New Music video shot w/ JVC HD111e + 35mm adaptor

[Simon Heymans]

Hi everyone,

We shot a couple of months ago (october/november 2007) while it was still sunny and nice outside a music video for a rock/pop band Henry Bliss & The Sidewalkers www.hbliss.com.

Although the group was produced by a big music studio here in Belgium (Dada Studios) it was a very low budget as always but great to shoot. We were mainly 2 technicians on the shoot, the DP: Romain Ferrand and myself except for the car sequence we had Demosthene Stellas (editor/colourist). It took us 3.5 days to shoot. 1.5 days for the car sequence and 2 days for the rest. We also had a small crane for some of the shots.

We shot it with a JCV HD 111e in 50p with a 35mm adaptor. We used Paulo Ciconne HD100 Scene file recipe: True Color V3. We never added Gain (except for the train sequence) but I noticed after shooting that on some shots the gain had been turned on by error, sniff!

We shot everything in 50p because we wanted to do a lot of slow-motion but in the end we didn't use it. The disadvantage of shooting in 50p with this model is that your are limited to 720*576. However with Cineform we upconverted to 1280*720 which gave excellent results.
We kept the color temperature to 5600K. We had little extra lights for this shooting except one HMI for a few shots, mainly when the guy exists the car.
The sun was our friend really, without him it would have been impossible to light for such a low budget. We had on the other hand a few reflectors which helped a lot.
However the shots where the guy runs and comes out of the buidling we didn't use any extra lights or even reflectors.

We had 3 lenses, a 50mm f1.4, a 85mm f1.8 and a 24mm f2. The adaptor is home-made but wouldn't have been possible without the help of Wayne Kinney, the developper of the Sgpro. We spent a lot of time on developping it. However if you are looking for a 35mm adaptor I truly believe that the Sgpro is the best one, with a great filmic bokeh.

We captured everything with Cineform Aspect HD, flipped the image (due to adapator), upconverted to 1280*720. We did the editing in Premiere, exported uncompressed to After Effects and made the CC with Colorista and Levels mainly…We applied two color themes, a blue-cold color to the businessman and a warm-gold color to the singer and to the after car scene!

Here are some pictures (storyboard, original image, cc'd image) - too bad I can't embed them, not as easy to see:
Usually we don't draw all the shots so one drawing would give us a few shots
Storyboard
http://www.postimage.org/aV1rh2tA.jpg

http://www.postimage.org/aV1rlGji.jpg
http://www.postimage.org/Pq1NIHpS.jpg

http://www.postimage.org/Pq1NIRor.jpg
http://www.postimage.org/Pq1NIOUi.jpg

http://www.postimage.org/aV1rhXQS.jpg
http://www.postimage.org/Pq1NIYSS.jpg

http://www.postimage.org/aV1ri4ki.jpg
http://www.postimage.org/aV1rieiS.jpg

Other storyboard pictures + shot :

http://www.postimage.org/aV1rp9OS.jpg
http://www.postimage.org/aV1rsBPi.jpg

http://www.postimage.org/Pq1NM0WS.jpg
http://www.postimage.org/aV1rsrQJ.jpg

http://www.postimage.org/aV1rpDKA.jpg
http://www.postimage.org/Pq1NN2NA.jpg

http://www.postimage.org/aV1rpSIr.jpg
http://www.postimage.org/aV1rswQ0.jpg

More before & after CC:

http://www.postimage.org/Pq1NL44r.jpg
http://www.postimage.org/aV1rmocS.jpg

http://www.postimage.org/Pq1NKG80.jpg
http://www.postimage.org/aV1rmKF9.jpg

http://www.postimage.org/aV1rmvHi.jpg
http://www.postimage.org/Pq1NK_59.jpg

http://www.postimage.org/aV1rmAGA.jpg
http://www.postimage.org/aV1rmUDJ.jpg

This last image was almost not CC as we had already the final image in camera, thanks to the sun!

You can see the music video on www.rochprod.com under portfolio. There is a link also to the youtube video for faster reading (but lower quality): www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvfUcRqKxto

Or directly on the band's website: www.hbliss.com

Last but not least I want to thank everyone from Dvinfo.net who helped me answer some of my questions, Paulo Ciconne for HD True colour recipe, Wayne Kinneyfrom www.shoot35.com for the great help on giving some of his knowledge for building the adapter, and Nicholas Bartlheet from www.Pixelloft.com for the great inspiration of his music-videos.

Looking forwards for your remarks/comments.

Simon

[G. Lee Gordon]

Out of curiosity, what was the budget for this shoot? Use round-a-bout figures if it is proprietary.

[Marc Colemont]

Ziet er goed uit Simon!

[Marc Jayson]

Looks good!
I like the reflection effects and the colors.

en dat binnen een week!

[Mat Thompson]

I really liked the video. Nice flow, nice shooting and well edited. Great work! I really like the track too....these guys have a nice feel.

