"be like you" music video (in progress)

[Chris Ivanovskis]

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.

[Greg Patch]

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

Great work.....

[Dave Mansueto]

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.

[Rich Lee]

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.

[Alfred Okocha]

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?

[Rich Lee]

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

[Alfred Okocha]

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.

[Rich Lee]

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.

[Holly Miller]

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.

[Rich Lee]

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

[Sebastian Jacome]

Rich,

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

Thanks!

[Monte Casey]

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 ?

[Rich Lee]

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.

[Peter Sieben]

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

[Rich Lee]

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...