Stills from music video shot with XL2

[Ian Stark]

Hi all,

Hope this is OK to post these images here. They're a bunch of stills taken from a work in progress. Shot with an XL2 (my first 'proper' shoot with this beast), treated in Sony Vegas.

The band is called Cradle. They're from South Africa, currently living in London and just recording their debut album.

I still have to shoot an 'as live' piece on a stage in a venue in London, then I can start the proper assembly, using this footage and footage already shot during a live show.

I shot this footage in 25p (PAL) with a variety of shutter speeds for different effects. Colour was selectively removed in post to leave just the singer (Jess) and the kids' objects still in colour (albeit altered).

These are quite low resolution stills and the effects have yet to be fine tuned. I will also be using After Effects.

Comments welcomed and aplogies if this is in the wrong place to post this kind of stuff!

Ian . . .

[Roger Rosales]

Cool stuff man. I like the look of those images.

[Scott Devlin]

Ian,
I have an upcoming music video shoot and I have never done one before. I will be shooting with an HD100, but can you give me some more of the settings you used on the camera such as shutter speed, fstops, etc. Also, what did you adjust in editing as far as contrast, etc?? I would really like to know how you got that dismal look. thanks!

[Ian Stark]

Thanks Roger.

Hi Scott,

Nothing really exciting in terms of the camera settings I'm afraid!

I used the Routine preset as I wanted to get basic, clean footage (in most cases) and do most of the work in post (as this was my first 'real' shoot with this camera, I was nervous about committing whacky effects in the camera). The only things I did in camera were a few focus pulls using the Preset Focus function (wonderful), some deliberate out of focus shots (I think it looks nicer done in camera than in NLE) and a couple of experiments with very slow shutter speed (12fps) and both ND's set where the singer remained still while the children moved behind her like ghosts. Looked kinda nice at the time but those shots are now consigned to the cutting room floor.

In terms of f-stops, I worked with whatever gave me the cleanest picture and given that I was shooting in a forest, on an open heath and on a runway between 7am and 6pm with our delightful British weather, I probably used every stop!

I used a circ polariser and a .9 grad ND with a matte box in all shots with any sky showing.

In post (using Sony Vegas at this point, although I plan to do every shot again in After Effects - these samples were for the bands approval) I used the following plugins and settings:

B&W shots: I used two identical tracks, top one set at 60% opacity. On the top track I used Magic Bullet and fiddled with the Auto Art preset pre-gamma and pre-contrast settings until I got the look I wanted. I also used the Vegas Glow plugin to blow out some of the skies and other features. The settings were Glow % 0.050; Intensity 3.2 and Suppression 0.47.

On the bottom track I used Glow again with all settings the same except Suppreesion, set at 0.40. I expect I could get the desired look by using just one instance of Glow on just one track but it kinda developed this way. To leave the red objects and Jess's clothes in colour I used NewBlue's Colorize plugin, with just purple at strength 60 and red at strength 20. Smoothing was set at 100 and saturation at 75. I plan to redo this effect in AE using the Leave Colour filter.

For the shots of the band on the runway I just used Magic Bullet's Bronze preset to warm it up a little. I was happy enough with the look without tweaking but as the runway segment was shot over several hours, with the sun going in and out of clouds, I will have to tweak different shots to match.

So there you have it. Nothing really spectacular I'm afraid. This is also my first music video (using a real band and actors at any rate) so I wanted to keep things pretty simple when capturing the images. I had a very strong idea of what I was looking for in the finished item and the filters were already pretty much set up using test footage I had shot a week or so earlier.

As a side note, I met with the band in London last night and they have shown the stills to the studio (The Way) where they are recording their album. The studio now wants to talk to me about creating videos for some of their other clients (Nick Cave is recording there at the moment - now that WOULD be cool!). To say that I'm somewhat pleased, given that this is my first crack, is an understatement!!

Best of luck with your video, Scott. Post some stills for us?

Cheers.

Ian . . .

[Scott Devlin]

Ian,
Thanks so much for your input. We will be doing out shooting probably early next month, so I will be sure to post some stuff for you. I have been messing with the HD100 settings a lot and I really like what it can do. Thanks again!

[Ian Stark]

Hey Scott,

Did you get your music video shot?

I remembered you saying you were planning one. Mine is still a work in progress! This evening I'm filming the last segments with the band performing at the Marquee Club in London then I can get on with the edit. We first started planning it in May!

Cheers.

Ian . . .

[Josef Heks]

nice work, that runway shot looks amazing! Like it was a pro video, very nice. Anyway, Im shooting a drummer with an xl2 in about 6 hours time, and was wondering if you have any tips?