[Terry Lee]

Very well done! That was one of the best music videos I've seen posted on this forum thus far. Lighting compisition was good. The scenes didn't look like there was some random magical light source which can be very hard to master. Most low budget telivision shows I see have obvious bad lighting which takes away from the entire feel of the scene. Sometimes people look over something so simple as lighting. I found myself laughing today at a telivision show simply because of the lighting. Not to say that I am an expert, which I am far from, but your video is a good example of proper lighting compisition. But from what I understand, most of it was the sun itself.

I am a novis film enthusiast. I have never been able to view a film during the making from start to finish. I liked that you put the story board pictures so that people can see the film from the starting point. That is something I think is rare in the forum. I would definately like to see more begining production hurdles that film makers have to jump over.

[Simon Heymans]

Hi everyone,
Thanks a lot for your comments!

It took us indeed 3.5 days to shoot but I believe a week was needed for the editing and color corrections.

The budget for the video was euh...800 Euros (more or less 550$ with today's rate). That's the reason why we were only two. Basically we were able to make this music video because we already owned most of the equipment and my DP was able to get a bit of extra lighting for free.

If you have any further questions please don't hesitate.

Simon

[David Scattergood]

Looks gorgeous Simon - I bet you're pleased with the result.
The CC works really well - be interested to know how you 'wiped' the blue scene into warm scene using the car window.
Was the adaptor fairly straight forward to build? I'm looking around (although not a necessity right at the moment) for both a wide angle and 35mm set up but as cheap as possible.

Great vid Simon.

[Simon Heymans]

Hi David,
Thanks for your kind comments! I am very happy with the result although I can see all the technical mistakes or things that could be improved as usual!

The wipe effect is really easy to do. We just shot the actor twice as a singer and businessman. We locked the camera for both shot. The tricky part is to position the actor for both shot so that his position is identical.
Basically this was done by filming the actor, asked him not to move and on the monitor I drew the contour of his face (I used a pencil but you can stick a plastic film on the monitor and use a pen). He than changed clothes and I reposition him in the shot based on the contour on the monitor.

In post-prod you simply apply two different looks to both shot, put both clip on top of each other. In After effects using a mask you move from one shot to the other. The mask follows the edge of the window of the car.

As for the adaptor the best one around is the Sgpro on www.shoot35.com. Since you are located in UK it's very affordable (shoot35 is in UK). Mine was easy to build but it's very much based on the sgpro from Wayne Kinney. What took a lot of time was to find all the parts that attach all the elements together (like attaching the motor to the box, attaching the lenses to the box...).

Hope this helps you!
Best regards
Simon

[Stuart Campbell]

Simon I love the film. Really nice photography, well done. What aspect ratio have you converted it to by the way?

I'm interested in how you got on with the SG pro. Does it have a relay lens or did it bolt onto the end of the 110 stock lens as the rest of them at this price range?

Stuart

[David Scattergood]

Thanks Simon - I'd hoped you might've pulled the effect off in either FCP or Motion...guess I'll have to get hold of AE soon enough :)
I've heard good reports about SGPRO before - worth looking into.
Cheers.

[Simon Heymans]

Hi all,

To answer your questions:
The aspect ratio we used is more or less equivalent to 2.40 (I think it's called super widescreen). So basically we shot in 16/9 ratio and added black bars on top and bottom. You can find great info on this if you read Stu Maschwitz's book the DV rebel's guide, his blog: http://prolost.blogspot.com/

The Sgpro just like our own adaptor is attached on the lens of the Camera. On the JVC it may look like a long thing to hold but it's quite manageable!
I would love to have a relay lens but they don't seem to exist anymore even for the Letus.

David:
You can also do the effect in FCP (motion I don't know the soft) it's just not as easy. You have a corner pin effect I beleive which is equivalent to masks in AE. Simply follow the edge of the window to get the effect with corner pin.

See you
Simon

[David Garvin]

Originally Posted by Simon Heymans

You can see the music video on www.rochprod.com under portfolio.

"Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /portfolio/hbliss.htm on this server."

[Ben Winter]

Simon--great work--

I'm noticing that from what I see, the shots are unnaturally soft. Have you fiddled with the backfocus at all, or the focus of the main camera? If you've noticed the problem yourself you may want to try a less diffusive screen.

[Simon Heymans]

Hi,

Thanks for noticing the issue, I fixed it! Don't know how I managed to change the properties on the site!!!

Ben,
For the softness I really tried to get the backfocus always adjusted for each shot! This could be linked to the soft compression. I did add in post a bit of sharpenning!
But it's true that on some shots especially where the singer is walking the focus was not 100% correct. The screen is not diffusive at all. I will try to get a sharper image next time!

I did set the details on the camera to 0 or min has mentionned in many posts and guides!

Thanks for the feedback!