely observed to be sure that there is no continuity problem there.

Thanks!