[Ian Stark]

Hi Josef,

Sorry, just got back from a short trip away and didn't read your message until just now. I guess you have already completed your shoot - hope it went well.

What tips could I offer? This was my first real shoot with the XL2 so I was kind of learning as I went along. In fact, I made TOO many mistakes!

I shot the runway scenes towards the end of the day so I got the lovely early evening, low sunlight. That helped, but much of the look and feel came in post - I treated the footage with a tweaked Magic Bullet preset (bronze) until I got the feel I was after.

Sadly, I'm still waiting to finish the shooting - the shoot at The Marquee had to be postponed. I'm really looking forward to displaying the finished item though!

Oh one tip with drummers - make sure any accompanying track is loud enough for them to hear it over their drumming - also that the source is close enough for there not to be any delay before he hears it - we got into a REAL mess on the runway because the drummer was hearing the beat a half second ahead of the rest of the band in a few shots where they were about 30m in front of him. Very unpleasant noise!

Love to see some stills, Josef.

Cheers.

Ian . . .

[Mat Thompson]

Nice set of stills. Great feeling to alot of them. I like to see some of the footage:)

When you pull out a single feature in a shot colour wise (in this case strong pink) how do you do this in post and do you make sure you when you shoot you have nothing else that will suffer that you didnt want to treat that way, or is there any masking involved?

Cheers
Mat

[Colin Worley]

Hey nice stills, very cool... I really like the last one... It looks very cinematic... Keep up the good work

~Colin

[Ian Stark]

Thanks gents, most kind!

In answer to the question about pulling out one colour, my original intention was a kind of Schindlers List red shoes effect on just the four objects the kids are carrying. We shot - with permission - in a wildlife reserve in Hampshire (don't ask me how I got away with that!) so everything else in shot was green, brown, yellow etc with very little red. Up to this point, everything was deliberate.

However, the clothes that Jess, the singer, was supposed to be wearing for the shoot were not as interesting as what she turned up in so I asked her to stay as she was - completely forgetting about my desire to pull just the reds through! As you will guess, the clothes contained a lot of red. Damn . . .

So, in post I changed my tack a little and decided to go for that 'faded paint on old b&w photo' look. I'm sure there's a term for it but it's too early for me.

In other words it was a fluke. I used NewBlue's Colorize plugin in Sony Vegas to pull the reds/pinks etc through (see settings below). I started re-doing each shot in After Effects (leave colour) but the feel was different so I'm staying in Vegas. I didn't use any masks.

I've asked the band if I can put some footage up but they are quite keen to wait until the film is finished. I believe I am now shooting the final segment in Earl's Court on Thursday so shouldn't be too long (famous last words).

Cheers.

Ian . . .

[Ian Stark]

Here (finally) is the first cut of the video. www.film-it.net/stuff/spaceship.wmv

It needs tidying up and there's still lots of colour work to do but essentially this is the structure. The band (Cradle) is keen to get any feedback before we commit it to DVD! What better place than the XL2 experts hangout?

All criticism welcomed.

Ian . . .

[Allan Beecroft]

Let me be the first to comment Ian:

Video: Great !
Audio: Great !

What more can I say. Personally I liked everything in it. Great audio mix, great video work. I'd buy it ! which is I suppose what really counts :-) It's something that would go in my DVD music collection. Did the band and yourself produce just a stereo version, or did you dabble in any 5.1 surround version as well? Just curious.

Regards,
Allan

[Ian Stark]

You're very kind Allan, thanks.

Delighted to hear you'd pay for it! I'm sure the band will be too! This is my first attempt at a music video and I did it on a zero budget, so if they do ever sell any copies I hope they'll be cutting me in!

Re the audio mix, it's just stereo. In fact, the guide track I used to edit the video is an mp3 ripped from a CD! The band (Cradle) and I wanted to get some feedback on the video before I spent any more time fine tuning, part of which will be replacing the proxy audio with a higher res version that they are mixing at the moment. Again, this will just be stereo. Someone has already suggested that we make a short, music-free and dialogue-free, creepy little playlet at the beginning of the video, to kind of introduce the story (such as it is) and characters. Maybe 5.1 would fit there?

Thanks again for your kind comments.

Ian . . .

[Allen McLaughlin]

Originally Posted by Ian Stark

This is my first attempt at a music video and I did it on a zero budget, so if they do ever sell any copies I hope they'll be cutting me in!

That makes two of us Ian, well done. I really like the lighting and grading effects.

Wouldn't look out of place on Mtv or somewhere like that...